TL;DR
The Say-Do Ratio is an agile performance metric that measures how reliably a team delivers on its promises. It compares what a team says it will do to what it actually does. A high Say-Do Ratio means predictable execution and strong trust; a low ratio signals organizational friction and strategic drag
Studies reveal that most employees don’t understand their company’s strategy. As a leader, you set the “Say”, a clear vision for growth, but you are often left frustrated by the “Do.” This gap is where growth stalls.
The Say-Do Ratio is an agile performance metric that’s the single most important measure of your organization’s execution reliability. This article will explore the hidden costs of a low ratio and provide a framework for turning your strategy into predictable results.
What is the Say-Do Ratio and Why It Matters to Leaders?
The Say-Do Ratio measures the gap between promises and results. The formula is straightforward, if you commit to ten tasks and complete nine, your ratio is 90%. It is the ultimate team accountability metric.
But to see it as just a team report card is to miss its real power for you as a leader.
Why is a Low Say-Do Ratio a Leading Indicator of “Strategic Drag”
You should view a declining Say-Do Ratio as the first and most important leading indicator of “Strategic Drag.” This is the invisible friction in your organization that slows the conversion of your well-defined plans into actual market impact. It’s the cumulative effect of cascading delays and broken commitments that makes the entire company feel like it’s moving through mud.Missed commitments ripple across departments: marketing delays launches, sales lose confidence, and innovation slows.
Execution reliability isn’t a “team metric.” It’s a strategic vital sign that tells you how healthy your entire growth engine is.
A low ratio in one team is never a contained problem. It is an early warning that your most important company objectives are at risk, not because of a bad plan, but because of a failure in the execution engine itself.
Want to bridge the gap between your plans and process
How a Low Say-Do Ratio Erodes Team Trust
Inconsistent commitment vs delivery in business delays projects, but more importantly, it systematically dismantles the trust that holds your organization together. When teams cannot rely on each other to deliver, a toxic, low-trust environment begins to take root.
Research from the Harvard Business Review backs this up, showing that employees in high-trust companies are 50% more productive and 76% more engaged.
How a Low Say-Do Ratio Contributes to a Compounding Cost of Broken Promises leading to Predictive Debt
Each broken promise and missed deadline adds to a form of organizational baggage we call “Predictive Debt.” Like technical debt in code, this is a debt that accrues interest over time. The “interest payments” you make on this debt come in the form of dysfunctional, trust-eroding behaviors that silently sabotage your company’s performance.
What are the Signs of Predictive Debt?
You see it when your product team starts secretly adding weeks of buffer to their timelines because they don’t believe the engineering estimates. You see it when your sales leaders start bypassing managers to get the “real” status updates directly from individual engineers, creating chaos. And you feel it in the boardroom when you can no longer make confident promises to your investors, because the foundation of trust in agile teams has been compromised.
This debt compounds. The less trust there is, the more everyone pads their estimates and engages in defensive behaviors, making the entire organization even slower and less predictable.
The Growth Penalty of Poor Commitments
A low Say-Do Ratio is a problem that directly anchors your company’s growth. Its most immediate victim is your entire go-to-market motion. When execution reliability becomes unpredictable, a cascade of failures follows that can paralyze your business.
How a Low Say-Do Ratio Brings Your Go-to-Market Engine to a Halt
Your sales team, unable to trust the product roadmap, can no longer make confident commitments to close major enterprise deals, putting revenue at risk. Your marketing team, faced with constantly shifting timelines, is forced to delay major launch campaigns, wasting budget and losing market momentum.
This lack of predictability in SaaS teams means the entire organization is constantly reacting instead of leading.
Why is Unpredictability the Enemy of Agility?
In a competitive market, your ability to react to shifts and seize opportunities is your greatest advantage. An unreliable execution engine strips you of this agility. You lose the capacity to pivot to a new market trend, to respond to a competitor’s move, or to deliver on a game-changing feature your customers are demanding.
This is about missed deadlines and missed opportunities. A low Say-Do Ratio is a direct tax on your innovation and your speed. Over time, this sluggishness leads to slower growth, market share erosion, and the slow fade from a market leader to a follower.
How to Improve the Say-Do Ratio
The root cause of a chronically low Say-Do Ratio is rarely a lack of effort from your teams. It is almost always a systemic failure to distinguish between different types of plans. Your organization is likely treating every forecast, every stretch goal, and every rough estimate as an ironclad promise, setting your teams up for inevitable failure.
Introducing the “Commitment Spectrum”
The solution is not to stop making commitments, but to be explicit about the type of commitment being made. You can achieve this by introducing the Commitment Spectrum as a shared language across your entire company. This framework for measuring commitments in sprints and beyond has three distinct levels.
- Aspirational Goals are your ambitious “moonshots.” The team is committing to pursuing them aggressively, but the outcome is uncertain. This is the realm of innovation.
- Probabilistic Forecasts are data-driven predictions used for roadmap planning. You might say, “Based on our past performance, we have an 85% confidence level that we can deliver this feature by the end of Q3.”
- High-Integrity Commitments are promises. This is the near-term work that has been de-risked, planned, and is ready for execution. This is the only category of work that the Say-Do Ratio should be applied to.
Use the Commitment Spectrum to create a shared language about certainty and accountability.
| Type of Commitment | Purpose | Expected Certainty |
|---|---|---|
| Aspirational Goals | Big, bold moonshots that inspire innovation. | Uncertain |
| Probabilistic Forecasts | Data-driven predictions for planning and resource allocation. | Medium |
| High-Integrity Commitments | Fully planned, near-term work ready for execution—apply the Say-Do Ratio here | High |
The Prerequisite is a Culture of Honesty
This spectrum only works in a culture of high psychological safety, where your teams feel safe to be honest about uncertainty without fear of punishment. Your job as a leader is to demand absolute integrity for near-term promises while simultaneously encouraging the ambitious and uncertain work that drives long-term growth.
Commitments as the Currency of Growth
Your Say-Do Ratio is a reflection of your company’s culture, showing whether you have a culture of excuses or a culture of execution.
A high ratio is the foundation for trust in agile teams. It is the engine of predictability, which unlocks faster, more sustainable growth, and transforms the relationship between commitment vs delivery from a source of friction to a source of strength.
So, ask yourself, is your organization’s execution reliability an asset that accelerates you, or a liability that holds you back? See the Say-Do Ratio as a powerful diagnostic tool to heal the business.
This transformation is built on visibility. See how Profit.co provides that visibility, connecting your OKRs to the work itself, and making it possible to build a culture where every commitment matters