A position is not an outcome.
The position tells you where you stand. The outcome tells you what has to be true because you stood there.
Barcelona does not hire players to play soccer. It hires a goalkeeper to keep the ball out, a striker to put it in, a midfielder to control the space between. Same sport, entirely different definitions of a job well done.
A task is what you do. An outcome is what changes because you did it.
This is the distinction most role descriptions never make. They list activities — manage the pipeline, run the campaigns, handle supplier relationships — and leave everyone guessing about what success looks like.
An outcome is falsifiable. Twelve regional service partnerships operational by year end either happened or it did not. Manage partner relationships can be performed diligently for a year and produce nothing.
Roles that execute, roles that support
Not every role drives a number, and pretending otherwise produces nonsense metrics. The method separates executing roles, which own an outcome on the plan, from supporting roles, which make those outcomes possible. Both are necessary. Only one carries the number.
One owner per outcome
The rule that does the most work: every outcome has exactly one owner. Shared accountability is unowned accountability. Two names against a number means nobody is answerable for it, and everybody has a reason it was not their part.
How to complete it
Work from the plan, not from the org chart. For each outcome on the Plan Canvas, ask who is accountable — one name — and what they must be able to do to hold it. Roles that appear on the chart and own nothing on the plan are worth a conversation.
A worked example
Every worked example in the canon uses the same company — Burke & Wills EV, a hypothetical Australian off-road EV maker — so the picture builds across frameworks instead of restarting each time.
# Burke & Wills EV — Role Canvas (MQ2)
The question we answered: What roles does our 2025 plan require, and who is accountable for what parts?
Our annual goal is locked: "Launch the Wills model successfully into the Australian adventure EV market — 500 units delivered, $50M revenue, +65 NPS — establishing Burke & Wills as Australia's off-road EV leader." Below is the role architecture that delivers it. Every number a role owns is pulled straight off the Plan Canvas — no orphan outcomes, no shared accountability. One owner per outcome.
Org-level role map
| # | Role | Reports To | Type | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) | CEO (Sarah Mitchell) | Executing | Executive Leadership Team |
| 2 | Head of Customer Experience | CCO (James Thornton) | Executing | Customer & Service |
| 3 | Head of Production | COO | Executing | Manufacturing |
| 4 | Marketing Director | CEO (Sarah Mitchell) | Executing | Brand & Demand |
| 5 | People & Culture Director | CEO (Sarah Mitchell) | Supporting | People & Culture |
| 6 | Regional Sales Manager — Queensland | CCO (James Thornton) | Executing | Commercial |
---
Role 1 — Chief Commercial Officer
Purpose: Stand up the national service network and own the demand-to-delivery commercial engine so that every Wills we build finds a buyer and stays serviced anywhere in remote Australia. Solves the problem that a great vehicle with no reach and no support is a stranded asset.
Reports To: CEO (Sarah Mitchell)
Team: Executive Leadership Team
Incumbent: James Thornton
Metrics owned (from the plan):
- 12 regional service partnerships operational by year-end (Goal 2 owner)
- 2,500 qualified leads delivered into the funnel
- 35% test-drive → purchase conversion
- 15 sponsorships/partnerships signed
- $50M revenue realised across 500 unit sales
Executing vs supporting: Executing. James directly owns Goal 2 (national service network) and the commercial result. He chairs the monthly commercial review (first Friday, 90 min) where service-partner onboarding, lead flow and conversion are scorecarded.
---
Role 2 — Head of Customer Experience
Purpose: Turn 500 first owners into a referral army by making ownership effortless — onboarding, support, and remote service that holds up 800km from the nearest city. Carries our beta promise (NPS +85, 40% referral) into volume without losing it.
Reports To: CCO (James Thornton)
Team: Customer & Service
Incumbent: Emma Richardson
Metrics owned (from the plan):
- +65 customer NPS at scale (measured in Delighted)
- Zero critical quality issues escalated unresolved across 500 deliveries
- Referral rate sustained from the beta 40% baseline
- Service tickets resolved within partner SLA across all 12 regions (Zendesk)
Executing vs supporting: Executing. Emma owns the lived ownership experience and the NPS number outright. She works hand-in-glove with David Chen's production line — every "Would you take it to the outback?" failure that reaches a customer is hers to close out.
---
Role 3 — Head of Production
Purpose: Build 500 Wills units in Brisbane to a zero-critical-defect standard, on cadence, at a 22% gross margin. Solves the core inflection problem — proven R&D means nothing until we can manufacture it reliably at volume.
Reports To: COO
Team: Manufacturing
Incumbent: David Chen
Metrics owned (from the plan):
- 500 units delivered (annual), on the production schedule that feeds Goal 1
- Zero critical quality issues across all 500 deliveries
- 22% gross margin held at an $89,000 ASP
- IP65 dust/water and −10°C to +55°C thermal certification sustained in production
- Daily line throughput tracked against plan (SAP)
Executing vs supporting: Executing. David owns the unit count and quality bar that make Goal 1 (Wills launch) real. He runs the daily production standup (7:00, 15 min via his Production Supervisor) and applies the "Would you take it to the outback?" test before any unit ships.
---
Role 4 — Marketing Director
Purpose: Take Burke & Wills from 5% to 45% unaided awareness in the adventure segment and feed the funnel that the commercial engine converts. Solves the problem that a first-mover in an uncontested category still has to teach the market the category exists.
Reports To: CEO (Sarah Mitchell)
Team: Brand & Demand
Incumbent: Lisa Park
Metrics owned (from the plan):
- 45% unaided brand awareness in the target segment, up from 5% (Goal 3 owner)
- 2,500 qualified leads generated into HubSpot (handed to CCO)
- Brand health tracked monthly (Brand Track)
- Category narrative — "the only EV genuinely engineered for Australian off-road conditions" — landed against "Adventure Alex"
Executing vs supporting: Executing. Lisa directly owns Goal 3 (brand leadership). Awareness is hers; she feeds leads to James's commercial team, who own conversion — clean handoff, single point of accountability on each side of the line.
---
Role 5 — People & Culture Director
Purpose: Hire and hold the team that builds the company — 45 new people in plan year, retained and engaged enough to ship a launch under Series B pressure. Solves the condition problem: every executing role above fails if we can't staff and keep the expedition crew.
Reports To: CEO (Sarah Mitchell)
Team: People & Culture
Incumbent: Marcus Webb
Metrics owned (from the plan):
- 45 new hires recruited and onboarded
- 85% employee engagement (Culture Amp)
- 90% retention of key talent
- 100% of staff complete the adventure onboarding program
Executing vs supporting: Supporting. Marcus doesn't deliver a unit or a lead, but no role above hits its number without his people. He owns the conditions — staffing, engagement, retention — that let David build, Lisa launch and James sell. Our values (Explorer Spirit, Authentic Australian, Sustainable Future, Adventure Together) and the "Join the expedition" EVP are his to keep alive through Friday adventure stories and the annual company expedition.
---
Role 6 — Regional Sales Manager, Queensland
Purpose: Own the Queensland market end-to-end — convert test drives to purchases and stand up local service partners so QLD adventurers can buy and service a Wills without leaving the state. Our largest near-term regional opportunity; needs dedicated ownership, not head-office coverage.
Reports To: CCO (James Thornton)
Team: Commercial
Incumbent: To Be Hired — priority Q1 recruit (briefed to Marcus Webb)
Metrics owned (from the plan):
- 150 QLD units sold = $13.5M (at $89,000 ASP)
- 35% test-drive → purchase conversion in-region
- Regional share of the 12 national service partnerships stood up in QLD
- Regional slice of the 2,500-lead pipeline worked through HubSpot
Executing vs supporting: Executing. This is a revenue role with a hard regional number. It's the one open seat on this canvas — until it's filled, James carries QLD directly, which is why it tops the People & Culture hiring queue.
---
Where this lands
Every needle-shifting goal now has a single named owner: Wills launch → David Chen (build) and the CEO (overall), service network → James Thornton, brand leadership → Lisa Park, with Emma Richardson carrying the NPS that proves it all worked and Marcus Webb staffing the lot. The only gap — Regional Sales Manager QLD — is a known, queued hire, not a hole we discovered late. Roles, metrics and incumbents live in Waymaker; progress is reviewed at the ELT weekly sync (Mondays 9:00–10:30) against the same scorecard.