All projects

Corporate Bullshit Index

How much does your company help people make decisions — and how much does it require them to align, pre-align, escalate, socialize and schedule another meeting first?

Not scientific. Occasionally uncomfortable. Measures the environment, not the people.

12 questions · ~2 minutes

How hard is it to simply get work done?

Answer for a normal week, not the worst day of the year. The first option means almost no friction. The last means corporate life has achieved self-awareness.

01 For a normal work decision, how many people usually need to be involved?

1–2. The person accountable decides3–4. Context sometimes helps5–6. Better keep everyone informed7+. Someone might feel excludedThere is a steering committee

02 How many recurring meetings would you cancel if there were no social consequences?

03 When work gets stuck between teams, is it usually clear who owns the problem?

04 What happens if someone makes a reasonable decision without pre-aligning with every stakeholder?

Nothing. That is why we hired themThey may be asked to explainBetter to give people a heads-upThere will probably be a conversationIt becomes a career experiment

05 How often does a meeting end with “let’s sync separately”?

06 How many times does the same information get repackaged into different status updates, decks and reports?

07 How consistently can the team name the top three priorities for the next month?

08 If a project is going well, how much energy still goes into proving that it is going well?

09 What usually happens to a cross-functional problem with no obvious owner?

10 How often does an “urgent” request displace an already agreed priority?

11 How easy is it to say “no” to an initiative with no clear value or owner?

12 How often does an hour-long discussion reveal that one person could have made the decision in ten minutes?

Answer all 12 questions

What it really measures

Not stupidity. The cost of organizational friction.

Most companies do not suffer from a shortage of smart people. Problems start when decision rights are vague, priorities multiply, and information has to survive several rituals before it can turn into action.

If your score is high, the useful question is not “who is the problem?” but “which decisions, meetings or approvals can we remove without reducing quality?”