Time to truth
Time to truth is the lag between a problem existing and leadership knowing about it, measured retrospectively against documented past incidents.
The obvious bit
Every leader believes their own lag is shorter than it is.
That is not a criticism, it is arithmetic: you cannot know about the thing you do not know about yet, so the lag is invisible from the inside. Which is why it is worth measuring backwards, against problems that have already surfaced.
Take three or four incidents from the last two years. For each: when did the problem actually start, when did evidence first exist, and when did you know? The gap between the second and third is the number.
It usually surprises the room.
The number is the gap between point two and point three. Point one is context, not the measure.
Why this one number is worth more than a dashboard
A long lag is not one problem. It is the visible result of several, all of which live in how you run:
- The check-in that opens with “are we on track?”, which is a question with a preferred answer.
- What happened, once, to someone who raised a risk early and was treated as the problem.
- A forecast culture where green is safer than accurate.
- No obvious route to escalate, or a route with a social cost attached.
Shorten the lag and you have changed how the company works, not how it feels.
It is also expensive, in ways that are easy to count
Late truth means decisions made on stale information. Quarters spent on the wrong problem. Obstacles that were cheap in week two and structural by week ten. And the recruitment cost of the person who left because nothing changed after they raised it.
None of that appears on a sentiment score, which is one reason we do not use one.
What we look at alongside it
Chosen to fit the situation, and all operational rather than attitudinal:
- Forecast honesty. The gap between reported status and outcome, and the lead time on the first amber.
- Decision throughput. How long approvals take, how often things escalate, how often they get reversed.
- Regretted attrition, split by performance.
- Change durability. Do redesigned meetings survive ninety days when nobody is policing them.
- Goal achievement rate.
The discipline we hold on causation
We claim the traceable chain and not the headline correlation. This meeting changed, here is what it now asks for, here is what people started reporting. Not “we improved your culture by 20 percent”, which nobody can defend and everybody has heard.
Where the goal system comes in
A well-run goal rhythm should be the fastest truth-carrier you have. Weekly check-ins that surface obstacles early, a live list of what is blocked, retrospectives that actually change something. That is what shortens the lag, and time to truth is a fair test of whether your rhythm is real or ceremonial.
How do you measure time to truth? +
Retrospectively, against documented past incidents. Take three or four problems from the last two years. For each, establish when the problem actually started, when evidence first existed, and when leadership knew. The gap between the second and third is the number.
Why not use an engagement or sentiment score instead? +
Because a sentiment score does not tell you what to change. Time to truth is operational: it points straight at the check-in that asks a leading question, the escalation route with a social cost attached, or the forecast culture where green is safer than accurate.
Is a long lag a leadership failure? +
No, and it is not visible from the inside either. You cannot know about the thing you do not know about yet. That is precisely why it is worth measuring backwards, against problems that have already surfaced.
From the ZOKRI OKR Handbook, the methodology we install and maintain. Written by Matt Roberts.
A UK-based strategy and OKR consultant and two-time SaaS founder with a venture-backed exit, Matt turns strategy into execution for teams scaling from tens to thousands. He co-founded ZOKRI in 2018, having previously co-founded Linkdex, a venture-backed enterprise SaaS platform he led to a trade sale. He writes the methodology behind these notes.
Time to truth is a fair test of whether your rhythm is real or ceremonial. We measure it from your own past incidents, then redesign the places that are lengthening it.