Commitment

an agreement to do something (by a certain time, conforming to certain expectations)

Jason Fried says Don't Promise. (Say No)

• Promises to placate rarely end up well. (Placating)
• while promises are cheap and easy to make, actual work is hard and expensive to do. If it wasn’t, you’d just have done it now rather than promised it later!
• Promises are like debt — they accrue interest. The longer you wait to fulfill them, the more they cost to pay off.
• The further away the promise, the easier it is to make. And the more painful it is to ultimately deliver. That’s because when the time comes to fulfill the promise, Employees would rather be working on new ideas rather than old promises

Stephen Haeckel's Adaptive enterprise: Creating and leading Sense And Respond organizations ISBN:0-87584-874-5 includes a chapter defining a Commitment Management Protocol.

• cf Language Action Perspective