Accountability is a two-way street.

At least one group is held accountable for deliverables and another group is following up and holding them accountable.

If you take responsibility or you are assigned responsibility, you need to own that responsibility and be accountable for it. No excuses.

When you begin, you ask as many questions that come to mind as you need answers to. The only reasons you will not get answers are if it is a test or if there are no answers yet.

If you are accountable to yourself, set smart goals, share your goals with other people so they hold you accountable for that goal. This will also help with follow up.

If you are ask/assign/hire/contract someone to do something and they accept, you can hold them accountable. Part of that acceptance should be a timeline of when deliverables are due. Deadlines can be set. It is not a matter of whether they hold themselves accountable or not.

See Extreme Ownership for more references on accountability: