Our Integrator is a perfectionist who insists on solving every single issue on the list in order of appearance, meaning we never get to the most critical business issues at the bottom of the list. How do we break this linear trap during IDS®?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Running your weekly Issues list in chronological order is a recipe for operational mediocrity. If your Integrator insists on solving issues in the order they were logged, your team will spend sixty minutes solving minor, low-level problems while your most critical business issues sit untouched at the bottom of the list.

To break this linear trap, you must implement a strict prioritization process before starting the IDS® portion of your Level 10 Meeting™. The facilitator must lead the team in selecting the three most important issues on the list, regardless of when they were added.

Follow this three-step process for prioritizing issues:
- Take thirty seconds at the start of IDS® to review the entire list.
- Have the team collectively vote on the top three issues that must be solved today.
- Rank these three issues in order of importance, starting with number one.

Only solve these three issues. Do not look at the rest of the list until these three are completely resolved. If you only solve one major issue during the sixty minutes, but it is the most critical one, your meeting is a success. The remaining minor issues can either roll over to next week or be pushed to your long-term Issues list on the V/TO®.