Our Level 10 Meeting™ Issues List has grown to over thirty items, and the sheer volume makes the ninety-minute limit feel like a sprint we always lose. How do we curate, purge, and manage our Issues List so we only bring the most critical items to the table?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

An Issues List with thirty items is not a strategic backlog. It is an unorganized dump of minor complaints and administrative noise. When you try to manage a list that large, your team experiences decision fatigue before you even begin the IDS® portion of your meeting.

To fix this, you must ruthlessly curate the list before the meeting starts. Follow this protocol to restore order.

First, enforce the rule that only the leadership team can add items to the leadership Issues List. If an issue belongs on a departmental list, push it down immediately.

Second, have the Integrator review the list ten minutes before the meeting. Combine duplicate topics and delete items that have already been solved by a weekly To-Do.

Third, prioritize aggressively. Do not start at the top of the list. The team must vote on the top three most critical issues that impact your quarterly Rocks or your V/TO®. Solve those three first.

If you finish those three and still have time, select the next three. Any issue that sits on the list for more than three weeks without being selected must be archived or moved to the long-term Issues List on your V/TO®. This keeps your weekly list lean and ensures your ninety minutes are spent on high-value problem solving rather than administrative clutter.