We have several issues on our weekly list that we keep carrying over week after week because nobody wants to tackle them, creating a bloated list and mental fatigue. How do we kill these zombie issues that we keep avoiding?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Zombie issues are the slow-moving, complicated, or politically sensitive problems that your leadership team repeatedly avoids. Carrying them over week after week creates massive drag, cluttering your Issues List and draining your team's mental energy.

To kill zombie issues, the facilitator must force the team to confront them. During the prioritization step of IDS, identify any issue that has been on the list for more than three weeks. Do not let the team bypass them again. Force these issues to the top of the pile as priority one, two, or three.

When you begin IDS on a zombie issue, the facilitator must ask a simple question: Why are we avoiding this? Is it because we lack the data, because it is uncomfortable, or because we do not have the right person in the seat to solve it? Identify the root cause of the avoidance.

If the issue is too big to solve in a weekly meeting, do not leave it on the short-term list. Move it to the V/TO Long-Term Issues List for your next Quarterly Session, or assign a To-Do for a leader to research and bring back options. Either solve it, defer it to the quarterly, or kill it. Do not let it sit on your list.