In our first ninety days of implementing EOS®, our weekly To-Do lists are exploding, and we are failing to get them done while running the day-to-day. How do we manage the surge of tactical tasks that come with installing the system without dropping the ball on our primary responsibilities?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The first ninety days of an EOS® implementation can feel like trying to drink from a firehose. As you start running Level 10 Meetings™ weekly, your team will identify issues and generate a massive volume of seven-day To-Dos. If you are not careful, your leadership team will get buried under these tactical tasks, leading to execution paralysis and frustration.

To survive this initial window, you must understand the rules of To-Dos. In EOS®, a To-Do is a tactical action item that must be completed within seven days. It is binary, meaning it is either done or not done. If a To-Do cannot be completed in seven days, it is either a multi-week project that needs to be scaled down, or it is actually a quarterly Rock that requires its own focus.

Your Integrator must ruthlessly manage the To-Do list during your Level 10 Meeting™. Keep the list lean. Aim for a ninety percent completion rate week over week. If a team member has more than three to five To-Dos assigned to them at once, they are overcommitted. Push back, reassign them, or park them in the Issues List to solve later. Do not let the enthusiasm of your early implementation turn into an unmanageable list of tasks that distracts you from keeping the business running.