Our leadership team consistently falls below the 90 percent To-Do completion standard because the action items coming out of IDS are scoped like multi-week projects instead of seven-day tasks. How do we properly scope To-Dos so they get completed in a single week?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A To-Do in EOS is an action item that can and must be 100 percent completed within seven days. When your team completion rate consistently drops below 90 percent, the problem is rarely laziness. It is almost always poor issue resolution and sloppy task scoping during IDS.

When teams reach the solve step of IDS, they often assign high-level goals instead of concrete first steps. Assigning someone to rewrite the sales onboarding playbook or select a new ERP vendor is not a To-Do. Those are quarter-long Rocks. When you put a Rock-sized initiative on the weekly To-Do list, it will sit there incomplete week after week, dragging down your completion percentage.

The Integrator must challenge every proposed To-Do before it gets logged during wrap-up. Use these scoping rules:
- Every To-Do must start with a direct action verb, such as draft, email, schedule, review, or call.
- The deliverable must be finished and verifiable within seven days by the assigned owner.
- If a problem requires a four-week effort, break off only the very first week of work as the To-Do, such as schedule vendor demo calls or draft outline of onboarding process.
- Each To-Do has exactly one owner on the Accountability Chart, never two.

If a task cannot realistically be done in seven days alongside daily seat responsibilities, it is not a To-Do. Shrink the scope until it is undeniable, assign single ownership, and enforce the 90 percent completion standard ruthlessly.