Our team's Level 10 Meeting To-Do completion rate is consistently poor because people write down multi-step projects instead of single-action items. How do we force them to scope To-Dos correctly so they actually get done in seven days?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To-Dos in a Level 10 Meeting™ must be binary and realistic for a seven-day window. When your completion rate suffers because of project creep, it is a structuring failure, not a performance failure. A To-Do is not a Rock. It is a single, bite-sized step that can be completed entirely within the next week. To fix this, the facilitator must enforce a strict rule: if a To-Do requires more than one sitting or relies on someone else to finish their part first, it is too big. It must be broken down. For example, do not write 'Create the new customer onboarding process' as a weekly To-Do. That is a multi-week initiative or a Rock. Instead, the To-Do must be 'Draft the first three steps of the onboarding outline.' During the IDS® portion of your meeting, when a solution is reached, do not let the owner of the task dictate a vague, sweeping action. The facilitator must ask: what is the very next physical action you need to take this week to move this forward? Write that exact action down starting with an active verb. Every single To-Do must be phrased so that it is absolutely clear whether it is done or not done. There is no such thing as eighty percent complete on a To-Do. By keeping the scope to a single task that takes less than two hours to execute, you remove the friction of getting started and systematically drive your weekly completion rate back above the ninety percent threshold.