Why does our weekly Level 10 Meeting always run over 90 minutes even though we have a timer running on the screen?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If your Level 10 Meeting is consistently running over ninety minutes, you are not running the meeting, the meeting is running you. The culprit is almost always a failure to respect the hard boundaries of the agenda, specifically the transition into the IDS portion. Teams routinely waste time during the reporting phase by giving status updates, telling long-winded stories, or starting to solve issues before they are officially on the Issues List. The reporting sections, which include the Scorecard, Rock review, and headlines, must be rapid-fire. It is a simple yes or no, on track or off track. No elaboration. If a metric is off track or a Rock is behind, it goes directly to the Issues List. You do not discuss it then. Once you get to IDS, the discipline must increase. Teams often spend forty minutes on the first issue because they are trying to solve it before they have actually identified the root cause. Keep the pace fast. If you run out of time, the unsolved issues remain on the list for next week. Do not extend the meeting to accommodate a slow pace. By enforcing a hard ninety-minute cutoff, you force the team to prioritize the most critical issues first and cut out the unnecessary chatter.