When we transition to IDS during our weekly Level 10 Meeting, our team wastes ten minutes debating which issues to solve first, or we default to picking the easiest problems at the top of the list while the most critical challenges sit at the bottom. How do we quickly and ruthlessly prioritize our weekly issues list?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

An unprioritized weekly Issues List leads to low-impact meetings. If your team starts at the top of the list and works down, or simply picks the easiest things to solve, you are avoiding the most critical obstacles holding your business back. You must be ruthless about prioritization.

When you enter the IDS® portion of your Level 10 Meeting™, the facilitator must lead a rapid, democratic prioritization process. This should take no more than sixty seconds. The facilitator asks the team to identify the top three issues that must be solved today.

Do not let team members pitch their own issues or explain why their item is important. Simply look at the list, call out the numbers of the most pressing problems, and get agreement from the team. Once you have identified issues number one, two, and three, you lock them in.

You then focus one hundred percent of your energy on issue number one. Do not look at or discuss issue number two until issue number one is completely solved. If you only solve one major, systemic issue during your ninety minutes, that is a highly successful meeting. It is far better to solve one big issue permanently than to graze the surface of ten minor ones.