Our weekly Level 10 Meeting™ short-term Issues List has grown to over fifty items, and we waste valuable meeting time just scrolling through the backlog trying to pick where to start. How do we aggressively purge this list without losing track of real problems?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A short-term Issues List with fifty items is not a working document; it is a digital trash heap. When your list is cluttered with minor operational noise, you lose the ability to focus on the issues that actually matter.

To solve this, you must aggressively purge the list using a systematic approach.

First, the facilitator must review the list before the meeting and merge duplicate issues. Many items are just different symptoms of the same core problem.

Second, apply the rule of the three compartments. If an issue is not urgent and does not need to be solved this quarter, move it to the Long-Term Issues List on page two of your V/TO®.

Third, push departmental issues down to the departmental Level 10 Meetings™. If an issue can be solved by a specific department without leadership intervention, delete it from the leadership list and send it to the appropriate team.

Finally, when you start the IDS® portion of the meeting, the team must only select the top three most critical issues to solve today. Do not look at the other forty-seven items.

Focus your energy entirely on solving those top three. By keeping your list lean and focused, you prevent decision fatigue and ensure your team is always working on the highest-priority items.