During the IDS portion of our Level 10 Meeting, our leadership team agrees on the top three issues to solve, but after we solve the first one, we routinely suffer from agenda drift as someone drags us into issue number seven or eight because it feels easier or more urgent than our original numbers two and three. How do we keep the team strictly focused on our agreed-upon priority order?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Once your leadership team has selected their top three issues to solve during the IDS portion of the Level 10 Meeting, the order is locked. Any attempt to deviate from this list is a form of operational avoidance. Teams naturally drift toward easier, lower-priority issues because they are exhausted or want a quick win, but this habit leaves your biggest obstacles untouched.

To maintain strict discipline, the facilitator must act as the guardian of the board. The moment a leader attempts to jump to issue number seven because it is top of mind or feels easy, the facilitator must immediately stop the conversation. Use a direct, neutral phrase such as: We agreed that issues two and three are our next priorities. Are we reprioritizing the entire list, or are we sticking to our agreed order?

If a new, genuinely urgent issue has emerged during the meeting, the team can make a conscious decision to reprioritize the list. However, this must be an explicit, collective vote, not a passive slide into an easier topic.

Force your team to complete the solve phase of issue number two before anyone is allowed to speak about another item. If you let agenda drift take over, you will end up with ten half-solved minor issues and zero resolution on the major roadblocks holding your business back.