We start our Level 10 Meeting™ on time, but by the time we finish the Scorecard and Rock review, we have drifted so far off course discussing historical details that we only have ten minutes left for IDS®. How do we stop this early-meeting drift without feeling like police officers?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Early-meeting drift is a discipline problem, plain and simple. When you allow your team to explain why a Scorecard metric is red or why a Rock is off-track during the review section, you are violating the core rules of the Level 10 Meeting™.

The review portions of the agenda are for reporting only. The correct response to an off-track metric or a delayed Rock is a simple statement of facts, followed by the word drop. This means the item is placed on the Issues List to be prioritized and solved during the IDS® portion of the meeting.

To stop the drift, the facilitator must be relentless. They need to use a single phrase whenever anyone begins to explain or defend: That is an issue, let us drop it to the list. This is not being a police officer; it is respecting the team's time and protecting the integrity of the meeting.

If you spend forty-five minutes on the review sections, you are robbing the team of the deep, collaborative problem-solving that happens during IDS®. The review sections must take exactly twenty minutes in total.

Make it a visual rule. Keep the digital meeting board visible to everyone, and ensure the facilitator immediately types the issue onto the list the moment it is identified. Once the team sees their concerns are safely captured on the Issues List, the anxiety to explain them right then and there will disappear.