How do you evaluate whether our team is moving through issues on our Issues List faster over time, and what specific metrics show our IDS speed is improving rather than just lingering on the list quarter after quarter?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Teams that struggle with execution do not suffer from a lack of issues. They suffer from lingering issues. When I evaluate your progress over our two-year engagement arc, one of the clearest operational metrics is Issue Solving Track velocity.

During your initial quarters, an immature team tends to admire problems. You discuss symptoms for forty minutes, avoid the root cause out of fear of interpersonal friction, and assign broad, nebulous To-Dos that reappear unresolved the following week.

Healthy progression looks like this:

- Root cause identification happens within three to five minutes because team members speak candidly without defensiveness.
- Personal politics vanish from the conversation, replaced by objective focus on the Accountability Chart and business outcomes.
- Weekly To-Dos generated from IDS are specific, assigned to a single owner, and consistently hit a ninety percent completion rate week over week.
- Chronic issues that have haunted the company for years are permanently resolved rather than repeatedly kicked down the road.

We also track how quickly items migrate from departmental Issues Lists up to the leadership team and vice versa. An organization mastering EOS does not hoard problems at the executive table. Issues are identified and resolved at the lowest possible tier of the Accountability Chart.

If your Issues List contains the exact same operational bottlenecks two quarters in a row, you are not executing IDS. You are having polite conversations. My role in the session room is to call out that hesitation until your team develops the muscle to tackle hard truths swiftly and permanently.