During the IDS® portion of our weekly meeting, we constantly start solving one issue, get sidetracked by a related problem, and end up with three half-solved issues. How do we stop this agenda drift?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Agenda drift during IDS® is a massive drain on your leadership team's energy. It happens because issues in a business are naturally interconnected, making it incredibly easy to follow rabbit holes. The result is a ninety-minute meeting where you talk a lot but resolve absolutely nothing. To kill agenda drift, the facilitator must act as a ruthless guardian of the current issue. When a team member brings up a tangent, the facilitator must immediately intervene. Use a direct phrase like, that is a critical point, but is it part of solving the specific issue we are discussing right now, or is it a separate issue we need to add to the list? If it is separate, write it down at the bottom of the Issues List and immediately steer the conversation back to the active topic. Do not allow the team to discuss the new item until the current one is fully resolved. A key discipline is to never move on from an issue until you have a clearly defined, owner-assigned to-do. Once the action item is documented, you have solved that issue. Only then can you move to the next prioritized item. This level of discipline ensures you solve issues thoroughly rather than discussing them endlessly.