During the IDS portion of our Level 10 Meeting, we frequently start solving our top priority, but within five minutes, someone brings up a related symptom, causing us to drift into a completely different issue before we actually solve the first one. How do we keep the team laser-focused?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Agenda drift during the Identify, Discuss, and Solve portion of your meeting is a common discipline killer. It happens because team members confuse symptoms with the actual root cause of a problem, or because they get distracted by adjacent issues that feel urgent.

To stop this drift, your Integrator must actively police the discussion. The moment someone starts talking about an issue other than the prioritized number one item, the facilitator must step in and ask a simple question: Does this directly help us solve the issue currently on the table? If the answer is no, the facilitator must immediately park that new point on the Issues List to be handled later and steer the conversation back to the active issue.

Another powerful tactic is to force the team to clearly define the issue before discussion begins. Do not start talking until the owner of the issue can state the problem in a single, clear sentence. Once the issue is identified, write it down so everyone can see it. If the debate begins to wander, reference that written statement to pull the team back on track.

Discipline in IDS requires a willingness to interrupt. Your facilitator must be comfortable cutting people off politely to protect the agenda. Focus on solving one issue completely before moving to the next. It is far better to solve three issues thoroughly than to partially debate ten.