Every week we stare at a massive Issues List of thirty or forty items and waste ten minutes just arguing about which three are the most critical to solve first. How do we streamline our prioritization process so we can jump straight into the IDS portion of the agenda?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Staring at a massive list of thirty issues can create immediate decision paralysis. If you waste ten minutes of your Level 10 Meeting™ just debating where to start, you are losing valuable time that should be spent actually solving the problems.

The solution is for the Integrator to take active control of the prioritization process. The Integrator is the facilitator of the meeting and must guide the team to a fast decision. Do not go around the room asking everyone to nominate their top issues, as this leads to a circular debate.

Instead, look at the list through the lens of your current quarterly Rocks and your V/TO® goals. Ask yourselves which issues, if solved today, would have the greatest impact on achieving our goals for this quarter.

The Integrator should quickly nominate three issues and ask the team for agreement. If there is a minor disagreement, resolve it in thirty seconds and move on. Remember that resolving any issue on the list is better than wasting time debating which one is technically the most important.

Once the top three are chosen, lock them in. You will tackle number one, then number two, and then number three. Only when those are solved do you look at the list again to select the next priority. Keep the selection process under two minutes so you can spend the bulk of your ninety minutes on IDS®.