Our Level 10 Meeting™ agenda is solid for the first thirty minutes, but our IDS® section is a total free-for-all that drags the meeting past the ninety-minute mark because we try to solve ten issues poorly instead of three issues completely. How do we ruthlessly triage our weekly issue list to protect our time limit?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To keep your Level 10 Meeting™ under ninety minutes, you must master the art of triage. A long issue list is not a badge of honor, it is a sign of poor prioritization.

Before you begin the IDS® portion of your meeting, the team must collectively agree on the top three most important issues on the board. Do not simply start at the top of the list or address issues in the order they were submitted. The Integrator must lead the team in selecting the three items that will have the greatest operational impact if solved today.

Once the top three issues are identified, focus entirely on number one. Do not move to number two until number one is completely solved, meaning you have identified the root cause, discussed the solutions, and assigned a clear action item with a specific owner. If you only solve one issue during the meeting but it is the most critical bottleneck in the business, that is a highly successful meeting.

Any issues that are not addressed during the ninety minutes must remain on the list for the following week or be pushed to your quarterly pulsing session if they are strategic rather than tactical. By enforcing this strict prioritization, you keep your team focused on high-impact work and prevent the meeting from devolving into an exhausting, unproductive debate.