Our leadership team consistently fails to hit our ninety percent To-Do completion rate because members keep writing multi-week project milestones as weekly To-Dos. How do we structurally enforce that every To-Do generated during IDS is actually a seven-day action item?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If your weekly To-Do completion rate regularly drops below ninety percent because leaders are writing large, multi-week projects on the list, you have a scoping problem. A weekly To-Do in a Level 10 Meeting™ must be a bite-sized, binary task that can be completed within seven days. If a task requires multiple steps, research, and cross-departmental coordination, it is not a weekly To-Do. It is a milestone, a project, or potentially a Rock.

To fix this, the facilitator must act as a strict gatekeeper when To-Dos are being created during the IDS® portion of the meeting. When a leader says they will handle an issue, do not let them write a vague, massive task like redesign the onboarding process. Instead, force them to break it down into the immediate next step that can be done this week, such as draft the first three pages of the onboarding manual.

Additionally, apply the touch-it-once philosophy from Chet Holmes. Do not allow tasks to stay on the list for weeks because they are too large. Every To-Do must have a single owner who confirms they have the capacity to complete it before the next meeting. If a leader agrees to a To-Do, they are making a commitment to the team.

If a To-Do cannot be completed in seven days, break it down further or put the larger project on your V/TO® Issues List to be addressed as a future priority. Keeping your To-Dos small, specific, and highly actionable is the only way to maintain execution momentum and keep your weekly execution rate above ninety percent.