During the IDS portion of our Level 10 Meeting, our team frequently suffers from agenda drift, starting with one issue but quickly pivoting to three other unrelated topics. How do we keep the team focused on resolving the specific issue we prioritized?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Agenda drift is the single greatest killer of meeting efficiency. It happens because business leaders are naturally wired to see connections between different problems, which leads them to jump from one topic to another without ever resolving the original issue.

To stop this, the facilitator must become an aggressive gatekeeper during IDS®. The moment a team member introduces a new topic that deviates from the issue currently being discussed, the facilitator must interrupt.

Use the phrase tangent alert. Ask the team if this new point is directly related to solving the current issue. If it is not, immediately drop the new topic to the bottom of the Issues List and steer the conversation back to the priority at hand.

Another common cause of drift is failing to identify the real issue first. Before anyone starts proposing solutions, the team must agree on what the actual problem is. The person who brought the issue must state it in one clear sentence.

Do not allow the team to discuss the issue until everyone is clear on that single sentence. Once the problem is defined, the facilitator must hold the team to solving only that specific problem. Solving one issue fully is infinitely better than discussing five issues halfway.