During the transition to IDS, our team spends five to ten minutes debating and arguing over which issues are the top three priorities for the day, which eats into our actual problem-solving time. How do we streamline the prioritization process to get straight to solving issues?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a leadership team spends valuable meeting time debating which problems to solve first, it is a sign of poor facilitation and a lack of alignment. The Issues List is not a democracy where every item needs to be discussed and voted on. You do not have time to debate the priority of every single issue.

To solve this, the facilitator must take control of the prioritization process. Instead of asking the entire team for input on the whole list, the facilitator should quickly scan the list and propose the top three issues based on urgency and impact. Ask the team if anyone has a violent objection to those three. If there are no major objections, accept them and jump straight into solving priority number one.

If the team does struggle to agree, remind them of the company’s core focus and current Rocks. The most critical issues are always those that threaten your scorecard metrics, your quarterly Rocks, or your long-term vision. Any issue that does not directly impact these areas should be pushed down the list. By establishing a fast, facilitator-led process, you eliminate the friction of deciding what to discuss and maximize the time you spend actually solving problems.