During the IDS portion of our weekly Level 10 Meeting, we waste precious time debating who actually owns the execution of a solution because our roles are still fuzzy. How do we use our Accountability Chart to instantly assign the correct owner to every solved issue?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If you are debating who owns the solution to an issue during your Level 10 Meeting™, you have a structural problem, not an operational one. Your Accountability Chart must be the ultimate authority for ownership, and it must be referenced constantly during IDS®.

To eliminate this confusion, the facilitator must make the Accountability Chart visible during the meeting. When an issue is identified, the first step is to look at the chart and identify which seat is accountable for that specific business function. That seat owner is the natural leader of the discussion and the ultimate owner of the solution.

When you reach the Solve phase of IDS®, you must generate a clear to-do. Every single to-do must have one name, and only one name, assigned to it.

If you find yourselves arguing about who should handle a task because it spans multiple departments, look at the Accountability Chart to see who sits in the seat above those functions. If the roles are still unclear, you do not have an operational issue; you have an Accountability Chart issue. Stop trying to patch the operational symptom. Put the seat definition itself onto the Issues List, run it through IDS®, and clarify the roles and responsibilities before you try to solve the daily tasks again.