To-Do List

To-dos are the usual output of IDS®. When a leadership team closes an issue, the action lands here rather than in somebody's notebook, and it gets checked at the same point in the agenda every week. Work that will take longer than seven days is not a to-do. That is either a Rock or an issue nobody has broken down yet.

The seven-day limit is what makes the list honest. A commitment with a month attached cannot be checked in a weekly meeting, so it drifts quietly. A team that reads its to-dos out loud every Wednesday and sees three undone out of twelve has learned something specific about capacity, or about who says yes too easily.

Worked example: At an accountancy practice the list averages ten items a week. In one week seven were undone and all seven belonged to the same partner, who had been in court proceedings for a client. The meeting did not argue about it. The to-dos moved, and a conversation about his seat went on the Issues List for the following week.

Sources: Traction, Gino Wickman, chapter on the Meeting Pulse; eosworldwide.com/eos-tools