Solve problems from the top of the list.

An issue is anything that’s in the way.

An issue is a problem, a blocker, a risk, or a decision that nobody has made yet. It might be a machine that keeps breaking, a customer who is unhappy, or a question that comes up in every meeting. If it slows the team down or puts a climb at risk, it belongs on the list.

Anyone can raise an issue, and the best time to raise it is as soon as it’s noticed. Most problems are small and quick to solve in their first week. A month later, more people are affected and more work depends on the answer.

Many issues come from the weekly check-in. When someone marks a climb off track, Headwater asks what’s in the way, and the answer goes onto their team’s list.

Write the title as the problem.

Give each issue a short title that says what’s wrong. “Courier keeps missing Friday pickups” tells everyone what the problem is. “Courier” doesn’t say what’s wrong, and “Switch courier” chooses a fix before anyone has looked for the cause.

Each team keeps one list.

Every team has one list of issues, and every issue belongs to one team. Put an issue on the list of the team that can solve it. If it turns out to need another team, move it to their list. Issues that affect the whole company, or that no single team can solve, go on the leadership team’s list.

With one list for each team, there is one place to look. Nobody has to remember whether a problem was mentioned in a chat, an email, or someone’s notebook.

Park the big questions for quarterly planning.

Each issue is either short term or long term. A short-term issue is one the team can solve in the next few weeks, and it’s worked on in the weekly huddle. A long-term issue needs more time, money, or thought than a huddle can give it, so it’s parked until the team’s next quarterly planning session.

In that session, the team goes through its long-term issues one at a time. Each one is parked again, dropped, or turned into a climb for the next quarter.

Parking the big questions keeps the weekly list to problems the team can act on now. Sort these six Halden issues, then compare your answers with Halden’s.

An issue is usually long term if solving it needs a change to the strategy, a new hire, a large spend, or a project that will take more than a few weeks.

Rank the top three, then work from the top.

Issues get 40 minutes of every huddle. At the start of those 40 minutes, the team reads down its short-term list and chooses the three issues that matter most this week. They become Priority 1, 2, and 3, with one issue in each. Every other issue has no priority.

Then the team solves Priority 1. It moves on to Priority 2 once the first is solved, or once it agrees the first can’t be solved today. Some weeks the team solves all three and carries on down the list. Other weeks the first issue takes the whole 40 minutes.

Rank by what it costs to leave an issue open.

• Put first whatever is hurting customers, cash, or a climb right now.
• Next, put the issues that will cost more the longer they stay open.
• Rank an issue with a due date higher as its date gets closer.
• How long an issue has been open is a reason to look at it. It doesn’t make the issue more important.
• Leave quick, easy issues for the end of the huddle. Ranking them first uses up time the big problems need.

Try it with the Roastery team’s list. Pick three in order, then see how Halden ranked them and why.

Keep an eye on how long each issue has been open.

Headwater shows how long every issue has been open. On a short-term issue, the count turns amber after a week and red after two weeks. On a long-term issue, it turns amber after three months and red after six.

A red issue usually means one of three things. It’s too big to solve in a huddle and should be long term, nobody is sure who should solve it, or the team keeps ranking other issues above it. Work out which it is, then solve it, park it, or drop it.

An issue can also have a due date, for problems that have to be solved by a certain day. Once the date passes, Headwater shows the issue as overdue.

An issue is solved when the team agrees an outcome.

The person who raised the issue explains it in a sentence or two. The team asks questions until everyone understands what’s causing it, then agrees what will happen. That agreement is the outcome, and once there is one, the issue is solved. The work that follows is tracked on climbs and milestones.

Find the cause before choosing a fix.

The problem people notice is often caused by a different problem. Fixing only the one people notice works for a few weeks, and then the issue is raised again. To find the cause, ask why the problem happens, and keep asking until the answer is something the team can change.

Ask why, and choose a fix at any point to see what happens next.

Keep the discussion on the issue being solved. If a new problem comes up, raise it as a new issue and carry on.

Record decisions so they’re only made once.

An agreed outcome can be recorded as a decision. A one-off decision settles one case, such as “Refund Kiln Café for the late order”. A standing rule applies from now on, such as “Trade orders close at 5pm on Wednesday”. Each decision has an area, such as Roastery or Operations, so it’s easy to find later.

Standing rules make up the rulebook. When a new rule changes an old one, record it as replacing the old rule. The rulebook then shows only the rule that applies now, and the old one is kept in its history. A rule can also have a review date, for rules the team wants to look at again after a trial.

Solve the courier issue, record the outcome, and see where it goes.

Follow-up work goes into the plan.

Headwater has no to-do list. Action lists from meetings get longer every week, and few people look at them again. Follow-up work goes where the people doing it will see it.

If the follow-up is a step towards a climb, add it to that climb as a milestone, with a date. It appears in the owner’s My Flow and counts towards the climb’s progress. If the follow-up is a new problem, raise it as a new issue on the list of the team that can solve it.

Avoid these common mistakes.

• Discussing every issue a littleA team that spends a few minutes on each issue ends the hour with nothing solved. Rank the top three and stay on the first until it’s solved.
• Fixing the symptomIf the same issue keeps being raised, the team fixed what it could see and left the cause. Ask why until the answer is something the team can change.
• Raising issues lateProblems are smallest when they’re first noticed. Raise an issue as soon as you see it, even if it seems minor.
• Letting the list growA list of 30 issues is hard to rank. Park what belongs in planning, drop what no longer matters, and move issues that belong to another team.
• Ending with “look into it”“Ravi to look into it” isn’t an outcome. Agree what will happen, then add the follow-up to a climb as a milestone or raise it as a new issue.
• Making the same decision twiceIf an outcome should apply from now on, record it as a standing rule. Otherwise someone raises the same issue again in six months.

Check your list before the next huddle.

• Each team has one list, and everyone knows how to raise an issue.
• Every issue has a title that says what’s wrong.
• Issues that need a planning session are marked long term.
• Issues that no longer matter have been dropped.
• Every red issue has been talked about.
• The team ranks its top three each week and solves them from the top.
• Each agreed outcome is recorded, with an area, and standing rules go in the rulebook.
• Follow-up work goes on a climb as a milestone, or onto a list as a new issue.