Weekly Operations Meeting Agenda

What’s inside

How to use it

Same day, same time, every week. No exceptions for busyness; the weeks you are busiest are the weeks you need it most.

Numbers first, then priorities, then blockers. Facts before opinions, opinions before problems.

Every item ends as a named commitment with a date. If it has no owner and no date, it is a topic, not a decision.

Publish the commitment list within the hour. The meeting is not finished until the list is sent.

The 45-minute agenda

Six segments, fixed order, and a hard stop. Anything that does not fit goes to the parking lot, not the clock.

Scoreboard review

The scoreboard takes two minutes because it is a call-out, not a conversation. Each owner says the number and the colour. Red and amber items go on the blocker list; they are discussed later, not now.

Adjust the 10% threshold per metric so that it reflects how much slippage you can absorb.

Keep the scoreboard to 5–10 metrics, each with one owner. If a number is not available at the meeting, it is red until it is.

Commitment tracker

Every commitment has one owner, one action and one date. The tracker lives in one shared place, is reviewed every week in the second segment, and is never rebuilt from scratch. Items are carried forward until they are done or deliberately dropped.

Write it as a verb and a deliverable. “Send revised pricing to the three open proposals”, not “look at pricing”.

One owner. If two people own it, nobody does.

Carried twice means a conversation. Anything carried forward two weeks in a row moves to the blocker list: is it blocked, mis-scoped, or no longer a priority?

Dropping is allowed. Say it out loud, record it, and move on.

Blocker escalation format

A blocker is raised in a fixed format so that the room can decide instead of discuss. The person raising it prepares these five lines before the meeting; each blocker gets a maximum of three minutes.

Every blocker ends in one of three outcomes:

Decided. The decision is made in the room and recorded as a commitment.

Delegated. A named person will bring a decision by a named date.

Dropped. The group agrees it is not worth solving now.

“We need to think about it” is not an outcome. If the right decision-maker is absent, the commitment is to get their decision by a date.

Facilitator notes

The facilitator protects the clock and the format. The facilitator does not need to be the most senior person, and the role can rotate monthly.

Prepare 15 minutes before. Update the scoreboard, pull last week’s commitments, and collect blockers in the five-line format.

Start on time, finish on time. Never recap for latecomers. The first five minutes set the standard for the other forty.

Appoint a timekeeper and a scribe. The facilitator facilitates; someone else watches the clock and records commitments.

Use the parking lot. Anything off-agenda is written down, with an owner, and handled outside the meeting or in next week’s priorities.

Stop status readouts. If someone starts narrating their week, ask: “What is the number, and what is the decision?”

Cut the discussion, not the segment. When a blocker passes its three minutes, force one of the three outcomes: decided, delegated or dropped.

Protect the read-back. The last six minutes are not optional. A commitment that has not been read aloud is not a commitment.

Publish within the hour. Send the scoreboard colours, the updated tracker and any decisions to the whole team.

Fix the meeting, not the clock. If you run over three weeks in a row, remove a priority or a metric rather than extending the time.