How to Run EOS IDS in monday.com: Identify, Discuss, Solve

IDS is what separates an EOS meeting from a regular meeting. Most leadership teams discuss problems in circles, revisit the same issues week after week, and walk out of the room without a clear decision. IDS gives the team a structured three-step process: Identify the real issue, Discuss only that issue, Solve it with a clear action. In monday.com, the Issues List is a live board where issues are added throughout the week, prioritized before the L10 begins, and moved to To-Dos the moment they are solved. The result is a meeting where problems actually get resolved, not just discussed.

What Is EOS IDS and Why Does It Work?

IDS stands for Identify, Discuss, Solve. It is the three-step problem-solving process used in every EOS Level 10 Meeting, and it is the segment that takes up 60 of the meeting's 90 minutes. That allocation is intentional. EOS treats issue resolution as the primary job of a leadership team, not status updates or agenda-building.

The three steps work like this:

• Identify: State the real root issue, not just the symptom. This step is where most teams fail. The first version of an issue is almost never the real issue. EOS teaches teams to ask "Is that really the issue?" before moving forward. A team that skips the Identify step ends up solving a symptom and sees the same problem appear on the Issues List two weeks later.
• Discuss: Talk through only that issue. No tangents, no related complaints, no side conversations about symptoms or history. The Integrator's job is to keep the discussion on the identified issue and cut off anything that drifts.
• Solve: Reach a clear outcome. Every issue that goes through IDS must end with one of three results: a To-Do (owned by one person, due within 7 days), a Rock (too large for one week, becomes a quarterly priority candidate), or a decision (no further action required, just a clear resolution the team agrees on).

The discipline of the process is what makes it effective. A single IDS cycle for one issue takes between 5 and 15 minutes when the team is practiced. A 90-minute L10 with 60 minutes of IDS time can resolve two to four real issues every week. Over the course of a year, that is a significant volume of problems permanently removed from the organization.

How Does the Issues List Work in monday.com?

The Issues List is a group on the L10 Meeting board in monday.com. It is not a parking lot or a notes section. It is the live working list of every unresolved issue the leadership team needs to address. OrangeDot builds the Issues List with the following columns on each item:

• Issue description: A clear one-line statement of the issue, written by the person who raised it.
• Raised by: The team member who added the issue, with a people column linked to the user.
• Date raised: Automatically captured when the item is created.
• Priority: A voting or rating column that the team uses before the meeting to rank which issues go first.
• Status: A status column with four options: Open, In IDS, Solved, Dropped.
• Outcome: The result of IDS, recorded directly on the item: To-Do, Rock, or Decision, with a brief note.

During the week, any leadership team member can add an issue directly to the board without waiting for the meeting. This is a critical habit. Teams that only build the Issues List during the L10 spend the first ten minutes of IDS time creating the list instead of resolving problems. When issues are added as they arise throughout the week, the list is ready to prioritize the moment the meeting starts.

Before the L10 begins, the team votes on priority. Each member selects the issues they believe are most important. The highest-voted issues go first. Issues that do not get reached during the meeting are not dropped. They carry to the next L10 with their full context intact, ready to be reprioritized against whatever is on the list that week.

How Do You Run IDS in Real Time During a Level 10 Meeting?

The Issues List is displayed on a shared screen during the meeting. OrangeDot typically sets this up as a board view or a dashboard widget so the entire leadership team can see the list, the priority order, and the current status of each item in real time. Everyone in the room is looking at the same information.

The facilitator, typically the Integrator, pulls up the top-priority issue and reads it aloud. The first question the team asks is: "Is that really the issue?" This is the Identify step. The stated issue is often a symptom. The team works quickly to get to the root before moving to discussion. If the real issue is different from what was written, the item description is updated on the board before the team moves to Discuss.

The Discuss step is focused. One issue, relevant input only. The Integrator cuts off tangents, redirects discussions that drift to related symptoms, and keeps the conversation moving toward a resolution. There is no open-ended brainstorming in IDS. The goal is a clear decision.

The Solve step produces one of three outcomes:

• To-Do: One person owns a specific action, due within 7 days. Created on the To-Dos board before the meeting ends.
• Rock: The issue is too large or complex for one week. It becomes a candidate for the next quarterly planning session and moves to the Rocks board as a potential Rock.
• Decision: No further action is required. The team has reached a clear resolution. The item is marked Solved with the decision noted.

The item status updates to Solved on the Issues List in real time. The facilitator moves to the next issue. The board reflects the current state of every item throughout the meeting so anyone reviewing the board afterward can see exactly what was addressed, what was resolved, and what the outcome was.

How Do Solved Issues Become To-Dos and Rocks in monday.com?

The moment an issue is solved with a To-Do, the action item is created on the To-Dos board. OrangeDot builds this with a linked board connection so the To-Do is one click to create from the Issues List. The owner is assigned, the due date is set to 7 days out, and the link back to the originating issue is preserved. No information is manually copied between boards. No action items fall through after the room clears.

When an issue becomes a Rock, it moves to the Rocks board as a candidate for the next quarterly planning session. It is not added as an active Rock mid-quarter. It sits in a Rock candidates group until the quarterly planning meeting, where the leadership team reviews candidates and selects the Rocks for the coming quarter. OrangeDot builds the Rocks board with a candidates group specifically for this workflow.

When an issue is solved with a decision and no action item is required, the item is marked Solved on the Issues List. A brief note of the decision is recorded on the item and the issue is archived. The full history of every issue, from when it was raised through to its resolution, lives on the board. Teams can reference it at any point without asking anyone what was decided or when.

This linked workflow is one of the key differences between running IDS in monday.com and managing issues in a spreadsheet or a note-taking app. The Issues List, To-Dos board, and Rocks board are connected. Moving an issue to a resolution is a single action, not a manual data transfer.

What Does OrangeDot Build for the IDS Workflow?

The IDS workflow is part of the L10 Meeting board, which is included in OrangeDot's Standard implementation package at $5,000 for 20 hours. The Standard build includes everything the leadership team needs to run IDS from day one:

• Issues List with priority voting column: A structured Issues group with all required columns and a rating or voting column that the team uses to prioritize before each L10.
• Status workflow: A four-stage status column configured with Open, In IDS, Solved, and Dropped. Status moves reflect the real-time state of each issue during the meeting.
• Linked To-Dos board: A connected To-Dos board where action items are created directly from solved issues with owner and due date assigned.
• Linked Rocks board: A connected Rocks board with a Rock candidates group where issues that become Rocks are staged for the next quarterly planning session.
• Pre-meeting Issues prioritization view: A filtered view that surfaces Open issues sorted by priority rating, designed for the team to complete before the meeting starts.
• Dashboard widget: A widget on the L10 Dashboard showing open issues by owner and by age so the leadership team can see at a glance which issues are oldest and who is carrying the most open items.

The free EOS template suite at orangedotdigital.com/monday-eos includes the L10 Meeting template with the Issues List structure pre-built. Templates are typically ready to access within an hour to a few days of submitting the download form. If you want OrangeDot to install and configure the full build for your team, expert hours packages start at $2,500 for 10 hours.

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