Keeping the open-items list under control
The open-items list attached to this week's meeting minutes has 186 lines. Fifty say "TBD" or "ongoing", item 37 was closed in March and is back in June under a new number, and nobody in the room can say which ten items matter this week.
An open-items list grows out of control when it becomes a place to park everything: questions, tasks, complaints and reminders, with no owner and no date. Once it is too long to read, people stop reading it, and the items that matter hide among those that do not. Items come back because they were closed on a promise instead of on evidence.
Rules that keep it short
- Decide what belongs on it: an issue that needs an action or an answer from someone other than the person who raised it. Tasks go in the look-ahead and what blocks them in the constraints log, deficiencies in the deficiency list, changes in the change order log.
- Give every item the same fields: number, date raised, description, location, one owner (a person, not a company), due date, status, and how it was closed.
- Refuse "TBD". An item nobody will own goes to the project manager, who assigns it or removes it within a week.
- Close on evidence: a written answer, a photo or an inspection result, referenced on the line, and agreement from the person who raised it.
- Keep closed items and their numbers. If the problem returns, reopen the old item instead of creating a new one.
- Review what is due and overdue each week, oldest first, and send anything past due twice to the next level up with a note of why it is stuck.
Common mistakes
- Assigning items to companies, so each trade assumes someone else in its office has it.
- Closing an item because someone said "done" at the meeting.
- Deleting closed items, so a repeat problem looks new.
- Reading the whole list aloud every week instead of what is due and overdue.
Checklist
Every line on your list has
- A number that never changes
- One named owner
- A due date, not "TBD"
- A location and a short description
- A status that says what happens next
- The evidence that closed it
Check your understanding
An item closed at last month's meeting is back. Why reopen the old item instead of opening a new one?
Show the answer
The old item carries the history: who owned it, what was accepted and when. Reopening it shows the problem was never solved and puts that history in front of whoever must fix it now. A new number hides the repeat and makes the list look healthier than the job is.
