Daily Huddle / Tier Meeting
The board meeting is the daily pulse of operations: 10-15 minutes standing in front of the board, where yesterday’s deviations become visible, get an owner and a deadline — so problems are handled while they are small.
The board shows max. 4-6 metrics the team can influence, updated daily
Fixed time, fixed place, fixed duration — same time every day, no exceptions
An escalation channel exists: what the team can’t solve must be passable onward the same day
Always the first item: incidents, near-misses and observations since yesterday. Not as a ritual, but because the order shows the priority — and because near-misses are free learning.
Each metric is turned over: green is passed without comment, red gets 30 seconds: what happened? Not why (that is analysis, not a board meeting) — only what, so the deviation is recorded and visible.
The mechanical rule that separates management meetings from information meetings: red number → action → one name (not “we”) → a date. Actions are written on the board’s action list, visible to all.
Yesterday’s actions are reviewed: closed, in progress or blocked? Blocked actions are escalated immediately. This item is the meeting’s backbone — skip it, and the team learns that the action list is a parking lot.
Deviations outside the team’s mandate are sent to the next level (tier 2) the same morning — with a concrete formulation: what is the problem, what have we tried, what do we need. And the answer must come back: an escalation without feedback is the last escalation.
Briefly: today’s expected load, special orders, absence and reallocation. Finish on time — every time. A meeting that overruns loses its authority as a routine.
How it goes wrong in practice — and this is where most implementations part ways.
15 minutes becomes 30, discussions break out in front of the board. The rule: problems are identified at the meeting, solved after the meeting — by the two or three relevant people, not the whole team.
When the board’s numbers are chosen to impress management rather than manage operations, the team stops using it. The board is the team’s tool — management’s insight is a side effect.
The same number is red three weeks running, and everyone has stopped seeing it. Persistent red is not a board deviation — it is a problem that needs an A3 and an owner outside the meeting.
When the leader is ill, the meeting is cancelled — then it isn’t a system but one person’s habit. Rotating facilitation to a simple standard makes the meeting robust.
The method only works when it becomes daily routines and leadership behaviour. The operations check shows in 4 minutes where your operations stand — and what should come first.