Most teams don’t have a planning problem. They have a follow-through problem. Decisions get made in meetings, someone says “I’ll take that”, and two weeks later nobody can remember who said it or whether it happened.
Action items fix that by making each commitment small, specific and visible: one task, one owner, one due date. Keeping the list honest is an operator’s job, and it takes a few minutes a week.
What an action item is, and isn’t
An action item is something one person can finish in about a week. “Send the revised proposal to Acme”, “Book the warehouse walkthrough”, “Draft the job description for the support role.”
It isn’t a project. If it’ll take a month and several people, it’s a milestone with subtasks. It isn’t a problem to discuss either. If nobody knows what to do yet, it’s a challenge. Keeping these apart keeps the action item list short enough to review in five minutes.
Where action items come from
In Clarion, action items arrive from several places and land on the same list:
- Created directly on the Action Items page.
- Captured anywhere with quick add. Click Quick Add in the sidebar from any page, or use the Add button in a live sync.
- From a challenge. When a challenge is discussed, the action items that solve it are added from the challenge’s own panel, so the link between problem and fix is kept.
- From milestone subtasks. Each subtask creates a linked action item for the milestone’s owner. Ticking it off in either place updates both. See add milestone subtasks.
When a sync ends, its recap lists every action item created during the meeting under “What’s owed”, with owner and due date.
The three rules
Every item has an owner. Use the assignee filter’s Unassigned option to find the ones that slipped through, and assign them or delete them.
Every item has a due date. Overdue items are highlighted, but only if they have a date to be overdue against. A week out is a good default.
Every title is specific. “Pricing” isn’t an action item. “Send the three pricing options to Sam for review” is. Someone reading it cold should know exactly what done looks like.
Review it weekly, briefly
The Action Items step of the weekly sync is five minutes for a reason. Each owner says done or not done. That’s it.
- Done: tick it off. Completed items keep a timestamp, so the record stays.
- Not done, still on: give it a new date and move on. No explanations needed the first time.
- Not done twice: something is in the way. From the item’s menu, Create challenge turns it into a challenge for discussion. The action item and challenge stay linked.
The discipline is in not discussing. If every unfinished item gets a story, the step takes twenty minutes and eats the time you need for challenges.
Tidy the list between meetings
Once a week, before the sync, spend five minutes on the Action Items page:
- Filter by assignee and check each person’s open list isn’t absurd. Twenty open items for one person means some won’t happen. Better to say so now.
- Sort by due date and look at what’s overdue.
- Filter by team if you run several syncs, so each team’s list is reviewed by that team.
- Switch the status filter to Completed occasionally to see what actually got finished. It’s a good counterweight to the feeling that nothing moves.
A weekly checklist
- Before the sync: assign or delete unassigned items; check overdue items.
- In the sync: done or not done, one line each.
- Items not done twice: create a challenge.
- After the sync: check the “What’s owed” list in the recap and confirm each item has a date.
Common mistakes
Using action items as a parking lot. Ideas without an owner or a date aren’t commitments. Either assign them or let them go.
Big items disguised as small ones. “Launch the new website” won’t get ticked off in a week, and it’ll sit on the list making everything look late. Make it a milestone.
Discussing every unfinished item. It turns a five-minute step into a status meeting. Save the conversation for items that are stuck.
Never closing anything. If items are done but never ticked, the list stops being trusted and people stop reading it. Ticking things off is part of the job.
Assigning to people who weren’t in the room. If the owner didn’t agree to it, it isn’t really theirs. Confirm with them before the item goes on the list.
For the clicks, see manage action items and quick add shortcuts. For when an item turns out to be a bigger problem, read solving challenges before they escalate.