Stop solving.
The same topic is on the agenda quarter after quarter. Each time a different action, each time it seems solved, each time it comes back. Not because the team does not work hard, but because it solves before it understands what is going on.
Eight questions, your result right away, also by email. No account needed.
- 1Team PulseEveryone first writes down, individually, what is on their mind.
- 2IssueWhy does this matter, and why does it matter now?
- 3Picture-formingJudgment-free questions. No opinions yet.
- 4Opinion-formingEveryone alone first, then share.
- 5Judgment-formingOne shared problem statement.
- 6Decision-makingBy consent: no serious objection.
- 7ActionOwner, first step, reporting back.
- 8Team PitstopWhat have we learned, and what do we do with it?
The four steps with the gold edge are the core: picture, opinion, judgment, decision. That order is what most meetings skip.
What can be different
A recurring agenda item is rarely the real issue. “The waiting times are too long” can be a capacity problem, a team that postpones decisions because no one feels ownership, or tension between two departments that no one puts into words. Three different issues, three different solutions, hidden behind one sentence that everyone understands at once and no one questions anymore.
Issue-Focused Working reverses the order. First the picture complete, then everyone’s opinion, then the shared judgment, only then the decision. Eight steps, always in the same order, and every step closes with consent: can everyone move on with this? That way a solution only reaches the table once the problem is already there, and not the other way around. Grown out of three and a half years of practice-based research in more than five hundred team sessions.
How to go on from here
- My team is stuck on something that keeps coming back.A certified trainer-coach of Vraagstuk Studio facilitates your team, in your sector and region, with or without Metis as AI colleague. It starts with an exploratory conversation.Facilitation for your team
- I want to see how this works first.The tools: eight three-minute reflection tools, the team safety measurement and the measurement instruments. Free, with an immediate result.Go to the tools
- I want to read first.Eleven articles, each on one mechanism behind the recurring agenda item. Weekly from November 10, 2026.The article series
Where this comes from
Issue-Focused Working was developed by Frank Campman and is described in the book Stop Solving (2026), with a workbook that lets teams do the method themselves. The book sets its own claims beside the research literature, including where it argues against them. Vraagstuk Studio trains and certifies trainer-coaches; they facilitate teams in their own sector. About the book and the workbook.