How to Use the Long-Term Issues List in Ninety
The long-term Issues list is your team's parking lot in Ninety. It holds the ideas, opportunities, and obstacles your team wants to discuss and solve at your next quarterly or annual planning session instead of this week. Every team in Ninety has one on the Long-Term tab of the Issues tool, and the same list appears on your team's V/TO® (Vision/Traction Organizer®) Traction® page.
In EOS® (the Entrepreneurial Operating System®), every team keeps two Issues lists. The short-term list feeds IDS® (Identify, Discuss, and Solve) in your weekly Level 10 Meeting® (L10®). The long-term list holds anything your team can't or shouldn't solve in the next 90 days. Some long-term Issues (often called LTIs) become Rocks (your 90-day priorities) in a future quarter. Others stay parked until your team has the capacity to take them on.
Who can use the long-term Issues list:
Team Members (also called Managees), Managers, Admins, Implementers, and Owners can add, edit, move, and archive long-term Issues on their teams.
Observers can view their teams' long-term Issues but can't add or change them.
Creating Issues requires a paid plan (Essentials, Accelerate, Thrive, or Legacy). Companies on the Free plan can't add long-term Issues.
What belongs on the long-term Issues list
The long-term Issues list is for anything your team needs to discuss and solve eventually but can't or shouldn't solve in the next 90 days. EOS calls it the parking lot. Good candidates include:
Ideas and opportunities that come up in a meeting but aren't for this week.
Possible Rocks for a future quarter, such as a remote training process your team will need before it opens new locations.
Obstacles and opportunities your leadership team finds during an annual planning review (the Organizational Checkup®, a SWOT analysis, or a V/TO review) that can wait past this quarter.
The rest of an Issue that turned out too big for one IDS discussion, after your team solves its most urgent piece.
Unfinished Rocks your team decides not to continue next quarter.
Topics your team wants to revisit every quarter on purpose, such as how your company uses AI and protects its data.
Bigger strategic questions, such as new product ideas, key employee issues, technology needs, an office move, capital needs, or new HR policies.
Ideas belong on an Issues list as much as problems do. EOS defines an Issue as any problem, obstacle, idea, or opportunity your team needs to discuss, so the long-term list is the right home for an idea your team isn't ready to act on yet.
Detail | Short-term Issues list | Long-term Issues list |
Time frame | This week or this quarter. | Beyond the next 90 days. |
When your team solves it | IDS in the weekly L10. | Quarterly and annual planning sessions. |
Where it appears | The Short-Term tab of the Issues tool. | The Long-Term tab of the Issues tool and the Traction page of your V/TO. |
If an Issue needs a decision this week or this quarter, keep it on the short-term list. For help deciding between an Issue, a Rock, and a To-Do, see Choosing Between Rocks, Milestones, To-Dos, and Issues.
How to add a long-term Issue
You can add an Issue to your team's long-term Issues list from any page in Ninety with the Create button, or directly from the Issues tool. Any licensed Team Member, Manager, Admin, Implementer, or Owner can add one.
To add a long-term Issue with the Create button:
Click Create at the top right of any page.
Make sure Issue is selected in the dropdown at the top of the form.
Add a title for the Issue.
Set the Interval to Long-Term and, optionally, choose a Priority.
Choose a Team, then select an Owner.
Add a description with the context your team will need when it reviews the Issue later.
Click Create Issue.
To add a long-term Issue from the Issues tool:
Click Issues in the left navigation.
Select your team from the Team dropdown.
Click the Long-Term tab.
Click + Add Issue at the bottom of the list.
Write the Issue's title and press Enter or click the checkmark.
Click the Issue's row to open its details panel and add a description, priority, and owner.
You can also add long-term Issues from the Long-Term Issues section of your team's Traction page, from the Ninety mobile app, or by asking Maz, Ninety's AI companion, to create one. For every way to create an Issue, see Creating Issues.
To move an existing Issue to the long-term list:
Find the Issue on your team's short-term list.
Right-click the Issue's row, or open the Issue and click the ellipsis at the top of its details panel.
Select Make Long-Term Issue.
To move a long-term Issue back to the short-term list, follow the same steps from the Long-Term tab and select Make Short-Term Issue. Ninety saves the change automatically.
How to park an idea during a meeting
Parking an idea on the long-term Issues list lets your team capture it during a meeting and get straight back to the agenda. When a discussion in your L10 turns up an idea, opportunity, or bigger obstacle that isn't for this week, add it as a long-term Issue instead of debating it on the spot.
Click Create at the top right of the page and make sure Issue is selected.
Add a short title, and set the Interval to Long-Term.
Add a sentence or two to the description while the context is fresh.
Click Create Issue and continue your meeting.
A good description answers the questions your team will ask when it picks the Issue up again a quarter from now:
Why does this idea or obstacle matter?
What goal or outcome could it support?
Why might next quarter (or a later one) be the right time for it?
What details will you want to remember later?
If the Issue supports one of your team's 1-year goals, link it to that goal. Open the Issue's details panel, click + Linked Item in the Linked Items section, move to the Goal tab, and select the goal. When your team opens the goal on the Traction page, it sees every Issue and Rock linked to it, so Rock candidates for each goal are easy to find at planning time. For the full steps, see Creating and Documenting Goals on the Traction Page.
Tip: Write down the why. A title on its own is often hard to make sense of three months later. A few notes on the reason behind the Issue help your team decide quickly whether it should become a Rock.
In How I Use Ninety to Prepare for EOS Quarterly Planning, a Ninety team member describes using the long-term Issues list this way all quarter, so possible Rocks and the reasons behind them are ready before planning starts.
How to review long-term Issues at quarterly and annual planning
Your team reviews its long-term Issues list at every quarterly planning session and annual planning session. Many of your next quarter's Rocks should already be sitting on the list, added during L10s throughout the quarter.
A week or two before the session, ask each team member to add their Issues and give each one a priority number. In Preparing for Your Annual Planning Session, Christine Watts, Ninety's Head of Professional Services, suggests this scale for planning-session prework:
5: A Rock candidate, or an opportunity to discuss as a possible Rock.
4: Must be discussed at this quarterly or annual session.
3: The team would like to discuss it.
2: Could wait for a later session.
1: A placeholder.
Ninety's default 1–5 scale is written for weekly IDS, where 5 means must solve today. Using the numbers this way for planning prework is a team agreement, so tell everyone which meaning you're using before they rank. At the session, click the Priority column header to sort the list and start with the Rock candidates.
Before the session starts, the team leader or the person facilitating the session reads the whole long-term Issues list. Look for:
Duplicates to combine. Right-click an Issue and select Merge into Another Issue to move its details into the matching Issue.
Issues your team has already solved or that no longer apply. Archive them to keep the list focused.
Rock candidates that compete for the same people or don't connect to a goal. Flag them for discussion during the session.
To bring a printed copy into the session, export a Quarterly Report. The report includes your team's long-term Issues.
During the session, decide what happens to each long-term Issue your team discusses. Each one can:
Become a Rock for the coming quarter.
Move to the short-term list so it's solved in an L10 this quarter.
Be solved through IDS during the session.
Be archived because it no longer applies.
Stay on the long-term list until a later quarter.
After you set Rocks, remove the long-term Issues your new Rocks now cover. Mark each one complete, or complete and archive it, so the list holds only what your team still needs to discuss.
For an EOS Implementer's view of using the list to choose Rocks, see EOS Quarterly Planning: How to Make Better Decisions for the Next 90 Days.
How to turn a long-term Issue into a Rock on the Planning Board
The Planning Board shows your team's long-term Issues in their own column beside your current and future quarters, so you can turn an Issue into a Rock by dragging it. The Planning Board is available on all paid plans (Essentials, Accelerate, Thrive, and Legacy) in the web app. Owners, Admins, Implementers, Managers, and Team Members can move cards on it. Observers can view it.
Click Rocks in the left navigation, then open the Planning Board tab.
Find the Issue in the Long-Term Issues column.
Drag the Issue card into the quarter column when your team plans to work on it.
Choose what happens to the original Issue: mark it complete, or complete and archive it.
Review the additional options shown as checkboxes.
Click Confirm.
For example, a leadership team with a 1-year goal to open new locations might park "Remote training process" on its long-term Issues list. At quarterly planning, the team drags it into the Next column as a Rock for the following quarter, then clicks Link Goal on the Rock's card to tie it to the new-locations goal. From Annual Plan to Rocks walks through this on the Planning Board.
You can also turn a long-term Issue into a Rock from the Issues tool. Right-click the Issue and select Create linked Rock to create a Rock with the Issue's title and description.
How to keep the long-term Issues list useful
A long-term Issues list works best when your team reviews it every quarter and makes a decision on what's there. Without that review, the list fills with Issues nobody remembers adding. These habits keep it manageable:
Review the list every quarter. Read the whole list before each quarterly planning session, even the Issues you don't expect to discuss.
Combine duplicates. Several long-term Issues often describe the same underlying problem. Merge them so your team solves it once.
Rank Rock candidates. Use the 1–5 priority scale so the long-term Issues your team most wants to discuss sort to the top. Many teams give a Rock candidate a 5. See Prioritizing and Ranking Issues.
Decide on Issues that have waited several quarters. If an Issue has stayed parked for a year, IDS it, make it a Rock, or archive it.
Keep urgent Issues on the short-term list. If a long-term Issue becomes urgent, move it to the short-term list so it gets solved in this week's L10.
Long-term Issues on the V/TO® and who can see them
Your team's long-term Issues list appears on the Traction page of your team's V/TO. It's the same list in both places, so you can add, update, prioritize, sort, and view archived long-term Issues from either one, and every change shows up in both.
Every member of a team can view that team's long-term Issues list. Each department team keeps its own list on its own V/TO, separate from the Leadership Team's list.
Leadership Team long-term Issues are private to other teams by default, even when the Leadership Team shares its V/TO with all teams. To let other teams see a specific Issue when they open the Leadership Team's V/TO with View Leadership V/TO, make it public. The Public Issue toggle appears only on the Leadership Team's long-term Issues. Any member of the Leadership Team can turn it on, except Observers.
To make a Leadership Team long-term Issue public:
Click V/TO in the left navigation.
Make sure Leadership is selected in the Team dropdown.
Click the Long-Term Issues tab.
Click an Issue to open its details panel.
Turn on the Public Issue toggle.
For how to share the Leadership Team's V/TO with every team, see Display the Organization's Vision across All Teams.
Frequently asked questions
Does Ninety have a parking lot for ideas that come up in meetings?
Yes. Your team's long-term Issues list is its parking lot. Add the idea as an Issue, set the Interval to Long-Term, and your team will review it at its next quarterly or annual planning session. EOS treats ideas and opportunities as Issues, so the long-term list is the right place for them.
What's the difference between short-term and long-term Issues?
Short-term Issues need a decision this week or this quarter, and your team solves them through IDS in its weekly L10. Long-term Issues can't or shouldn't be solved in the next 90 days, and your team reviews them at quarterly and annual planning sessions.
Do long-term Issues come up in our weekly Level 10 Meeting?
The IDS section of your L10 works from your team's short-term Issues list. Long-term Issues wait for your next quarterly or annual planning session. If a long-term Issue needs attention sooner, move it to the short-term list with Make Short-Term Issue.
How do I turn a long-term Issue into a Rock?
Drag the Issue from the Long-Term Issues column of the Planning Board into a quarter column, then choose whether to mark the original Issue complete or complete and archive it. You can also right-click the Issue in the Issues tool and select Create linked Rock.
How should we prioritize long-term Issues before a planning session?
Ask each team member to add their Issues a week or two before the session and rank each one from 1 to 5. One common scale for planning prework: 5 is a Rock candidate, 4 must be discussed at this session, 3 is one the team would like to discuss, 2 could wait for a later session, and 1 is a placeholder. Agree on the scale as a team first, because Ninety's default scale is written for weekly urgency (5 means must solve today).
Can other teams see our Leadership Team's long-term Issues?
Only the ones you make public. Leadership Team long-term Issues are private to other teams by default. Any Leadership Team member except an Observer can open an Issue's details panel and turn on the Public Issue toggle to let other teams see it on the Leadership Team's V/TO.
How long can an Issue stay on the long-term list?
There's no time limit. A long-term Issue stays on the list until your team moves it, completes it, archives it, or deletes it. Review the list every quarter and decide on any Issue that has stayed parked for several quarters.
Troubleshooting
Issue: I can't find an Issue I added to the long-term list.
Solution:
Click Issues in the left navigation and make sure the Long-Term tab is selected.
Check the Team dropdown. The Issue may be on a different team's list.
Check the Owner filter and set it to All. The filter hides Issues owned by anyone who isn't selected.
Turn on the Archive toggle in case the Issue was archived.
Search for the Issue's title in the Search Issues bar.
If the problem persists, contact support.
Issue: I can't move a long-term Issue to the short-term list from the Planning Board.
Solution:
The Planning Board can only turn long-term Issues into Rocks. Click Issues in the left navigation instead.
Click the Long-Term tab.
Right-click the Issue and select Make Short-Term Issue.
If the problem persists, contact support.
Issue: Other teams can't see a Leadership Team long-term Issue.
Solution:
Open the Issue's details panel from the Long-Term Issues tab of the Leadership Team's V/TO.
Turn on the Public Issue toggle. Any member of the Leadership Team can do this, except Observers.
Make sure the Leadership Team's V/TO is shared with all teams. See Display the Organization's Vision across All Teams.
If the problem persists, contact support.
Issue: I deleted a long-term Issue by mistake.
Solution:
Click Issues in the left navigation and select your team from the Team dropdown.
Click the Long-Term tab. Long-term Issues have their own Trash, separate from short-term Issues.
Click the ellipsis (…) and select View Trash.
Restore the Issue. Deleted Issues stay in the Trash for 90 days. See Recovering Deleted Issues.
If the problem persists, contact support.