Weekly Scheduling Meeting Agenda

Thirty minutes. Once a week. Maintenance and operations together. Produces a committed schedule — not a wish list.

Companion to: Fix the System, Chapter 7. Who attends: maintenance manager, maintenance planner, maintenance scheduler (or planner wearing the scheduler hat), operations lead, production scheduler. When: same day and time every week, early enough to confirm kits, access and crews before the first scheduled jobs enter their rolling 48-hour protected window. Duration: 30 minutes. Not 45. Not 60.

What this meeting produces

By the end of the 30 minutes, the meeting has produced:

• A written schedule in the CMMS with specific jobs, crews, days, asset coordination.
• Confirmed kit status for every scheduled job (Chapter 6 kits staged).
• Confirmed operator/asset availability for every scheduled job.
• Named reserve capacity for break-in work (15-20% of crew hours).

What this meeting does NOT produce:

• Extended discussion of last week's compliance number (that's a different meeting — the monthly review).
• Philosophical conversation about maintenance-operations cooperation.
• Long recitation of the entire backlog.
• Re-planning of jobs that weren't ready to schedule (those stay in planning).

Pre-meeting preparation (planner, 30 min before)

• Pull the candidate schedule — the jobs in planning that are kit-ready, within the week's capacity, not already on the calendar.
• Print or screen-share the proposed week's schedule with: day, crew, job, asset, estimated hours, parts kit status.
• Identify any jobs with kit issues or operational coordination gaps. Flag them.
• Pull last week's schedule compliance number. One line summary.

The 30-minute agenda

Minutes 0-2 — Last week's compliance, one sentence

• One sentence from the planner: "Last week scheduled X jobs, completed Y, compliance Z%."
• If compliance dropped below target, one sentence on why. If discussion is needed, flag for the monthly review — not here.

Minutes 2-25 — Walk the week, day by day

For each day (Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri):

• Planner calls out the jobs proposed for that day with crew assignments.
• Planner confirms kit status (K for kitted, N for not kitted — jobs marked N cannot be scheduled).
• Operations lead confirms asset/operator availability for the day.
• If anyone objects to a specific job for a specific day, either resolve in 60 seconds or move it to planning queue for next week. Do not debate in the meeting.

Minutes 25-28 — Reserve capacity

• Planner names the reserve capacity — the hours held back for break-in work.
• Name the reserve percentage and its hours basis. Chapters 7 and 10 usually use 15-20% of crew hours. Chapter 10 works 12 people × 40 hours = 480; 15% gives 72 non-committed hours, and notes that small crews may need closer to 25%.
• Show known leave, training, meetings and other deductions once each, separately from reserve. Confirm the denominator and craft coverage locally; the book’s worked example does not specify deductions. Commit no more than realistic available hours minus the funded reserve.
• Reserve is named non-committed capacity, not a second label for already committed jobs. Keep optional ready jobs in a separate list; release them only after checking current capacity, access and reserve needs. A non-emergency that cannot fit reserve waits. Emergency displacement follows the documented approval route.

Minutes 28-30 — Lock and close

• Planner reads back any changes made during the meeting.
• Schedule is committed. Planner publishes to CMMS + email + physical whiteboard by end of the hour.
• Retain the published weekly job list and original dates. Each job enters the frozen zone 48 hours before its scheduled start, not 48 hours after this meeting. Written Plant Manager approval is required for the frozen-zone scheduling exception.
• Do not reset the weekly compliance baseline as jobs enter the window. Count original jobs completed on their originally scheduled day; report additions and optional work separately.

What goes wrong (and how to fix it)

The meeting runs 60 minutes. Almost always because the meeting is trying to do planning work that should have happened before the meeting. Enforce the rule: if a job isn't planning-ready, it doesn't come to the scheduling meeting. The planner pre-filters.

Operations says "yes" in the meeting and "no" on Monday. This is a trust-building issue, not a scheduling issue. The frozen-zone policy is what converts the yes into a binding commitment. Without it, the meeting's output is non-enforceable. See the Frozen-Zone Policy companion template.

A specific job keeps getting re-scheduled week after week. It's probably not actually plannable. Either its parts aren't available, or its operational coordination isn't feasible, or its scope isn't clear. Kick it back to planning with specific notes on what's blocking it. Don't let unresolvable jobs clutter the calendar.

The planner dominates the meeting. Operations is not engaging. This is a relationship problem, not an agenda problem. Before the next meeting, sit with the operations lead one-on-one and rebuild the shared stake. The meeting doesn't work without their active participation.

Cadence: when the meeting fails, check this first

If schedule compliance is dropping, walk through this list:

• Is the meeting happening every week? On time? Full attendance?
• Is the pre-meeting prep happening? Planner has the candidate schedule ready with kit status?
• Is the frozen zone holding? (See Frozen-Zone Policy companion.)
• Are break-in requests routing through escalation, or directly to the crew?
• Is reserve capacity actually sized correctly for this plant's break-in rate?

Eight times out of ten, a compliance drop traces back to the frozen zone failing, not to the meeting failing.

From Fix the System by Ivan Getov. Companion to Chapter 7: Schedule. getov.xyz/toolkit/fix-the-system/ch07/scheduling-meeting-agenda. Free. No email required.