Berlin Operations · Working Agreement

One mechanism, three speeds.

Everything we run sits on one of three clocks. If a piece of work isn't on a clock, it isn't work yet — it's an idea in the backlog. This page is the whole system.

The three speeds

What happens when, and what it produces. Nothing else gets a standing slot.

Weekly

Regional review + PPC focuses

Data lands Monday 09:00. Narrative written by 10:30. Meeting 11:00. Produces: a hypothesis and a countermeasure for each focus property — not a status update.

Monthly

P&L tool run + team focus closes

Each property through the P&L discrepancy tool. The month's one team focus is finished and signed off. New team focus named for next month.

Quarterly

Portfolio benchmarks + structural calls

Regional check against portfolio averages. Capex, location and contract decisions — the things a weekly meeting must never try to solve.

Regional meeting — 45 minutes

The sheet is the agenda. Sorted worst-first, so the running order is already decided before anyone speaks.

11:008 min

Read in silence

Nobody presents. Nobody reads cells aloud. Owners tick their open actions done or not-done while they read.

11:084 min

Slippage only

Actions marked overdue. One question each: what unblocks it?

11:1213 min

Did it work?

Only properties whose review date has arrived. Did the number move — yes, no, or too early? A countermeasure that failed is a finding, not a fault.

11:2515 min

New diagnoses — two or three properties

Top of the sorted list, no active countermeasure. Owner gives the why, challenger pushes, room commits: hypothesis, countermeasure, review date.

11:405 min

Patterns, escalations, read-back

Same complaint at three properties is a system problem, not three local ones. Then the scribe reads the commitments back.

Everyone has a job Challenger, scribe, timekeeper — rotated weekly. No passive seats.
Nothing green gets airtime Healthy properties stay in the sheet, unspoken.
Never chase one bad week Small properties swing on 5 reviews. Three weeks in a row is a signal; one week is noise.
Done means the number moved Performing the task doesn't close it. The outcome does.

Why the silent read: reading aloud runs about 150 words a minute, reading yourself about 250 — and eight people read at once instead of one at a time. Presenting the sheet is strictly the slowest option available.

Three roles, rotated weekly

Nobody just watches. Disengagement isn't an attitude problem — it's what happens when the format gives someone no job for 40 minutes.

Challenger

Never your own property. Ask "why" until you reach a cause rather than a symptom — "guests complained about cleanliness" is a symptom; "the Friday turnover has 40 minutes for 6 units" is a cause.

You must push back at least once. Silence counts as not having done the job.

Scribe

Writes the hypothesis, countermeasure, owner and review date into Asana during the meeting, not afterwards. Reads the commitments back out loud in the last two minutes.

Not written down = didn't happen.

Timekeeper

Hard-stops each block at its minutes. Parks anything structural — capex, location, contracts — for the monthly instead of letting it run.

One property must never eat the hour.

Rotate all three every week and post the rota in the sheet. The point isn't ceremony — it's that a challenger who owns the property they're challenging will always go easy on it.

Every property is in exactly one state

This is what stops the same property being diagnosed three weeks running while its fix is still in flight.

New

On the focus list, no countermeasure yet. Gets a full diagnosis.

In flight

Countermeasure open, review date not reached. Not discussed. Tick it and move on.

Due

Review date reached. Did the number move? Worked, or new hypothesis.

Closed

Back above 8.0 for two weeks or more. Noted once, then off the list.

Berlin_Priorities — the cockpit

One rule decides the whole layout: sections hold what changes over a task's life; fields hold what it is. A task moves Backlog → WIP → Review. It never moves from "Major" to "Bonus" — that's an attribute, so it's a field.

Sections — the same stages as every property project

Identical names to the property template, so there is nothing new to learn. The bundle already manages sections and mirrors each one to a tag, which is what makes section membership reportable and rule-triggerable.

SectionMeaning
00_BacklogNot committed. No owner, no date.
01_ready_for_actionSpecced and ready to start.
02_WIPActively being worked.
03_StakeholderWaiting on someone outside the team.
04_ApprovalWaiting on a decision.
05_Procurement_DeliveriesOrdered, waiting on delivery.
06_review_and_qaDone, being checked.
xx_DoneClosed on an outcome.

Delete the old German sections (Hohe / Mittlere Priorität, In Bearbeitung, Zur Überprüfung, Blockiert, Abgeschlossen) — they mixed two taxonomies, restating the Priority field as columns. Also drop the stray To Dos section in the property template.

Fields — reuse what exists, add exactly one

AxisFieldValues
CadenceTracker (exists)Weekly · Quarterly · HSK Focus · Handover
PillarTyp (exists, multi)Safety & Compliance · MNT · HSK · Guest Journey & Access · Product & Facilities · Commercial
ImportancePriority (exists)High · Medium · Low — the bundle gate
EffortPoker Score (exists)number, written by the Ops Tagger
Stage mirrord2d_stage (exists)follows the section — bundle-maintained
CapacityCommitment (ADD THIS)Team Focus · Major · Bonus

Commitment is the only new thing to build. Single-select, not a tag: tags allow several values per task, which makes "one Major per person" impossible to count. Everything else you need already exists on the property template.

The five cockpit views

ViewSetupAnswers
PipelineBoard by sectionWhere is everything
Who's on whatGroup by assignee, filter Commitment = Major / BonusWhat is everyone actually doing
Property focusesGroup by Tracker, sorted by projectWhat we're fixing, per property
By pillarGroup by TypReporting
WorkloadAsana Workload, effort = Poker ScoreWho is genuinely overloaded

Commitment counts how many; Poker Score measures how heavy. One Major worth 13 points is a bigger load than a Major and a Bonus at 3 each — which is why the capacity rule needs both.

Workflows to automate off sections

TriggerActionWhy
→ 02_WIP, no due dateFlag itThe report's overdue flag and the meeting's slippage block are dead without due dates.
→ 06_review_and_qaNotify + set review dateStarts the "did it work?" clock.
→ xx_DoneAuto-create a follow-up due in 3 weeks: "Did this move the number?"The one rule that structurally kills box-ticking — closing a task creates its own outcome check.
Added, no assigneeNotifyTriage gate, without needing a section for it.

One Major, one Bonus, one team focus. That's the whole capacity rule — and the reason the backlog is allowed to be huge without being stressful. Open Berlin_Priorities

Still missing — build these next

Ordered by what breaks the mechanism most if it stays missing.

01
Add the Commitment field · 5 minutes

Single-select: Team Focus / Major / Bonus. The only new field in the whole design — everything else already exists on the property template. Without it there is no capacity rule and no "who's on what" view.

02
Clean the sections down to the eight stages

Delete the German priority/status sections and the stray To Dos. Until this happens the board carries two taxonomies and the bundle's section→tag mirror reports on nonsense.

03
The three section rules

WIP-without-a-due-date → flag · Review → set review date · Done → auto-create the 3-week "did this move the number?" check. The third one is what makes closing on outcome automatic instead of a discipline problem.

04
Point the Ops Tagger at Priority

It already writes Poker Score and the pillar. Priority is the field the bundle gates on, so letting the routine set it means tasks get pulled in on scored signal rather than manual guesses.

05
Team focus: name it, date it, close it

One per month, with a definition of done and a named owner, tagged Commitment = Team Focus. Otherwise it becomes everyone's optional extra and finishes never.