Whose court is it in? A RAID review that ends on time.

Keep four kinds of work in one review

Panora's RAID log is a template inside Sheets, which is in beta. Its four item types are Action, Risk, Issue and Decision. Use an Action for a task someone needs to do, a Risk for something that may need attention, an Issue for a problem already being handled and a Decision for a choice that needs to be recorded.

Those descriptions are a practical agreement for your team, not an automatic classification. Decide how you will use the types before importing an existing tracker. A clear title matters more than a clever category: replace a title like Access with a specific subject such as Confirm access for the equipment check. Put the background in the description so the review can stay focused.

The template also carries an item reference, owner, due date, status, Scope Change and Cross Functional. Those last two fields have room for Yes, No and Unknown in the dashboard. Leave an unanswered question visible instead of treating a blank as a decision that nothing is affected.

Ask two separate questions

Who owns follow-up, and whose court is the item in? They are related, but they are not interchangeable. A customer may need to provide an answer while someone on your side remains responsible for checking that the answer arrives. Assigning an owner does not make the handoff disappear.

The RAID template includes statuses for work with the customer and work with the provider. Each status maps to a system stage and a waiting-on value. Labels can be renamed in sheet settings, so the words can match your review without making the dashboard depend on everyone interpreting a free-text phrase the same way.

During the meeting, ask the owner for the next action and the expected response. If nobody has the next move, find out whether the record is ready to close, needs a new owner or is intentionally on hold. Avoid changing a label just to make the board look tidier. The label should describe an agreement people can act on after the call.

A useful review ends with fewer unclear handoffs, not just fewer rows on the screen.

Use the next-conversation list as the agenda

Panora's RAID dashboard puts overdue open items first, ordered by due date. It then shows open items with no owner, followed by items waiting on the customer. Within those latter groups, the longest-open records come first. An item appears only once in this list, even when more than one reason applies.

For overdue work, ask what changed and agree the next step. For an unassigned item, name the person who will move it forward. For an item waiting on the customer, decide what information is missing and who will ask for it. These prompts are a suggested meeting practice; the dashboard supplies the records, while the team makes the decision.

Do not read the list as every open item that matters. It has a defined order for three kinds of follow-up. Work waiting on your own side can still deserve attention even if it is neither overdue nor unassigned. The board provides the wider view before you finish.

The product view below uses demonstration data and a fixed review date. It shows the same dashboard used in Sheets. Read the reasons beside the items, then compare them with the board. This example is read-only, so no account or project record changes when you inspect it.

Finish with a scan of the board

The RAID board groups every item by the sheet's statuses. Closed/Complete and Cancelled remain visible in those totals while leaving the open-work lists. That distinction gives the team a way to separate work that was finished from work that was stopped. In the app, open an item's title to review its record.

Check the On Hold column deliberately. On-hold work is still open, but it is excluded from overdue counts. Ask whether the reason for the pause still applies and what would allow work to resume. Otherwise, moving a record out of the overdue count can become a way to postpone the conversation indefinitely.

Check items without dates as well. A missing due date is not overdue, and an item due today is not overdue. Neither fact tells you whether the plan is good. Use the visible record details to decide whether there is an agreed date or an unanswered scheduling question.

Leave a record the next review can use

Before ending, read back the changed owners, dates and handoffs. Add enough context to the record that an absent teammate can understand the next action. If the team cancels an existing item, Panora requires a cancellation note. Make the note explain the choice, not merely repeat the word Cancelled.

Keep the age of imported work in perspective. The nine-column RAID file has no opened-date column. In an imported sheet, days open starts from the record's created day in Panora. It is useful for following that record from import onward, but it does not reconstruct how long the item lived in the old tracker.

A review that ends on time is a working habit, not a software guarantee. Use the list to begin, the board to check coverage and the record to preserve the decision. At the next meeting, start with what changed instead of asking everyone to tell the whole story again.

• See the RAID log template
• Why blank is not No