The question left for the last minute may be the one the whole meeting was avoiding.

Agendas record what a group is willing to look at, and the order records what it would rather not. The item raised with four minutes left is often not an afterthought; it is the thing everyone knew was coming and quietly hoped would run out of time. Avoidance rarely announces itself as avoidance. It appears as a full schedule and a reasonable sense that today was not the day.

Before your next discussion, put the uncomfortable item first and give it the fresh half of the hour. If that feels like too much, that feeling is itself worth noticing.