My Run-in with the Don Yount Method
Alright, so I kept hearing this name, Don Yount, pop up here and there. Not sure where exactly, maybe some old forum thread or a mention in a meeting notes file I stumbled upon. Didn’t ring any immediate bells, but the context was always around some kind of practical, hands-on approach to tackling problems, maybe project planning, I wasn’t entirely sure.
Curiosity got the better of me, as it usually does. I decided to dedicate an afternoon to figuring out what this ‘Don Yount’ thing was all about. Didn’t find a huge amount, to be honest. No fancy website or best-selling book, at least not that I could easily find. Mostly just scattered references, like people mentioning using a ‘Yount technique’ for brainstorming or getting unstuck.
So, I pieced together what I could from the scraps. It seemed like a pretty straightforward, no-nonsense way to get a group to focus. I had this small internal project that was just spinning its wheels, so I thought, what the heck, let’s try it.
I grabbed the three other people involved. We booked a small meeting room, whiteboard and all. Based on my cobbled-together understanding, the process went something like this:
- Put the core problem right in the middle of the board. Big letters.
- Everyone just silently writes down every single possible step, idea, or related thought on sticky notes. No talking.
- Stick ’em all up on the board, kind of randomly at first.
- Then, again mostly silently, start grouping the similar notes together.
- Finally, we talked. Went through each group, discussed, and tried to find a path forward.
It felt a little awkward at first, especially the silent parts. We’re used to just talking over each other. But forcing that quiet time seemed to actually get more initial ideas out there, stuff maybe we wouldn’t have said out loud immediately. Some were dumb, sure, but some were actually pretty useful.
Did it magically solve everything? Nah, of course not. But it did break the deadlock. We managed to cluster the sticky notes into a couple of key themes we hadn’t clearly seen before. We picked one theme to focus on for the next week.
What I Reckon
So, that was my practical attempt at using whatever this Don Yount approach was supposed to be. It wasn’t revolutionary, more like a structured common sense kind of thing. The key bits seemed to be the initial silent brainstorming and the visual grouping on the board.
I wouldn’t call it a formal methodology I’d use every time, but for shaking things up when a small group is stuck? Yeah, I can see myself pulling that out of the bag again. It forces a different way of interacting and thinking, even just for an hour. Simple, cheap, and got us moving again. That’s a win in my book.
