Alright, let’s talk about this Gene O’Donnell approach I tried out a while back. Heard the name tossed around, sounded like one of those classic management or maybe efficiency things people dig up sometimes. Figured, why not, let’s see if there’s something useful there for my team.
Getting Started
So, the first thing I did was try to pin down what this ‘O’Donnell way’ was actually supposed to be. Found some old notes, maybe from a conference or an article I clipped ages ago. It seemed to boil down to a really structured way of running quick daily check-ins, supposedly to keep everyone super aligned without wasting time.
I gathered the team, maybe five or six of us working on that project. Explained the gist: “Okay folks, we’re gonna try this thing. Every morning, quick huddle, follow these specific points Gene O’Donnell apparently laid out.” The idea was less about detailed status and more about roadblocks and immediate needs.
The Actual Process – How it Went Down
We kicked it off the next Monday. Stood in a circle, tried to follow the script I’d pieced together.
- First day: Felt awkward. Really forced. People weren’t sure exactly what level of detail to give.
- Tried to stick to the supposed ‘O’Donnell rules’: focus only on blockers, keep it under 10 minutes total.
- Ran into trouble pretty quick. Some folks needed more discussion than the format allowed. Others felt like it was too brief, like we weren’t really connecting.
- I found myself constantly trying to steer the conversation back to the ‘rules’. Felt more like policing than facilitating.
We kept at it for about two weeks. I was taking notes, seeing how it flowed, who participated, what kind of issues actually got surfaced versus just general chatter.
What I Noticed and Changed
The rigidity was the killer. This specific structure, whatever Gene O’Donnell intended, just didn’t quite mesh with our team’s natural way of talking things through. We needed a bit more flexibility.
So, I started tweaking it. We kept the idea of a quick daily check-in, because that part was useful. But we loosened the rules.
- Allowed for slightly longer discussions if a real problem popped up that needed immediate input.
- Made it less about reciting blockers and more about “what’s the one key thing you need help with or want people aware of today?”
- Basically, took the spirit of O’Donnell’s supposed efficiency but adapted it heavily to fit us.
End Result?
In the end, we didn’t stick to the ‘Gene O’Donnell method’ as I originally understood it. Not really. But the process of trying it was valuable. It forced us to look at how we communicated daily. We ended up with our own hybrid approach – still quick, still daily, but much more organic and actually useful for our specific workflow.
So, yeah. Tried the Gene O’Donnell thing. Didn’t work out of the box. But messing with it, seeing where it failed for us, actually led us to something better. Sometimes the experiment itself is the point, you know?