How to use story telling in project management

Another good story to tell…

Story telling and Project Management

Last February 8th, I attended a conference organised by Rezonance in Geneva.  The topic was “The Art of Storytelling: becoming a leader through stories” by John Sadowsky.

The main idea is to recognise that the human being loves stories, that he identifies better to a mission, an objective, if it is linked to a coherent and authentic story.  During the conference, Mr. Sadowsky gave us a few examples of leaders who were able to bring others with them thanks to their ability to integrate a strong story in their message.  For example,  Nelson Mandela and  Barack Obama, to mention the most famous.

I was drawn to this conference since I had the opportunity, many years ago, to attend a training course about using tales in the business world.  Following this training, I wrote a story about my business at that time, which illustrated the path followed so far and our business mission.  This tale, called  “le royaume du tout possible” (only available in French) created a lot of enthusiasm within our team.  From this experience, I saw that the idea was fundamentally a good one and, most importantly, that we could have a lot of fun working with it.

While listening to Mr. Sadowsky and after having read his book “Les sept règles du storytelling”, written in collaboration with Loïck Roche,  I got to thinking about how this approach could be useful for project managers during the full project cycle.

Project initiation

In this phase, the application of the story concept is almost intuitive: instead of presenting a dry project charter, why not work out what it was in the initial idea that convinced the sponsor to finance the project, what he wants to achieve, not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of his vision for the enterprise once the project is completed.  One might imagine using some parables to make the whole story more colourful.  If we follow Messrs. Sadowsky and Roche’s approach, the sponsor should look at his personal journey (rule no. 1), to create a story which fits with his personality (rule no. 2) and project himself into the future (rule no. 5).

Let’s take as a concrete example a case from a fictional customer of Marakoudja who wants to develop an internet site to take care of each user’s cooking recipes.  According to the traditional process, the project manager would conduct a discussion with the customer and draw up the project charter.  The result would show something like the following:

The project objective is to launch the French version of the website in September 2010 with the expected performance (to be defined during the concept phase) and including the following functionalities: recipe management, recipe search engine, additional tools (unit conversion, …). This project is part of the enterprise’s overall strategy to create a cooking advice social network.  This strategy targets a break even for our business in July 2012.  The concept and analysis phase of the project must be completed by June 30th, 2010.

While I do not question the importance of defining the objectives and the background of the project precisely and objectively, this information, which allows the project manager to understand the expectations, will not generate any enthusiasm.  The idea is to use storytelling to complete this text – not to replace it – with a more personalised speech from the sponsor.  It could be something like this:

Since the beginning of our marriage, my wife and I have been using recipes we collected here and there to plan the family meals.  Over time, we have created a typical monthly menu which help us to be more efficient.  Since the Internet has arrived, we are searching more and more often for new recipe ideas.  Afterwards, when we want to add the ingredients to our shopping list, we cannot always remember where we found a recipe that we liked. We love to eat good and healthy food, but we do not want to take hours planning for the weekday meals.  Things are even worse now, because with our children being teenagers, the number of people eating at each meal is extremely variable.  I dream of a site where all families could easily create a weekly menu, which would fit their tastes and constraints, which would not always be the same and which would be able to automatically generate a grocery list.

Project concept and planning

It is time to detail, to elaborate on the project story, to add content, to better define the journey and most importantly to invite team members to join the story.  The project manager must make the sponsor’s story his own, to stand with him so they can share the story.  By doing so, he should apply rule no. 6 “personalise your stories” and rule no. 3: “involve the people you are working with”.

Here, I will not give you the traditional approach, eg our project manager will identify the needs, will prepare activity plans, will estimate the required efforts, costs, etc….  He will do these activities as far as possible in cooperation with the project stakeholders.  With the storytelling approach, the project manager can take over the sponsor’s story and add his own personal touch to it.  For example, he could start the need identification workshop like this:

We have come here together to discuss the project requirements to launch a web site which will allow families, similar to our President’s family, to eat well without losing excessive time in planning the family meals.  I am myself very interested by this project since both my parents were working at 100%.  I often saw them struggling to prepare a quick meal coming back from work.  I remember the quick soup and cheese meals.  I am looking forward to work on this project which will give me a way to do better with my own family.  I am confident that you have similar experiences to share, what about starting exchanging about them and see how this web site could simplify our life?

By doing this exercise, everyone will identify himself with the project and concrete use cases will be defined.  Of course, prioritisation will be needed between all the generated ideas and some of them will be kept for subsequent phases. But with such an approach, the stakeholders will be really interested and put their heart in the project since they will recognise themselves in it.

Project execution

Every project has its ups and downs. Why not using the project story to invent new avenues which will help the team to see that the final destination is still at reach – to understand that these are story chapters that you are writing together.   During these active times in the project, it is important to follow rule no 4: “remain yourself”.  Find the words, the way to tell the story which fits your personality.

While the project is in its execution phase, we don’t need as much storytelling creativity, but the project manager can use the examples given in the conception / planning phase to explain the project objective to newcomers.

For example, it was decided that users would be able to enter their own personal recipes.  A young team member does not understand why somebody would take time to do that, since one can find all recipes on Internet.  Traditionally, you could tell him:  “this is a need which was defined, it is part of the project scope so we must do it.”  Or, you could answer him this:

You know last week, I wanted to cook a chocolate cake. I remembered my grand-mother’s cake I was eating when I was a child.  I checked Internet and found a recipe which looked similar.    I prepared the cake, but it was not it.  I finally found an aunt who still had the delicious recipe. You will not believe me, I was only missing one egg. That changed everything!  This recipe, I would now like to keep it and add it to my personal cooking guide.

Project monitoring and control

Maybe will you find out that some activities do not bring expected results, that some team members do not understand the objectives and are taking wrong decisions.  Why not revisit the story and simplify it, clarifying the journey and the destination?  This is rule no 7 : “simplify – always”.

For example, you find out that the system performance is not defined in the acceptance criteria.  You could go back to the IT team and just raise the issue and ask for it to be solved.  Or, you organise a team meeting and say:

When we went through the system tests, we experienced that each screen refresh was taking many seconds.  When we have defined the acceptance criteria, we thought that this system would be used while preparing the meal.  I imagine myself in front of the stove, while the sauce is raising. I would have to wait many seconds to see what ingredient I have to add next.  This would certainly not do and I would then probably decide to print the recipe. This is something we want to avoid with our site.  Do you think you could improve on this?

It is possible to believe that the importance of this need will be better understood by the team and that she will have more motivation to find a solution.

Closing

That’s it, your project is completed.  It’s lessons learned time.  A project report which could be written like an adventurous tale!  A dream for any reader, I am convinced.  It’s time to put the finishing touch to your story, to add all these unexpected episodes while giving a role to each team member.  This will make your project memorable for the next centuries!

Here is an extract that could have been taken from your report:

We were able to end this project in time and within budget.  What I am the most proud of is seeing that we have all put a little bit of ourselves in it.  This site would not have the success it has today without us sharing our personal stories.  Our customers like the possibility to get the quantities by weight or by volume? Thanks to Nathalie who told us about her difficulties to cook a meal, one day, when her kitchen scale had disappeared.  Our customers can translate their recipe in many languages? Thanks to Joseph who told us about his mother who could not read French. And I could go on forever.  Today, the site is launched and I am proud to say that the project team members are amongst our most active users!

You think this concept is crazy?  You already use this approach in your projects?  Let us know and share your comments and experiences with us.

Source: http://www.marakoudja.com/?p=293?&lang=en

Tags: negotiation, project management, training, Use stories for sales