Storyboarding - Prototyping the Future

I was watching the DisneyPlus? channel this evening, and at the end of any Star Wars program episode, they run a whole raft of hand-drawn images.?Put in the proper sequence along with narration, they could easily tell the entire story of the episode.

Jump over to my lovely wife, Nancy.?She’s a big believer in “visioning”. She maintains a vision board in her office, with images that reflect her visualization of the future.?Put in the proper sequence along with narration, they could (in her ideal) tell the story of her life to be.?

Even the Project Management Professional?’s certification exam delves into the notion of storyboarding.?It’s seen as a project planning technique.?It’s a powerful way to get others to share a common vision through a simple, visual prototype.

My image here represents the latest image of how I’m faring in retirement.?I actually had someone say to me the other day, You’re looking better!?The emphasis was on how I looked.?For anyone who’s ever had a dream car, a dream dog, a dream date…it’s about how they look.?We don’t hang posters of a beat-up 1957 Chevy.?We hang posters of a perfected vision of that vehicle.?

Using Storyboards to Build a Vision

Before you can share that image of perfection, you need to determine what it looks like.?The finished project.?The finished dinner.?The happy customer.?The united team.?Image-wise, how does that manifest itself??If you can get others on your team to see it the way you see it, you’ve arrived.?If you can create a series of images that take you from now to then??You have a path.?You have a journey.?If others can “see” the same journey, you can take them along.?It’s a prototype of the highest order.?When the prototype is built, there’s no need to explain the approach or the methodology.?It’s simply a matter of getting to the objective.?

Using Storyboards to Implement a Vision

If I show you a picture of a park in beautiful, downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, explaining that Point State Park is our objective, there are a million different ways to get there.?But as long as the team knows what the objective is and are willing to pursue it, they can find a way there. ?GPS.?Map.?Personal familiarity.?Should we care about “how?”?Only in rare cases does only one approach drive to a specific outcome.??

What happens if I afford team members latitude to do it their way??In some cases, we’ll need to backtrack to ensure that all the pieces fit together (an indicator we could have used a few more storyboards).?In all cases, the team members have a much higher sense of autonomy and a greater understanding of their role in the process.?They didn’t have to follow some Byzantine procedure.?They followed their GPS.?They followed their own map.?

Using Storyboards to Create an Archive

One of the reasons I love the DisneyPlus? storyboards is that they remind me of the best aspects and highlights of the program I just watched.?One of the reasons I love my wife’s vision boards in her office is that they represent some of the best-is-yet-to-come aspects of our family life, as well as some of the best moments from the past.?One of the reasons I love storyboarding for projects is that they convey not only the direction, but the personality of the project.?

Trying It Out

My eldest son had a vision of his future when he was two years old.?He fell in love with dinosaurs.?They pervaded our house.?Posters and 3D models were everywhere.?And he’s now the assistant curator of paleontology for the Virginia Museum of Natural History.?My youngest son didn’t have all the trappings of his profession, but got a clear vision during his training for his Commercial Drivers’ License.?He got the feel and flavor of riding in the cab of a big rig.?He had his prototype experience.?Both men are successful in their crafts.?

My wife has seen many of the elements on her vision board realized through the years, from home to the tropics to her love of meditation and Scottsdale, Arizona.?For me, right now, it’s images of a happy, healthier me like the one that prefaced this article.?

Today

Today, you can get started.?A single image is the start to the storyboard.?A sequence of images is the path through the journey.?The final image??The ultimate goal.?Peter Drucker (the king of the SMART objective) would be proud.?The image drives to a specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-limited end game.?

With the images that take us there, it’s a slightly easier game to win.