It is hard to pack a message in three frames. But if you can, it will be great. Let me know what you think. This is a hypothetical use case where the IT department of a company is monitoring the tweets of a new hire on her first day and proactively supporting her. 
Note: I made up this fictitious scene above. It is not from any specific project.
I tried this approach to create a 8 scene story. I was not sure how my colleagues at SAP will react to this approach. After the first discussion, to my surprise, we eliminated most of the PowerPoint slides with text and decided to use this story to convey our ideas and research to our team.
We requested a a colleague who neither wrote the story nor drew the pictures to narrate the story. She was able to narrate the story without any difficulty. I am confident that this approach is paying off.
Presenting to Colleagues
We presented a complete story with 8 scenes to our colleagues. We used one PowerPoint slide (which did not look like a PowerPoint slide) for every scene. The presentation was received very well. When we presented it to senior executives, they were able to jump into the story and discuss key aspects right away without worrying about the format. With a single glance, people were able to connect to the content of the story.
We presented a complete story with 8 scenes to our colleagues. We used one PowerPoint slide (which did not look like a PowerPoint slide) for every scene. The presentation was received very well. When we presented it to senior executives, they were able to jump into the story and discuss key aspects right away without worrying about the format. With a single glance, people were able to connect to the content of the story.
Construction of a Scene in a PowerPoint slide
1. Name of the story
2. Name of the Scene: This should be self explanatory.
3. The Comic Strip with two or three frames.
4. A short 2-3 line description of the scene with the design concepts highlighted.
5. A foot note with the design concepts and technical concepts covered in the scene. This is for the reference of the presented and to handle question and objections during the presentation.
2. Name of the Scene: This should be self explanatory.
3. The Comic Strip with two or three frames.
4. A short 2-3 line description of the scene with the design concepts highlighted.
5. A foot note with the design concepts and technical concepts covered in the scene. This is for the reference of the presented and to handle question and objections during the presentation.
Time
It takes a day to create a user story, if you have the story written down already.
It takes a day to create a user story, if you have the story written down already.
The next step is to take approach to customers. More on that later.
It need not be IT, it can just be a community of employees who help out newcomers at SAP, calling themselves "Welcome you newbies" akin to LINUX developer comm. or Facebook Garage communities. So a tweet or a buzz or a TALK or a Facebook update will churn this community to action!
ReplyDeleteBTW, whats the tool that you use for your personas?
Girish, Yes. Great idea. A community of employees can monitor tweets from a new employee and help them out. Tell me more about Facebook Garage. How does that work?
ReplyDeleteThere is no special tool to create these personas. I take a photograph, trace the outline in my tablet PC. It helps to have some drawing skills. But one does not have to be a seasoned artist. If you do not have a tablet PC, you can draw the outline using a sketch pen (The Sharpie brand pens work well) and scan the back side of the paper, where the outline is visible. Motivation is more important than skill.
ReplyDeleteGreat work Prashanth! In general, this is a very effective way to "visualize" use cases. Helps depict the scenario succinctly and doesn't leave much to the imagination. Product backlog documents and excel sheets with rows of requirements often trivialize the scenario and the user needs. This format can be a great segue into storyboards and wire-frames.
ReplyDeleteGirish, Kedar, The entire presentation to team tomorrow is based on this comic strip approach.
ReplyDelete