Don’t convince. Inspire! - Lessons on storytelling by Petra Wille

A good story paints a picture of a desirable future. It makes it clear why someone should become part of this future and suggests a common goal with just enough information to make the next steps clear for listeners. 

For product managers, this means getting others to buy into a strategy and make trade-off decisions during the product creation process. It also helps users and customers understand the value of the product and how it could upgrade their lives. 

• Make time: A good story can save hours of meeting times trying to convince stakeholders. 
• Overcome the fear of the blank page: Start with a simple solution of “We want to ___. In order to ___. Because if we don’t, ___.”
• Decide who is at the centre: This can either be the customer or your team. 
• Check if the story is painting a desirable future: Explains why the audience should want to be a part of that future.
• Run casual interviews: Talking to your team can enable you to get a sense of any internal reservations they may have. 
• Create a sense of urgency and present information that enables action.

There are three ways to get your message or story across: written, spoken, or illustrated. A short story should be no more than 150 words or 75 seconds.

A medium story should be 900 words or 6 minutes long and can be broken down into three acts of a play of 300 words each. In this approach the simplest thing to do is to tell the audience what you will tell them, tell them, then repeat what you told them for emphasis.

Finally, a long story can be broken down into three acts of 800 words each or no more than 18 minutes long. Here pictures and illustrations can be useful. 

The key takeaways from this talk are that humans automatically think in stories and good stories trigger something in us. They can be useful to facilitate group work, and storytelling is a skill that everyone can learn; it only takes a few ingredients and structures to get started.