FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: STORYBOARDING, THE DISNEY METHODOLOGY

[continued from the Last Post.]

Storyboarding Points to Note & Actions to be Taken

Points to Consider:

■ Storyboarding is vital for nurturing creative and critical thinking.

■ Storyboards can be used to formalise various types of communication.

■ Individuals and teams of all sizes can use storyboards to translate what they visualise into hard copy imagery concerning their: challenges, goals, constraints, problems, strategies, solutions, project work, and even their random idea generation.

■ Meetings can deliver real value in real time with storyboarding techniques.

■ All employees, regardless of their position in the hierarchy, should be encouraged to develop their storyboarding skills. The anonymity guaranteed by this technique serves to dissolve any barriers due to organisational hierarchies.

■ The storyboarding techniques, because of their inherently democratic nature, should be actively used within the marketplace as well as in the webbed ‘marketspace.’ This should enable the participants to include customers, suppliers, vendors, and even members of the general public. The technique can be put into effect either in ‘real’ or in ‘virtual’ space.

Suggested Actions to be Taken:

■ Train all employees in at least a few versions of storyboarding.

■ Ensure easy accessibility of storyboards for individuals and groups or teams, so that they can
be updated.

■ Use storyboarding in planning and strategising to develop and depict sequences, timelines, and project assignments. At no time must the storyboard be considered as a rigid device; one should feel free to modify, amplify, revise, update, as required.

■ Provide a ‘safe’ environment for storyboarding sessions. This enables anyone and everyone involved, to actively participate in the exercises without having to identify themselves if they choose to remain anonymous. This is relevant when dealing with sensitive issues.

■ Use storyboarding sessions to highlight the who, what, when, where, and how aspects of a situation. This exercise leads to immensely improved communication and a chain reaction of improvements. The visibility of the storyboarding technique lends itself to rapid idea generation, even in trying circumstances.

Modified and Adapted from Source: Capodagli & Jackson

[Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea.]