Think storytelling is just for Marketers? Think again, Product Managers!

Human brains are wired for stories. We are very good at remembering events and narratives – much better than, for example, raw facts without context. Consider the last presentation you saw. Was it just a listing of facts and figures? How many of them can you remember? Now think of a Disney movie you haven’t seen for 15 years. Why is it that you can remember the subtle details of that long-ago movie so clearly, but not the details of the presentation you saw last week? It has to do with how our memory works and our brain’s preference for capturing experiences and emotions instead of facts and figures. And though the scientific details of this are beyond the scope of this article, suffice it to say – utilizing storytelling techniques will make your ideas more memorable.

As a Product Manager, there are countless examples of how storytelling can help you be successful in the role. Here are a few:

Presenting your roadmap – You’ve put together a comprehensive product roadmap that fully supports your business strategy. But you need to convince your leadership team that things will be better for the business after executing this plan instead of doing something else.

Pitching a new product – You’ve made a new product, complete with all of the features you think your customers could want. But you need to convince them that they are better off buying your product than someone else’s – and that their world will be better if they buy yours.

Pitching yourself in a new job or role - Whether you are pursuing a job at a new company, or a new position within your existing company, you need to sell yourself. The interviewer must feel that their world will get better if they give you the job.

Hiring a new employee - In this case, you are selling you and your company not to an external customer, but a new hire. You need to convince them that their life will be better if they work for you.

In these examples, you could simply present the facts – the roadmap components, product features, attributes of your company, and your skills and capabilities – and let your listener determine what it could mean for them. But your argument will be far more powerful if you can make the connections easy to see through storytelling. Fortunately, turning your idea into a story isn’t that difficult if you have a framework to apply consistently. With practice, you can become a highly effective storyteller.

Choosing Your Characters

First, you must begin with ‘the big idea’. What is the single, specific message that you want your listener to take away? Resist the urge to cram in too much or the result will be no clear message at all. Examples could be:

• “If we execute this roadmap, our business will be more successful.”
• “If you buy our product, you can spend less time at work and more time at home with your family.”
• “You will be more successful in my job if you hire me.”
• “Working for this company will be a great step for your career.”

Once you have your main idea, identify your characters. There are primarily three characters in every story: the hero, the villain, and the mentor. First, it is critical to understand that in almost all cases, you are not the hero! You are the mentor or enabling character. Your audience is the hero, and your goal is for them to imagine their success if they accept your help.

There is a third character which you must identify – the villain. But before you do, it is crucial to understand your hero as thoroughly as you can. If you are attempting to write a story for an archetype (perhaps a typical customer of your product) instead of an individual, it may help to develop a persona to help with this step, complete with a fictitious name and photo. Or, simply think of the person that will hear your story.

In either case, what you must do is empathize with the individual or persona. Who are they – both on the job and outside of it? What are their values and goals? How do they identify themselves? An exercise to help with this can be to imagine yourself as your hero and write, “I am ______ and I want _______”, filling in as many traits and aspirations as possible until you feel you’ve captured their identity. Mapping out your hero’s personality is a critical step, because it enables you to identify their villains.

Next, choose the villain. While the villain is often a specific, evil character in Disney movies, it does not have to be so in your story. The villain could be the ‘broken’ status quo, or a cumbersome process currently being used. But whatever it is, it is critical that you choose a villain that will resonate with your audience – and that they will want to overcome.

To Be Continued…

Next time, we will discuss how to employ the ‘big idea’ and characters you’ve chosen in constructing your story arc. In the meantime, check out the BPMA Mentorship Breakfast video on storytelling from 2020.

Read Part II of this article, published on June 19th.

Adam Shulman is a Product Manager with extensive experience in software/hardware systems and a passion for music and audio technology. He is currently Product Lead for Installed Systems at Bose Professional and has been a member of the BPMA since 2016.

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