The Discipline of Project Justification: Part 7 – Creating Story Boards

By Tom DeVroy
VP of Sales

When selling software, the most difficult kind of users to win over are end users. Senior managers tend to have some vision or preset notion of how they would like things to run in the future versus how they run today. They think in terms of efficiencies, overlapping processes and increase productivity. The Future-State model.

End users, on the other hand, don’t think in terms of change. They think about how things work today, and the steps they need to take to get their job done. The Current-State model. Therefore, the prospect of change, especially is not explained well by management, creates a lot of anxiety for end users.

To dispel this anxiety, managers need to help end users look past the Current State, and help them visualize the Future-State. To so this, it is essential that management and project leaders clearly map out the path for change and how it will affect the end user. They need to explain to the user community how their job will look in the future, and that the new system is just a tool to help them do their jobs better, faster, more easily.

At Metrix, we use the creation of story boards to help explain the path for change for new processes. This usually takes the form of a flow chart or some other diagram that explains how processes will be performed and by whom. It’s even better when the application software vendor can demonstrate these new processes so people can visualize the new model, and their job function in it.

So if a simple narrative doesn’t do it, take the time to define the future state, lay out how it affects people, and define what their new job responsibilities will look like when the new tool is selected.