Reflection –Storytelling

Challenge and selection

I was a project manager assistant of a multinational company. A project was aimed to optimize the  organization in terms of cost and value by increasing efficiency and reducing redundancy. The first phase  of the project is to gathering fact and data for process analysis. One of the most challenges factor was  there were a lot of people involved and we have to gain truly understanding of the objective of the  project. Talking about cost reduction is a very sensitive issue, as it can mislead the related parties to shut  down departments or lay off. To prevent the misunderstanding, storytelling was used to communicate  our project objective.

Application

We had asked for one representative of each department to be our team member. The project manager  and I went to each department to explain the project background and the objective. We decided that  informal atmosphere was appropriate, setting up room to be more relax and the way we talk in the  meeting was like telling the story. We used story to metaphor the project background and expected  deliverables we wish to achieve. We clearly explain the benefits of the project and identify the  timeframe. We spent a lot of time making sure that related parties have the same picture of the  objective of project as well as their deep understanding. We knew that the key success factor of the  project is coordination of all parties. We explained to both top manager level and lower level to clearly  understand what we are doing. We set up one-hour weekly meeting for team member to get together  to “break the ice”.

Insight and approach

Not only gaining coordination from all stakeholders, we also gain more insights of the current situation  of each department. Some information we gain after “break the ice” can help project to redesign  process of some department. Lessons learned was shared and used across functions. This opens up my  eyes that communicating between functions does not always have to be formal / powerpoint meeting (  the traditional way of meeting that one has to standup in front of everyone and talk). Storytelling can  bring people together and also useful tool to help people not only in for interpersonal but also for  corporate.

