CHALLENGE

In the Company I work for, there is a division that sells chemical products for agriculture, and I  was assigned to one of their projects. The final clients or users of this project are farmers and  people directly related to the agriculture who has a great knowledge but a limited vocabulary.  They are people who daily deal with new technologies and complex products in their jobs, but  have a simple life. This people can keep a lot of information in their minds, but have difficulty  to use computers and technological tools. They are tough facing natural dangers in their fields,  but are very vulnerable when negotiating with banks, buyers or any other entity that they  need to deal with. For my company is very important that they understand we are a partner,  have same interests and that they can see in us a powerful tool for them to grow up as a  farmer and as a company that needs earnings from their products. We need to understand  them a have empathy with them and their ways of life. We need them to see us as a friend at  work.

SELECTION

In order to have an emotional connection with our clients, I selected the tool Storytelling to be  use in interviews with the farmers. I believed our clients have always trusted in our company  because of the several years of experience, the good results and the good image it has have.  (see minute 0:57 of video Storytelling Tool from Week 2). Taking into account the limits  farmers have in their work, described in the first paragraph, I thought that using Storytelling  was the best way to achieve that our company and clients understand each other and have the  best feedback from them as well. Our company could share knowledge, experience, good  practices and got a win-win relationship with the farmers.

APPLICATION

The project I was assigned to, had the main objective of collecting all possible information  related to personal data, properties, products, tools, methodologies, work calendars, and all  other information related to their daily tasks. But we needed to digitalize the information and  kept a digital channel with the farmer in order to share and update the information every day.  Since most of them didn’t have the necessary skills to manage technological devices we  needed to use at that time, we first of all, told them our own stories and examples of  overcoming. At the end, the sales representatives I chose to do the interviews are agronomists  who were born in farmers and somehow had the same limits they have now. As a second step,  our sales representatives gave them training in the use of devices using the language they got  used to it, with simple vocabulary, face to face, in their own environment.  (see minute 5:00 of  video Storytelling Tool from Week 2).

One of things we didn’t do it right, was a few wrong assumptions we defined before the  interviews. For example, that every client had at least a cellphone (even that it isn’t a  smartphone), and that they always carried it with them. An important amount of clients didn’t  have any mobile at all, and those who had one, they used it once in the morning and once at  night. We also thought they have enough time to talk with our sales representatives and let  them tell their stories, give us a feedback and take notes of the entire interview.

INSIGHT

Based on the experience from the application of the tool, I improved my way of start a  connection with the final user (or audience) of a project in the initial phase. I also learn about

the needs of the clients and how to mitigate the gaps in communication and getting empathy  with the customers. Through the using of Storytelling in the interviews, we gained their trust  and consequently, a wider and sincere feedback from them. By let them know we also have to  face obstacles in our daily work, they felt comfortable in the interviews and gave us all the  information we need in order to help them to face these barriers, and they are now interested  in modernize some of their tools. Now I am 100% sure that Storytelling is an effective tool for  the good relationship between company and farmers.

APPROACH

From the lessons learned documentation I did in this project, I have a better understanding of  the Storytelling tool and how to apply it. I know now that, before planning the interviews, I  must do a better research and learn about the people who will be related to the project and  will be interviewed. I learned that I have to tune up a little more the list of assumptions.

For next challenges with a similar audience target, I will use the tool “Storytelling” since the  very beginning, because I have better skills in having attention from the audience. Other thing I  will avoid is to let some managers and stakeholders out of the tool scope, in other words, I will  involve them in the planning of the stories to tell, I will let them to share their stories too,  because that is best way to make a strong connection between all the project members and  final users.

