StoryProcess for Product Owners

Subinder Khurana
Nov 1 · 3 min read

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky made a strange decision. He hired Pixar Animators to help his Product team. What relevance does an animation artist have for a Product team? Why was this a brilliant strategy? How can you get similar benefits without the same budget?

We already write user stories for our features.

But what is missing in our Stories? Turns out, they are very functional, do not engage, do not touch hearts. How can you have passionate users without touching hearts?

Good products have great features & performance.

Great products help users get outcomes & ROI.

Awesome products make the user a Hero with your product as the superpower.

They tell a Story.

A normal user story is largely about features and their use case.

A good Product story on the other hand is all about the User, their dreams & aspirations, the villain & hurdles they face, and how they use a superpower (your product) to overcome the hurdles and create a happily-ever-after.

Experience is the Story your Customer Creates with your Product as the Superpower

A well-crafted story can change the customer perception and growth trajectory of your product

A product owner has to be a storyteller. A story that draws out the roadmap, simplifies feature lists, aligns the teams.

Storytelling is an art. But we are not artists. So how do you craft the story of your product?

We need a structured process.

A Systematic, Repeatable Process

StoryProcess is a system to create stories reliably, systematically and predictably. StoryProcess provides the architecture, underlying principles and process of building a story.

How do you build an effective Story?

Start with the user, and follow the following steps.

Story = Goal + Conflict + Resolution

  1. Know Your Audience
  2. Desire, Goal, Trigger
  3. Hurdle or conflict?
  4. How can you help Resolve the conflict?
  5. How did they Transform (feeling, outlook)?

What are the most important moments in the story?

You have to understand the most important, emotional moments in the Client’s journey, including the moments they are the most anxious, and make these moments awesome. That is the secret to creating a great user experience.

Storytelling is an art. But we are not artists. We need a structured Process

So why did Airbnb hire Pixar Animators?

The Animators were experts at storyboarding the whole client journey, including the little details, and eliciting the reactions & emotions of the characters. The storyboards were used to:

List the emotional moments that comprise an Airbnb stay

Built the most important moments into stories

Adapt their product to make those moments great

The great insight

The great insight was: Most of the story happens offline, OUTSIDE your product; such as when the guest first arrives at the host’s home. The team worked on how to help the users with those moments, pre-empt & address their concerns, support them through the process, and foster positive outcomes.

User Experience

Most people think of User Experience as simplicity, ease of use, pleasing look & feel. While this is part of the experience, it misses the Big point: Customer Experience is all in their Imagination. Experience is the Story your Customer Creates with your Product as the Superpower.

What Superpower do you want to give your user?

Everything about the product — your messaging, the features, the UI — should align with and communicate the Story.

A compelling story that will engage your users, inspire the team, and breathe life into your product!


Originally published at http://storyproc.com.

    Subinder Khurana

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