Introducing narrative architecture: a minimalist approach to projects

Master the five elements of narrative architecture to radically simplify project design and delivery

Photo by Fabrizio Chiagano on Unsplash

My hot take after a decade of navigating the frustrations of running enterprise-scale projects? For the vast majority of stuff we need to get done, we can ditch the detailed frameworks that dissolve in the real, complex, and messy world anyway.

Keep it simple. Use a narrative architecture.

Far from being a framework, narrative architecture is a way of treating projects as an evolutionary process.

The approach integrates principles from various project management methodologies, technology architecture approaches, narrative theory, design thinking, and complex systems design to provide a minimalist, user-centered, and value-driven way of designing and managing projects effectively.

What is a narrative architecture and why do I need one?

Our work does not occur in a vacuum — it takes place within the context of a set of values and incentives that drive the interests and behaviours of stakeholders.

These are manifest in the form of narratives within a particular context — the stories we tell about the way things are, what we do, and why we do it.

One simple but sophisticated way of aggregating project activity into low-maintenance but connected and relevant groupings is to develop a narrative architecture.

A narrative architecture refers to the structure and organisation of the story or narrative surrounding a project or initiative. It includes how information is presented, the flow of the narrative about the project work, and its overall coherence. A narrative architecture is alive, and it grows and evolves throughout the lifespan of a project.

Using an evolving narrative architecture simplifies even complex projects by focusing on five key elements:

1. Narrative interface: The coherent story you tell about the project to your stakeholders in the form of a visual list consisting of categories of value-adding activity.
2. Reporting schema: How you break down that value-adding activity into sensible groupings for reporting, always aligned and visually traceable to the narrative interface’s listed categories.
3. Work orchestration schema: How you translate the reporting schema into its natural streams of activity that are easy to coordinate and talk about in a coherent way.
4. Work orchestration tooling: How you implement the work orchestration schema within your selected project management or workflow tooling.
5. The principle of interoperability: All four levels of the narrative architecture use the same listed categories such that each level has successively more detail than the level above and higher levels only point to detail by reference.

A key benefit of working in this way is that it keeps project documentation to the most radical minimum and avoids creating duplicate sources of information that start to diverge over time… Worst. When your project information sources diverge, not only does it multiply your documentation overhead, which is the most diabolical waste of human creativity imaginable, but it can ultimately disconnect your stakeholders from understanding the progress towards realising the value of the work, jeopardising delivery and even discouraging re-investment in your endeavour.

Goodbye analytical reductionism, my old friend

Upon first inspection, narrative architecture may appear to be a quintessentially reductionist approach. But, this is why both upwards and downwards causation must be considered in the process of defining the listed categories in your narrative interface. This means that when new value themes emerge from the work itself, these should percolate back up into the narrative interface, restructuring the schema and work levels below accordingly; the result is a system of project organisation rooted in synthetic holism.

By ensuring these elements work together seamlessly, it streamlines project management, communication, and execution. It does not require a finished project plan but rather focuses on configuring a coherent narrative as a context in which project activity self-organises towards beneficial outcomes for the stakeholder ecosystem.

Sold! So, how do I make one?

A narrative architecture is established by maintaining a single conceptual narrative interface that is interoperable with the reporting schema (how and where you talk about the work with the people who care about it), the work orchestration schema (how and where you coordinate the work with the people who do it), and the work orchestration tooling (the tools you use to do this).

Let’s break that down.

Element 1: Narrative Interface

The concept of a narrative interface draws from the principles of user interface design and storytelling. In user interface design, the interface serves as the bridge between users and the underlying system or information. Similarly, in narrative architecture, the narrative interface serves as the bridge between stakeholders and the project’s data and processes.

What makes for a good narrative interface? It’s pretty simple: you organise and talk about work in ways that are easy to translate into the language used by your stakeholders to describe what they value.

By applying design thinking principles, project managers can generate categories of value in the narrative interface that are meaningful, relevant, and engaging to stakeholders. This ensures that the project aligns with stakeholder priorities and goals, leading to greater satisfaction and success.

Element 2: Reporting Schema

A reporting schema refers to the structure or framework used to organise and present data for reporting purposes. It defines the data elements (in this case, the project activities), their relationships, and the format in which they are presented to facilitate analysis and decision-making.

By translating categories of value from the narrative interface into a reporting schema (in the form of user stories, for example), project managers can effectively track progress, communicate with stakeholders, and ensure that the project stays aligned with things people actually value.

Element 3: Work Orchestration Schema

A work orchestration schema defines how tasks, processes, and resources are organised and coordinated to achieve specific goals or outcomes within a project or organisation. It encompasses workflows, dependencies, roles, and responsibilities.

By translating categories of value from the narrative interface into the work orchestration schema, project managers can ensure that project tasks are aligned with those very same things that people actually value, not grouped arbitrarily and followed slavishly in a way that could lead to a misalignment of focus.

Element 4: Work Orchestration Tooling

Work orchestration tooling refers to software platforms or systems used to plan, organise, track, and manage the execution of project tasks, processes, and resources. These tools facilitate the implementation of the work orchestration schema by providing features such as task assignment, scheduling, progress tracking, and collaboration.

Translating the work orchestration schema into the work orchestration tooling using the categories from the narrative interface helps the project team self-organise delivery around the highest-value activities, and report progress accordingly.

By implementing the work orchestration schema in a simple Kanban board as your selected tooling, you can visualise and manage project tasks effectively, ensuring that work progresses smoothly through the defined workflow stages and aligns with, you guessed it, the things people actually value.

To maintain radical minimalism and interoperability, organise the ‘buckets’ in your Kanban board according to the listed categories of work defined by the reporting schema and narrative interface. This will make it easy to communicate with stakeholders in language they understand.

Element 5: Principle of Interoperability

The goal of interoperability is to realise radical minimalism and its associated benefits.

Now, regarding interoperability between the reporting and work orchestration schemas:

Interoperability in this context refers to the ability of the reporting schema and the work orchestration schema to work together seamlessly. It means that the data captured and organised within the work orchestration schema can be easily translated into meaningful reports using the reporting schema.

For example, if a task in a work orchestration schema is completed, the data related to this completion should be recorded in a format that aligns with the reporting schema, ensuring that the information can be readily accessed and analysed for reporting purposes.

In simpler terms, interoperability between the two schemas ensures that the work being done is not only tracked effectively but can also be accurately reported on without significant translation or transformation efforts. This streamlines communication and decision-making processes for both project managers and stakeholders.

When reporting and work orchestration schemas are interoperable and related to narratives that project stakeholders understand and care about, it reduces governance overhead in several ways:

1. Streamlined Communication: Stakeholders can easily understand and track project progress without needing to decipher complex reports or work structures. This reduces the need for extensive communication and clarification, saving time and effort for project managers and team members.
2. Aligned Decision-Making: Interoperability ensures that the data presented in reports directly reflects the progress and status of the work being done. This alignment allows stakeholders to make informed decisions based on real-time information without the need for additional validation or interpretation.
3. Efficient Resource Allocation: With clear visibility into both the work being done and the corresponding reports, stakeholders can allocate resources more efficiently. They can identify areas that require additional support or attention and make adjustments as needed to keep the project on track.
4. Reduced Reporting Burden: When the reporting schema is closely aligned with the work orchestration schema, reporting becomes a natural byproduct of the work itself. This reduces the need for separate reporting processes and minimises the burden on project managers and team members to manually generate and update reports.
5. Faster Issue Resolution: When discrepancies or issues arise, stakeholders can quickly identify and address them because the data in both schemas tells a coherent story. This leads to faster problem resolution and minimises the impact of issues on project timelines and outcomes.

Overall, reducing governance overhead through radical minimalism and interoperability ensures that project governance remains effective without adding unnecessary complexity or administrative burden. True to the ethos of Agile, radical minimalism is great because it enables stakeholders to focus on driving project success rather than getting bogged down in administrative tasks.

Implementing your narrative architecture

Once you have gone through a couple of quick iterations of Elements 1 to 3, move swiftly along to Element 4, all the while keeping the Fifth Element in mind.

Yes, this is the real reason I decided that there should be five elements in a narrative architecture: I love that movie. After all, what is interoperability if not a machine’s way of saying ‘I see you and I love you’?

🐅 A quick illustration of a narrative architecture for a fictional tiger conservation project 🐅

🐅 The quickest Kanban mockup ever 🐅

Why narrative architecture is awesome

Narrative architecture is not entirely new; instead, it represents a fresh approach to project management that combines several effective cross-disciplinary techniques in a radically minimalistic way. It takes inspiration from various fields such as project management methodologies, technology architecture, design thinking, and narrative theory. Here’s why this approach is awesome:

1. Cross-Disciplinary Synergy: Narrative architecture brings together insights and best practices from diverse disciplines. By integrating elements from project management, technology architecture, design thinking, and narrative theory, it creates a holistic approach that addresses multiple dimensions of project success.
2. Minimalistic Approach: The beauty of narrative architecture lies in its simplicity. It strips away unnecessary complexity and focuses only on the essential elements needed to manage projects effectively.
3. Customisation and Flexibility: Narrative architecture is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, it provides a flexible approach that can be tailored to the unique needs and requirements of each project.
4. User-Centered Focus: By incorporating principles from design thinking and user-centered design, narrative architecture places a strong emphasis on understanding and meeting the needs of stakeholders. This ensures that projects are not only functional but also resonate emotionally with those involved, leading to greater engagement and satisfaction.
5. Clear Communication: The storytelling aspect of narrative architecture makes project goals and progress more engaging and understandable to stakeholders. It provides a common language and narrative thread that guides decision-making, fosters collaboration, and ensures everyone is aligned towards the same objectives.
6. Efficiency and Effectiveness: By combining proven techniques in a minimalist way, narrative architecture promotes efficiency and effectiveness in project management. It reduces overhead, eliminates redundancy, and focuses resources on activities that create the most value, leading to better outcomes with fewer resources.

But does it really work? A personal perspective

Have you ever been on a camping trip and had to eat cereal out of a mug using a pocketknife?

This is pretty much what it has been like for me, as a designer, to try and manage my own projects.

I have often found myself working in small teams that needed to achieve a lot with limited resources, so I have tended to play both roles and this has been a recipe for burnout.

I will never be as effective at detailed governance as a conscientious project manager because I am just better at leading and executing the design work itself. I have repeatedly fried myself trying to be both in equal measure, so I needed to come up with a way to maximise the time I could spend on creative design work and radically minimise the amount of time I spent managing and coordinating the work of my teams.

As a designer who low-key hates doing project management, narrative architecture has worked well for me.

With just a single planning spreadsheet, a few formal governance artefacts, a couple of Confluence pages, and a Kanban board, my team of four coordinated activity across over 100 stakeholders to deliver several complex learning interventions in under two years, reaching over 500,000 learners.

During the early part of this process I was still learning, and upon reflection, it was harder than it needed to be. As time wore on and we ran out of steam, we needed to get better at doing more with less.

By adopting a minimalist approach and leveraging the principles of narrative architecture, we were able to streamline our processes, focus on the most impactful activities, and communicate effectively with stakeholders at all levels. This allowed us to achieve widespread engagement and success while maximising efficiency and choosing wisely how to spend our precious time and energy, and avoid (further) burnout.

My advice: start with a narrative architecture

While it is entirely possible to retrofit a narrative architecture to your existing projects — and that can be a good way of identifying where you are expending energy on non value-add activity — it is really hard to wrap your arms around the considerable miscellany that builds up in projects (and business operations) over time. It is waaay easier to start with a narrative architecture and allow activity to flow from that.

In conclusion

In essence, narrative architecture represents a synthesis of existing knowledge and practices into a cohesive and impactful approach for managing projects. Its minimalist approach and cross-disciplinary nature make it a powerful tool for project managers — and people who are not project managers — who are seeking to simplify complexity, engage stakeholders, and deliver successful outcomes without depleting team wellbeing.

By framing projects within a compelling narrative and aligning all elements of project management around it, you create a context in which clear value realisation is the natural outcome of work.

“So, you’re saying that narrative architecture makes space for more of the fun, interesting, creative stuff with less of the faff? And, I can land complex projects without a zillion PM certs?”

Yes, indeed. Just give it a try and you’ll reach the same conclusion.

🙄 TL;DR 🙄

My hot take on managing projects in a radically minimalist way? Forget complex frameworks. Use narrative architecture — a way of treating projects as an evolving process.

It integrates principles from various methodologies to manage projects effectively, focusing on five key elements:

1. Narrative interface: Visual list of value-adding activities for stakeholders.
2. Reporting schema: Breaks down activity for easy reporting.
3. Work orchestration schema: Coordinates activities coherently.
4. Work orchestration tooling: Implements the schema in project management tools.
5. Principle of interoperability: Ensures coherence across all levels.

Narrative architecture keeps documentation minimal, avoiding divergence in project information sources.

It’s awesome because it combines insights from various disciplines, is customizable, user-centered, promotes clear communication, and improves efficiency.

Personal perspective: As a designer managing projects, narrative architecture has streamlined processes, improved communication, and prevented burnout.

Start with narrative architecture to simplify complexity and allow activity to flow naturally.

In conclusion, it’s a powerful tool for managing projects, aligning stakeholders, and delivering successful outcomes without overwhelming complexity. Give it a try, and you’ll see the benefits.

K, byeee.

🐅