Visualizing the Unseen: How Storyboards Turn Twisting Talks into Clear Pictures

Sketching Conversations

You do not need talent to be able to draw. Either you draw just something that would represent what you are thinking of or you choose an image drawn by someone else that would help you.

In any case, there are a lot of AHA moments happening after a team visualizes their thoughts when they have an intense discussion. Suddenly, it is all clear and they are seeing each other’s perspectives fast and easy.

So why not use images instead of discussing and interpreting what others might think?

If you want to know why we remember images and forget words and understand the neuroscience behind this, check out this article.

In this post, I will match the story behind the Sketching Storyboards of Ben Crothers and how I would use them in the workshops and training I design.

Short Interview with Ben Crothers:

Who are you and why do you love sketching so much?

Answer Ben: What a great question! I can't believe that nobody has ever asked me this. I am a designer by profession, with a lifelong love of drawing, in all its forms. Over the course of about 20 years, i’ve expanded from design into facilitation, strategy, and training... all things I'm sure you and your readers can relate to! I love drawing because it's an escape, a meditation, and a fun thing to do, as much as it's a way of revealing and illuminating the invisible and the intangible. 

How did you come up with the Sketching Storyboards idea?

Answer Ben: As a kid, I always drew comics, along with a few of my friends. So, from when I first started as a designer, drawing storyboards came really naturally to me. I always drew storyboards showing customers in existing or envisioned experiences, and I'd show them during critique sessions, and clients and stakeholders always LOVED them. Everyone I work with always sees the value of storyboards but doesn't always feel confident in drawing. So, I thought I'd (finally!) create a kit that had enough elements in it that others could use to make storyboards themselves, without having to draw.

Where do you think people will be finding good use of them?

Answer Ben: Drawing storyboards is a fantastic way to bring your ideas to life, especially if those ideas involve customers or employees using products or services. Storyboards are therefore a great way for you and/or a group in any kind of workshop to develop and share ideas with each other. 

They're also useful for illustrating research results, planning out how a campaign or event would be experienced, and even in Change Management activities, to help communicate to employees how a certain change might affect them. I've even used them in usability testing sessions with customers, to gauge their responses to new feature ideas. In this way, storyboards are a rapid way of prototyping and testing ideas, before any production is done.

Can you combine the Miro free board with the package of sketching storyboards?

Answer Ben: Absolutely! The free Storyboarding Kit Miro template has over 150 hand-drawn visual assets for you to create storyboards, but the full Presto Sketching Storyboard Kit has over 550 visual assets. That means you can bring in your favorite parts of the full kit into your Miro board, and get your whole team to use it all together! 

Is there any event where the readers might find you and learn more from you?

Answer Ben: Definitely! I'll be conducting 2 days of in-depth in-person interactive training, called 'Facilitation Skills for Agile Professionals' soon. That's in Antwerp, Belgium, 7-8 September. And yes, there will be drawing involved! Your readers might also like to check out my brand new online course, called 'Drawing for Work', which is all about helping you explore and explain complex business information visually, with some powerful visual frameworks and drawing skills. It includes 3 lessons on storyboarding, too!

Where would I use the sketching storyboards? Examples:

Adding visualization to the steps of a storyboard:

This is an example from a teambuiding where the participants wanted to come up with tangible steps on how to put into practice the initiatives related to the digital product they work on:

In a Design Sprint Storyboard when the steps for the product prototype are visualized - adding more people to the steps creates emotions and connections between the tangible steps and the human part of the process is created - if the workshop is done in person, I will print and cut the persons and dialogues drawings to be used:

In a Design Sprint concept: many of the concepts are abstract and adding humans pictures, dialogues, and images for specific parts would create a better and fast understanding of the concepts also when voting on them:

Resources:

• Miroverse free storyboarding toolkit created by Ben Crothers

• Sketching Storyboard Toolkit with over 550 images for creating visual stories

• Article about the power of visualizing

• Facilitation skills for Agile professionals - visual facilitation mindset, skillset, and toolset

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