Open Source Libs 👉Storytelling 👉Lean Storytelling

Lean Storytelling

Lean storytelling: pitch and share your business idea in one minute

What Lean Storytelling is:

Technique to tell stories easily, using common good practices, to be understood by your audience

It is a basic set of recipes to help shape a story
It is quite easy to read and understand, but difficult to master
Fit for a products and features development, not to be a succesful Hollywood screenwriter or awarded novelist
Usable from early stage to delivery: empathy, problem discovery, ideation, specs, development, test, deployment, communication, sales, advertising, explainer videos, documentation
Keep everyone in sync and aligned across different teams, remove some of the natural friction
People will understand the "why", the goal, the guiding light
Inspired by Lean Canvas, Monomyth, and The Golden Circle
Roots in Agile, Lean Startup, Design Thinking, UX research
Very simple and humble, voluntarily limited by design, using the systemic approach

Overview of the playbook

Tell a story, using the base ingredients.
If you want/need to detail, use the options.
Try, learn, get feedback, remix, change, and adapt to your audience, always & continuously!
If you reduce your story to the bare minimum, just a few words, you might land on your Unique Value Proposition (UVP).
If you want to seriously learn strong story telling techniques, read the right litterature.
This story telling technique differentiates: it is lean and agile, not generic, more dedicated to businesses

Basic story

Target
Problem
Solution

Detailed story

Target
- Empathy
Problem
- Consequences
Solution
- Benefits

Full story

Context
Target
- Empathy
Problem
- Consequences
Solution
- Benefits
Why

Extension pack

Add any item, wherever you feel:

Alternatives
Competition
Unfair advantage
Challenge, question mark
Self-benefits
Stages in AARRR
Warnings
Quote

Summary

Core items	Detail items	Complete story
		Context: where and when, the surroundings of the hero
Target, the hero, who it is about
	Empathy, what the hero sees and feels
Problem the hero faces, that slows down (NOT the absence of YOUR solution)
	Consequences of the problem
Solution, what you offer, and how
	Benefits, the advantages your solution delivers
		Why, he guiding light, your internal compass

Q&A, FAQ

What is Lean Storytelling ("TopSol Playbook")?

Lean Storytelling ("TopSol Playbook") is a set of recipes, templates and good practices, to help you shape your story telling. It is a guidance aimed at business-oriented people, like product owners/managers, scrum masters, agile coaches, marketing people, sales people, founders and C-levels CxO.

Story telling, you say? What else?

Lean Storytelling ("TopSol Playbook") may help you tell stories, but also may help you shape your {unique|key} value proposition.

How is it used? From A to Z?

It can be used to:

describe a User Story or Epic, within an Agile team, using Scrum or Kanban, allows to project and better picture the expected outcome
in a customer interview, test a solution, or a {unique|key} value proposition, validate or invalidate, persist or pivot, useful for Lean Startup and Design Thinking approaches
sell a solution, product, or feature

Lean Storytelling helps you synchronise and align all the people involed in the User Story factory/pipeline.

What does "TopSol Playbook" stand for?

Playbook, because I didn't want another "framework" ;-) and to underline it is not an advanced story telling technique
TopSol, because To-P-Sol:
- To: Target, the people and personas you are targetting with your product or service
- P: Problem, the problem they face and suffer from, that is worth fixing
- Sol: Solution, the solution that you bring to your targets

Where does it come from?

Standing on shoulders of giants who stand on shoulders of giants, Lean Storytelling has its roots in:

the Lean Canvas approach by Ash Maurya, I highly recommend this free online course: https://www.udemy.com/lean-canvas-course/ by Ash Maurya.
Monomyth or "Hero's journey": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero's_journey
"Why How What" by Simon Sinek: https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action

What can I do to help?

Star this repository
Share this in your networks
Ask questions in the issues
Suggest modifications
Submit a patch or a merge request
Share your knowledge and experience

Lean Storytelling is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).

You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Can you organise a workshop?

Yes, for 10 persons max, ping me on:

Lean Storytelling