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Capture the Magic with Storyboards 187

taking shape as Disney wanted, changes could be made before the expensive
work of animation was begun. The storyboard made it possible for Disney to
experiment, to move drawings around, to change direction, to insert some-
thing he thought was missing, or to discard a sequence that wasn’t working.
And he could do all this before the animator had spent countless hours pains-
takingly putting in the final details.
Decades later, in the 1960s, the display technique was picked up by
Disney’s employee development program when the staff recognized its value
for generating solutions to problems and enhancing communications in other
areas. The refined storyboard concept has since been adapted to a variety of
problem-solving situations in which the introduction of the visual element
makes interconnections more readily apparent. As the participants pin cards
to the wall, the team begins to develop various alternatives to solving the
problem at hand.
Why doesn’t a flip chart on an easel, a method often used in brainstorm-
ing sessions, work as well as a storyboard? On a flip chart, participants can see
only one step at a time and therefore fail to get an overall picture. Moreover,
flip charts can quickly become virtually unreadable as new ideas are inserted,
old ideas are scratched out or moved around, and large arrows are left pointing
nowhere. In addition, the lack of anonymity in brainstorming—participants
must voice their ideas publicly—contributes a certain unease that discour-
ages contributions. Our experience with both storyboarding and brain-
storming allows us to make concrete comparisons in this regard: Whereas a
60-minute brainstorming session with 14 participants produces, on average,
42 utterances (questions, ideas, or comments), a storyboard session of the
same size and duration typically produces anywhere from 150 to 300 utter-
ances! Our studies have shown that in a typical 14-person brainstorming
session, 5 participants produce 80 percent of the utterances, 5 participants
produce 20 percent of the utterances, and the remaining 4 participants are
observers of the meeting. In a storyboard session, all members of the group
are active participants.
Anyone who has participated in the traditional, inefficient problem-solving
meeting knows the drudgery of endless discussion, time-wasting repetitions,
and lengthy explanations. Since only one person can talk at a time, most
people’s minds wander from the topic being discussed to the job waiting for
them back at their desks. And invariably, a single participant tends to domi-
nate the discussion. When the meeting finally drones to a close, it is virtually
impossible to remember much of what was said.