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Capture the Magic with Storyboards 195
to suggest how the cards might be clustered or positioned on the wall. As the
discussion proceeds, all miscellaneous ideas that don’t seem to fit anywhere
else are held onto and placed in one section of the board. Nothing is dis-
carded, no matter how useless it might seem, because you never know when
the idea offered at 10 a.m. will prove to be the perfect piece for solving the
puzzle at 2 p.m.
There are four main types of storyboards:
1. The idea board, which is used to develop a concept.
2. The planning board, which is an outline of the steps required to reach
the desired result.
3. The organization board, which determines who will be responsible for
what.
4. The communications board (highly visible as the process or project is
carried out), which allows a person or group to organize and commu-
nicate daily activities to those who need to know.
Regardless of what storyboarding is being used for, one thing remains
constant—its role in nurturing creative and critical thinking.
When it comes to the mechanics of storyboarding, people often ask the
practical question, “How much space do we need to adequately storyboard?”
There is no cut-and-dried answer because it depends on how many people
will be present at a meeting. Two people can storyboard very satisfactorily
in a small office for the purpose of visualizing their ideas or mapping out
potential solutions to a problem. In our experience, groups of more than 25
often suffer from the old mindset of the typical classroom where the teacher
speaks and the students are silent. This type of rigor mortis kills the intended
participation of storyboarding.
Every storyboarding session needs a facilitator, whose job it is to bring
everyone into the discussion with stimulating questions. The facilitator
should, as much as possible, let the participants run the meeting while still
maintaining control and not letting the discussion get out of hand.
Criticism should be avoided, no matter how off-the-wall the suggestions
might seem. An informal atmosphere and encouraging words will produce the
greatest number of ideas. To that end, the facilitator strives to promote posi-
tive thinking and to create a consensus, although he or she must be careful not
to terminate a discussion. Ideas must flow freely to their logical conclusions.