Page 216 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company
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Capture the Magic with Storyboards           197



                             The Mighty Marker

          Storyboarding was used throughout the two-year life of the Whirlpool
          Global No-Frost team. Everyone participated. We kept cards and mark-
          ers on hand, and we would hand them out whenever scheduling or other
          questions arose. The cards were particularly effective with cross-functional
          teams as people’s different functions seemed to encourage participation.
          According to Jerry, “A bunch of engineers in a room will produce few cards,
          but when they are joined by manufacturing, purchasing, and marketing,
          diverse points of view come up on the boards, and discussion can become
          extremely lively, heated, and finally productive.”
             Storyboarding, Jerry found, was a valuable way to get ideas and reac-
          tions out of team members. If a deadline was under discussion, he didn’t
          want the team members sitting back and saying silently to themselves, “This
          will never be.” He told them he wanted everybody’s opinions on the cards
          because only when the barriers are spelled out is it possible to overcome
          them. “They don’t want to stand up and talk about their doubts, so story-
          boarding is a way for people to get their thoughts on cards anonymously.
          It’s a tremendously helpful technique for seeing a way of eliminating bar-
          riers.” It was also a way for the team to reach a consensus and to figure out
          exactly where each subteam stood within the overall schedule.






                       Our Featured Organization:
                              John Robert’s Spa


          A NEW STYLE OF VISUALIZATION
          The Disney organization performs a balancing act in three areas: a quality
          cast experience; a quality guest experience, and a quality business experience.
          As an avid implementer of Disney’s method, John DiJulius, cofounder of
          John Robert’s, credits the storyboard process for helping his team achieve
          that balance. “We have weekly meetings on Tuesday mornings where our
          managers storyboard,” said John. “We actually stopped doing this at one
          point and said ‘Let’s go to a monthly meeting,’ but we found out that was
          a bad experience.” 70
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