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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