As you can tell I put a great deal of emphasis on the customer’s touchpoints and on a grander scale the Customer Experience. There are few companies that are better at delivering on the Customer Experience than Disney. Watch this short video and test your memory of visiting a Disney Theme park. What do you remember of the experience?
Disney’s core principles:
- Know the story is king.
- Utilize the newest technology to tell that ancient story in a new way.
- Coordinate the message across the media.
- Have the courage to innovate.
- Ride your uniqueness.
- Stay on message.
Disney understands the multi-media, multi-channel, multi-experience world they developed four score years ago (what are you thinking of now?). Take ownership of the word that describes your organization and you will live through it. Do you question what Disney stands for when you see the Castle?
When we set out to improve on Service Experience, many of us think of the firefighting methods we employ. When I think of improvement I think of how critical collaboration is to the process of generating ideas and problems in any organization. When you review the principles of PDCA and Kaizen, your ability to succeed really comes down to how good of a team you put together. Very few times in an initial read of a book; I started reading this for pleasure, have I ever stopped so soon in a book and reread an entire chapter.
From the book; Innovate the Pixar Way: Business Lessons from the World’s Most Creative Corporate Playground
What they really brought home was the importance of collaboration and building a team. They even discussed the great lengths they go to hire people who are interested in working in a “network” type environment in solving problems, building and supporting each other. Here is a short excerpt from the book; the definitions of a set of proficiencies by Bill Nelson of Pixar:
- Depth – demonstrating mastery in a subject or a principal skill; having the discipline to chase dreams all the way to the finish line.
- Breadth – possessing a vast array of experiences and interests having empathy for others; having the ability to explore insights from many different perspectives; and being able to effectively generate new ideas by collaborating with the entire team.
- Communications – focusing on the receiver; receiving feedback to ascertain whether the message sent was truly understood. Realizing only the receiver can say, “I understand!”
- Collaboration – bringing together the skills(depth, breadth, and communications), ideas, and personality styles of an entire team to achieve a shared vision. Fostering an attitude to say, “Yes, and…”, rather than “No, this is better.”
How can we incorporate Disney into our services and PDCA? I like to frame the PDCA cycle of Disney from one of their own sayings. Instead of Plan-Do-Check-Act, I think of it as Dream-Believe-Dare-Do. One of the interesting things about Agile Project Management is that you start with creating a user story. In the service process, how many times do you start with a customer/prospect telling you how use your product or service? I know we interview people or perform won/loss analysis, but I wanted to go an additional step. What if we would paint the picture of how a user interprets your service. If you take the Trilogy Journey Map and create a storyboard from this do you think the needed improvements would be more visible? Root cause would be easier to define. The master of telling the story is of course Disney and who better to help than the mouse himself.
Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service
“The first storyboards were originated in the Disney animation studios in the 1930’s. According to Walt Disney, the storyboard was invented by Web Smith, an animator and one the first story men at the studio. When Web planned a story, he would draw it instead of describing the action in words. At first he simply spread the drawings out over the floor of his office, but soon graduated to pinning them in order on to the walls. In this way, the unfolding story gains the valuable visual dimension. According to legend, Walt was none too happy with the innovation. He had just redecorated the offices and the marred walls in Webb’s office stuck out like a sore thumb. But Walt also recognized the order imposed by the posted drawings and the ease with which the entire feature could be analyzed and manipulated. So he ordered 4? x 8? corkboards and the storyboard was born.
Soon, every Disney cartoon came to life on the storyboard, and the board themselves moved to new departments as the project progressed. The story men would pitch their ideas to Walt on storyboard, color and sound were both added using the storyboard as reference point, etc. When Walt hijacked the studios innovators to design the attractions for Disney land, they brought the storyboard along with them. And today, it has evolved into a standard technique among the Imagineers.”
Mickey’s 10 Commandments:
- Know your audience: Before creating a setting, obtain a firm understanding of who will be using it.
- Where your guest shoes: That is, never forget the human factor. Evaluate your setting from the customer’s perspective by experiencing it as a customer.
- Organize the flow of people and ideas: Think of a setting as a story and tell that story is sequenced, organized way. Build the same order and logic into the design of customer involvement.
- Create a weenie: Borrowed from the slang of the silent film business, a weenie was what Walt Disney called a visual magnet. It means a visual landmark is used to orientate and attract customers.
- Communicate with visual learners to: Language is not always composed of words. Use the common languages of color, shape, and form to communicate through setting.
- Avoid-overload – create turn-ons: Do not bombard customers with data. Let them choose the information they want when they want it.
- Tell one story at a time: Mixing multiple stories in a single setting is confusing. Create one setting for each big idea.
- Avoid contradictions; maintain identity: Every detail of every setting should support and further your organizational identity and mission.
- For every ounce of treatment provided a ton of treat: Give your customers the highest value by building an interactive setting that gives them the opportunity to exercise all their senses.
- Keep it up: Never get complacent and always maintain your setting.
After applying these ten commandments, keep telling the story over and over again. Are you staying on track? Are you staying on-brand?
This storyboarding process used by Disney is just absolutely sensational. Disney was a storyboarding freak! Not only does a storyboard allow for a dress rehearsal of the final product but by the very fact of being posted on the wall,it elicits early feedback and encourages quick, painless editing, leading to significant savings in time and resources.
The above sounds like a good Value Stream Mapping Session? Below are the takeaways I received from this video and how I apply this 25 step process to Service is in parenthesis.
- Storyboard artist is a communicator (Marketing)
- Blueprint of movie before production (Customer’s Value Stream).
- Panels of the entire movie (Record all the Value and non-Value steps of the process)
- Use to develop a visual story (Create story in pictures(post-it-notes)
- Before expensive animation takes place (Plan before doing)
- Minimum amount of info but enough for a quick read (Post-it-note)
- Express what your feeling (Tell like it is)
- Drawing has to have meaning (Customer Value Defined)
- Storyteller must be a good pitch artist (Talk out loud and tell the story)
- Put it on a Story Reel?(Gemba)
- Leave the experts work the scenes they are strong at (Include others)
- Everyone must be aware of overall needs of story (Understand the big picture)
- If you show it graphically, you can do it! (Clarity = Flow)
- Cut out a lot of unnecessary work (Reduce the Non-Value added steps)
- Working together Storyboard artist and director (Sales and Marketing)
- Keeping everyone on the same page (Ditto)
- What if Scenarios (Reduce Risk)
- Start out with the important scenes (CTQ’s of Customer)
- Tool for staging (Our response)
- Prepare for the scene(Customer Engagement – Sales Calls)
- Develop story and character (Customer Support)
- Don’t become in love with an idea (Keep an open Mind)
- Every storyboard recorded – Change was OK! (If it doesn’t fit, throw it away!)
- Ideas are not necessarily used immediately (Accept Relevancy)
- Saved the unused work for future reference. (Backlog)
Storyboard should not be a a dry report but an active document that truly makes your project come alive! Storyboarding has become a popular way of transferring the details of a service project to a graphical representation. Very much like your child’s fifth grade science fair project. The purpose of course it gives the project team a way to summarize their efforts and let other people outside of the team understand their efforts. On the Lean side, I think that is why A3 reporting has become so popular. It is a graphical way of displaying the project. Though we are all not visual learners the majority of us find learning by stories and pictures and diagram much easier. I think there should be a happy medium somewhere between the Disney storyboard and the A3. However, if you error, error toward the Disney side.
As many of you already know, the PowerPoint presentation was developed by engineers for exactly the same reason that most develop an A3, to tell the story of a project. However, another purpose of a storyboard is to tell others outside of the team the story and maybe more importantly to solicit feedback from others. Try hanging your Storyboards in the hallway or cafeteria much like the trophy cases in a school. You may be surprised on the amount of activity and comments that it may stimulate. Ask for comments by placing a marker next to the board and ask for comments. Get people engaged in the planning process not just at the end.
You may create the typical PowerPoint utilizing SIPOC, VOC, House of Quality and other Six Sigma or Lean Tools. If you are on the team ask yourself, how will you get others engaged? Consider your audience, the storyboard is not about you it is about them. Take a lesson from Disney or even have your fifth grader help you on this project. p.
Plan: What is the first thing you learned in 5th grade about writing a story? You have to have a hook! Appeal to the emotions of your audience! Create some drama in analyzing the problem. A typical process here would be identifying the vital few metrics that are important. Create some drama in finding the root cause. Think about how if you don’t find the real problem what may happen.
Do: We have taken the story to the critical stage, there has to be a solution. This is where everyone wants to jump in and help. We are all problem solvers but are we all MacGyver’s? We have to find the best answer that addresses root cause and is measurable. Who will be the Hero?
Check: Your metrics must clearly define the problem and visually display it. Do not limit yourself here to simple metrics; maybe pin the defect on the wall or the cause. If a failure causes a catastrophic condition, display visually what that means.
Act: Now, is the time of the story that the problem is solved and life goes on happily ever after. Can you depict that in your storyboard? Can you show and prove the results that prove this? Did you reach the other side of the rainbow?
The PDCA method that Disney adheres to is somewhat out of the box thinking but they do challenge themselves during the process. Innovation requires a balance between ideas and reality. In this video Ed Muzio of Group Harmonics describes a method of keeping those two competing elements in balance to create new, innovative ideas. Ed uses an approach developed by Walt Disney and based on the roles of Dreamer, Realist and Critic. In the video are some great tips on how to put this into practice. I once read that Walt could play all the roles and many times when he walked into meetings everyone wondered which role he was going to take on. He also experimented with having separate rooms for each role. This approach should be considered when creating the future state during a Value Stream Mapping Session.
You can create your storyboard several different ways. Electronically there are several packages that will assist in developing a “story.” The easiest way is just to use Powerpoint and move the slides around to fit your story. Using sketches, collages and of course, having a wall that you can write on is simply sensational. Below is a plug for some new paint that has been developed, just for fun.
Create a Current State and Future State of your Trilogy Journey Maps through Storyboarding and go to Service/Implement
Recommended Reading/Listening
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Sustaining Lean using Continuous Improvement: The Toyota Way |
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Lean is not a revolution |
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Lean Coaching & Learning with Jeff Liker |
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Continuously Improving thru PDCA |