If you have created presentations for very long it's certain you have developed a storyboard at least once. Drafting a storyboard helps with the creative process, to expediently test ideas, as well as refining details and balancing flow. The challenge is there isn't a standard approach for storyboarding. And when working with executives the storyboard is an essential tool for ensuring you have achieved alignment.
There are lots of tips for how to develop a story and the storyboard itself. Such as this example. But there are multiple formats available for storyboarding, or at least getting started. The question is which one to use? What are the pros and cons of each? And does it really matter which you choose? Can you really create a storyboard for every presentation if you are creating 20+ simultaneously?
I'll address the last question first. Yes, you should create a storyboard for every presentation. If you think you can come up with it on the fly, or in your head, well you might if you're lucky. What commonly happens is you review the slides into the storyboard that you could have created. This is more difficult when more than one person is involved, some examples of which are in my blog on Who Owns the Story. And that's the key: if the presentation is for someone else, you need a storyboard to elaborate ideas and align.
The simplest storyboard format is the text outline. I only use this approach when supporting a single person who is usually the presenter. And usually when we are evolving an existing storyboard. Good old Microsoft Word, or whatever. Using a hierarchical approach you can do a decent job of organizing thoughts, moving ideas around, even budgeting time across the phases of the story arch. It's a good way to quickly capture initial ideas, and begin an editing journey, including collaborating with others. The cons are that it's hard to visualize the points, and sometimes people will become focused on what is there and miss what could be there.
A favorite technique of many of my colleagues is to use sticky notes. You do some initial brainstorming of various ideas, quips, anecdotes, images, or charts and stick them to a wall. Then you start to group them and move them around as a story starts to appear. Some people like to use white boards and dry erase markers. But these cannot be easily organized and reordered. You then need to transcribe it into a form for sharing and reviewing. Which is not so easy in today's work from home environment.
Some people like to combine the outline and the sticky notes. You can use the outline mode of PowerPoint for this, and it has the benefit of being easy to organize and reorder, as well as being shareable. Mind Map is another tool (or methodology?) that combines the strengths of the outline, the sticky notes, and is sharable. Yet I see Mind Map more commonly used by individuals than teams.
The most compelling storyboard is a visual of what the images and messages might look like. This is important if you want to influence the presenter to try something outside their comfort zone or to align on critical visual decisions. In the movies we often see advertising executives creating a literal storyboard, with images in rows drawn by someone with artistic talent. You might not have the artistic skills to pull this off, and you might not have an artist on staff for custom image creation for the storyboard. Fortunately we have Google images. And since storyboards are internal you don't have to worry about copyrights when you use them. Below is an example I use to mock up the story flow, some images, and even example data (with the messages removed). And here's video of the delivery of the final slides at one of the target events.
The main consideration may actually be the preference of the presenter or the team you are supporting. Every individual has their preference for creating storyboards, and their choice often has a lot to do with their process of refining their own ideas. So the more presenters you support the more techniques you might need to get comfortable with.
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