Urgently Needed: Product Storyteller - Making your product successful

A co-worker which happens to be a dear friend of mine, ask the same questions over and over again: “Why can’t we built good product? And when we launched the product, it sucks! why ? “

After taking some time to digest that particular question, my mind wander to the very same statement that I used to make “We don’t have a product owner!” let me rephrase that “We don’t have a product owner that work by heart!” now the last statement is a bit harsh and a bit too high to achieve (or maybe not), so I’ll tone down abit.. Now my statement is “We need a Product Story teller! “

In Developing a product especially an IT Product, a product development involves several parties, Product manager, Project manager, Executor (Developers, Operators), and Business Person (marketing guy)

The Product Manager is usually the one who makes all the decision, a product manager will assess the product opportunities and manage how to build it.

The Project Manager will manage the timeline, coordinate with all other parties and make sure they meet the deadline and no problem is unsolved

The Executor, do all the dirty works

And The Business Person does all the budgeting and marketing activities, include promotion, etc

So if asked who in the organization represent the customer needs and benefits usually we all point our finger to Product Manager or to Business person, it comes to one of them.

Now, this is the problem

Who hold the product storyteller function ?, everyone in the team should be able to tell what a story what the product is all about, but a single person who act as the “All knowing about the product” is still very needed in the team. The product storyteller function is not about analysis is about combining all elements internal and external to one story, he/she speak in big picture rather than detail, he/she ensure all product features are working solely for the customer benefits in the language that is understood by the customer, thus creating a valuable customer experience.

So let’s put this product storyteller function at the Product manager, it seems like a good idea, but on the operational level, product manager daily routine bogged down its big picture vision, product manager is consumed in details, problem solving, product manager has no time nor the resource to think big picture and speak on fully on behalf the customer. Constant bombardment from technical and operation side will alter product manager orientation from customer benefits to “just get it done on time”. Product Manager has no time for curiosity, discovery and play that will lead to superb customer experience

What if we put this product storyteller function in the Business guy, business guy interact with the market therefore it must have near perfect knowledge of what the market need and what the customer expect, but business guy is always pre-occupied with financial numbers and projection, and sometimes it is very painful and confusing to talk to technical person. To understand the product you need to understand how it works, to understand how it works you need to understand how it made, if the business guy is not logical enough or the technical guy is not savvy enough in communicating its idea/process, it could be very tiring process just to understand the product.

This is the reason why technical person often fight business person, it’s lack of understanding and communication, Each side tells a different story and there is no one combining those stories, no one is persistently safe guarding 1 story, this is the role of Product Storyteller, Product Storyteller should be positioned in the company to break down walls, facilitate talks, discussion, coordination and collaboration, creating 1 story that gives superb experience to customer.

The Product Storytellers function, must have that “embedded will in its DNA” to relentlessly tell the story of the product to all areas in the company or maybe even outside the company, the Product Storytellers is the product evangelist, this is important because this practice will create a unison story in the organization which will put everyone on the same understanding page. The product Storyteller Passion will catch on to others, the passion will get challenged, and the Product Storytellers will fight and iterate on the product idea, creating a cycle of curiosity, discovery and play.

The Products Storytellers has to have a “T” shaped working characteristic, it has deep knowledge of a specific item and has broad interest and knowledge to other items, the "T" shaped working characteristic will enable the Product Storyteller to push collaboration between organization functions, he/she need to be able to communicate fluently with others and most important it must have endless passion to the product.

So does this mean we need a specific position for the product storyteller? I didn’t say that, we do know that we desperately need the function, where you want to put it depends on your organization structure.

Have Fun searching that one passionate, resourceful, creative, good storyteller guy as your product storyteller; p