A short deck about how storytelling principles can apply to product management.

1. Storytelling in Product
Wesley Allsup

2. Who am I?
Wesley Allsup - @akaWeezus

3. Why does this matter to us?
● Our products need to tell an effective story
● Our communication needs to tell an effective story
When building products, we need to tell an effective story

4. Why screenwriting and film?
● It’s about showing not telling
● It’s about empathy
● It’s about creating an emotional reaction
● It’s about understanding the world around us

5. My inspiration

6. Empathy

7. Show don’t tell
● Human’s don’t respond to
being told truth
● They respond to feeling it

8. Who are our characters?
● Us
● The audience

9. Credit to
Phillip Bastien
@pabastien

10. Credit to
Intercom

11. Structure

12. What is an act?

13. What is an act?
“An end of an act is a point where the characters make a
choice and can no longer go back”

14. Trey Parker and Matt Stone -‘Therefore’ and ‘but’
(Never ‘and then’)

15. Dan Harmon and Joseph Campbell's Monomyth

16. Dan Harmon's circles
1. A character is in a zone of
comfort,
2. But they want something.
3. They enter an unfamiliar
situation,
4. Adapt to it,
5. Get what they wanted,
6. Pay a heavy price for it,
7. Then return to their familiar
situation,
8. Having changed.

17. Who are our characters?
1. A character is in a zone of
comfort,
2. But they want something.
3. They enter an unfamiliar
situation,
4. Adapt to it,
5. Get what they wanted,
6. Pay a heavy price for it,
7. Then return to their familiar
situation,
8. Having changed.

18. Credit to
Phillip Bastien
@pabastien

19. Where is
structure
important?
● Workshops/interactive
sessions
● Marketing
● Onboarding

20. Creating

21. (There are no rules)

22. (There are no rules)

23. (There are no rules)

24. Writer’s block

25. One last thing