Building Empathy & Solving Problems with Storytelling

In product, we tell stories every day. Kicking off projects, writing problem statements, updating our roadmaps and handling ambitious stakeholders. Communication is essential to every action a product manager takes. The more structure and craft you can apply to your communication, the better the outcome you can drive. Storytelling is a skill that has been used for thousands of years – to teach, to share and to bring together. Whether you have 30 seconds or 60 minutes, tapping into these principals helps PMs convey their product vision, problems to solve, decisions on priorities. Storytelling helps connect your customers to your audience stronger than data can alone. UX and engineering will feel connected to the problem and energized to solve it. Leadership and your stakeholders will empathize with the pain. They’ll believe in your vision, regardless if they had a different priority in mind. Using storytelling, a PM can place their audience inside the experience, build empathy for your users, and creating the tension that needs to be resolved.