Internariorlal Journal of Project Management 1994 12 (4) 230-233

Storytelling as a support tool for project management

Mette Amtoft Hovedgaden 41, DK-2970 Hnrsholm, Denmark

The transition from planning to implementation causes problems in many projects. Often, the varying purposes of the project and opinions of the interested parties about the project turn out not to harmonize with the way in which the project has been implemented, although the implementation complies fully with the original objectives. Allowances can be made for this situation if the management of the project take a greater interest in the stories within and around the project. These stories contain valuable information about the various official and unofficial expectations of the project, which are often a source of problems. There are many types of story to be exposed, and the process of exposure can be used to control the expectations if they are coordinated and a common story is created. This may also pave the way for a more positive reception of the finished project. The paper deals with the significance of project stories, which have so far been overlooked in project-management theory and practice, and it suggests a useful managerial approach. The aspects and methods discussed in the paper have been very effective in the development of strategies for the initiation, implementation, con- clusion, marketing and evaluation of projects, and with general multicultural aspects/conflicts, which are experienced as particularly complicating factors in project management.

Keywords: stories. implementation, success

Project stories: the key to the basis and implementation of the project

What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true‘? Haroun couldn’t get the terrible question out of his head. However. there were people who thought Rashid’s stories were

useful. Nobody ever believed anything a politico said, even though they pretended as hard as they could that they were telling the truth. (In fact, this was how everyone knew they were lying.) But everyone had complete faith in Rashid, because he always admitted that everything he told them was completely untrue and made up out of his own head.’

I was trained as a family therapist, but I primarily work with projects, organizations and management, taking a relational, systemic approach. Usually, I am invited into projects when there are problems of disappointment, general confusion or many conflicts. As in the rest of the Western world, projects seem to suffer from the general lack of absolutes and truths, and it is very difficult to discover what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in a project unless one hears the stories told about it. It is my experience from the supervision of projects that storytelling is a very useful approach to understanding and changing the state of things within the project. For example, an otherwise well

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functioning project group may, much to their own surprise, tell many different stories about why I was invited into the project, and what problems they wish to deal with. This is also the case when we talk about the problems that the project was meant to solve for the organization. Apart from the many ‘why-this-project?’ stories, projects seem to provide a nutritious plasma for myths, rumours, and taboo (forbidden and muted) stories. I therefore take all these different versions of the ‘true’ story as my point of departure, and my task is completed when the space has been found within the project to tell more than one version of the stories, and a ‘common’ truth has been constructed.

If a project manager is to be able to deal with the project stories, not only a special effort, but sometimes also courage is required, as the lack of knowledge of the stories is rarely due to ignorance, but rather to other barriers that have more to do with organizational psychology:

In many organizations, the prevalent project-management culture sees it as a sign of weakness or bad management if people ask questions or openly admit that they do not know the truth or the correct answers. In many organizations, an interest in, and collection of information about, psychology and attitudes are inter- preted as undue interference, control, and an expression

0263-78631941040230-04 0 1994 Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd

of doubts about competence and motives. Many versions of life stories have consciously or un- consciously become forbidden stories (taboos) as a result of reorganization, dismissals, mergers, company closures, private agreements etc. It is, however, of the utmost importance that such taboo stories are told, as they generally tie up a great deal of energy, which could otherwise be used to complete a project successfully. For many reasons, they are also felt very clearly, and most people know them and act, often unconsciously, upon them. Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes, in which everybody knew something, nobody said it, and all the fortunes of the country were spent before the taboo was broken, unfor- tunately applies too well to many projects.

Different stories create different understanding

Just like any other product of human activity, all projects are surrounded by one or more stories. The story of the project gives meaning to the present situation of the project as well as clues to its future.

In the following, the focus is on two types of story:

l life stories, i.e. stories about the past history of the project;

l reputation stories, i.e. stories which are currently told about the project in the form of tales, myths and rumours.

Both types of story come in official as well as unofficial versions. In relation to projects, both types of story are relevant.

Life stories

Life stories contain information about the circumstances leading up to the project as it currently is. They provide a great deal of information about the original needs and expectations associated with the project, and, not least, about what problems the project was originally created to solve, for whom and when. Did these consist of idle staff members, the initiatives of competitors in the market, an imminent dismissal creating the need for repositioning, or a previous, unsuccessful project creating the need for rehabilitation. How did the world look then? How does it look now?

The life story deals with the purpose of the project. Life stories thus give an idea about whether the project

is on the right track, and about the changes in expectations and needs during the course of the project. In this case, it is very important to understand that there is not one version of the story. It varies according to whom it is told by. People remember different things, attach importance to different things, and view the project from different angles. The following is an example of the significance of different versions of the life story, and its almost fatal effect on the present experience and future possibilities of the project.

Case. A project manager is charged with the task of heading a department in which he does not usually work. He has just participated in a project which he decided to leave on the grounds that the next part of the project required other qualifications of a project manager than the ones he had. He was offered the chance to continue, since everybody was very satisfied with his work until then, but he felt that it would be better for the project if he handed

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Storytelling as a support tool for project management: M Amtoft

it over to someone else. At the same time, the company wished to use his skills in this new project.

What this project manager did not know was that relations between his old department and his new department had a history of being very bad, and that the story about him among the new group was that he had been dismissed from the old project. The group felt that they had been given a ‘discarded’ manager.

After this, there was no limit to the number of mis- understandings and misinterpretations within this project. The project was immediately rated as substandard in the department, by the interested parties, and within the project group, and the actions of the project manager were con- tinually met with distrust and doubt.

Later, the project manager realized that it was necessary to hear the stories about him and the previous project, and the versions of the life story on which the present relation- ship between the two departments were based. In addition to this, he learned that, every time a process is finished, a common story must be constructed and told to everyone with an influence on future relations in the company. Otherwise, the stories will tell themselves.

Reputation stories

The reputation stories, which are told about the project as it currently is, contain information about the present and future of the project, in that they reflect how it is experi- enced by its surroundings. There may be good and bad stories, rumours, myths etc. Irrespectively of their form and content, the stories can give excellent explanations of the present problems in the project, and indicate the future reception of the completed project.

The reputation story deals with opinions about the project.

Case. A quality project was known as the rationalization project, and a story was told of how the zealous quality department wanted to disqualify everything that was going on in the company in order to get some work themselves. It was impossible to obtain the necessary information from staff members (despite support by the top management), and, when the project was ready to be implemented, all the energy was used to make the rumours a self-fulfilling prophecy. All the unwelcome change in the company, e.g. dismissals, transfers, and the abolishment of jobs, had been associated with the project, and, as a result, the quality improvements were never successfully implemented.

The project manager of this project learned to listen to the stories about his project as they turned out to influence the future much more than the quality department. He learned to take into account the different problems such a project is meant to solve, and realized that the paradox between dismissals and quality improvement cannot be embraced by the same project. The time must be taken to deny or comment on the various versions of the story about the project, and the project manager must actively take part in the creation of an official, credible story which minimizes the possibilities of misinterpretation. He also learned that, in order to obtain information from the company for the project, he had to take the stories of (the fear of) dismissals seriously, so that he could make the project useful for the staff members to reduce their risk of being laid off.

Neither of the two types of story is ever a neutral,

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Stor?/telling as a suppot? tool for project management: M Amtofi

objective presentation, but rather a subjective indication of the significance of the project to the individual storyteller, the department, the organization, or other contexts in which the stories are told. Also, there are rarely two different, pure forms of story, but rather stories in which the current experience and the ‘historical facts’ interact. It is, however, crucially important to hear all the versions.

Stories: the doors to present and future action

The current version of the past history of a project will provide ideas for future effort. For example, the version of the life story which is told about a delay in a project will give an idea about what it will take to complete it. If a delay in a project is seen as a result of political power struggles, it will require political unity to complete the project. If, however, the delay is seen as a result of a lack of involve- ment from the top management, or inefficient cooperation, effort must be made in relation to these factors. Therefore, the more stories are untold, the fewer ways there are in which to take action.

Many untold stories

As a result of the barriers mentioned in the first section of the paper, project managers generally know only very few versions of the stories about the project, and thus may have a somewhat shaky basis on which to make decisions and act. Because of lack of knowledge about the various purposes of and opinions about the project, the project manager and staff members may be content with operating with their own version of the story, hoping that it will hit the mark (like Russian roulette in reverse).

There is also a considerable difference between only knowing one’s own version of the story about the project, and understanding the countless facets of the project from the many stories surrounding the project. Many project staff members do not know the stories of the other inter- ested parties about the project, which makes it difficult to create a common attitude to it.

Now the fact is that I personally have discovered that for every story there is an anti-story. ’

Case. A staff member has been waiting for his big chance on a project, and now that the project is being started he must seize it. This staff member will rarely ask questions about the purpose of the project in the way, for example, the management does. The management’s story is that the project is an attempt to solve a problem of redundant employees, or that the project is meant to be a merger pro- ject. As long as these different versions of the project story are not compiled into one common first chapter, the project base will totter. If one is a technician, and part of a project whose goal, on the part of the management, is a successful merger between two departments, it is obviously not the technical solution but the process which is the primary goal. In this case, the project will be a failure if one single- handedly finds a technical solution, no matter how good it is.

Coordination of stories to establish a common purpose for, and opinion about, the project

Write a common story

In order to avoid problems and confusion resulting from the

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different stories about the project, it is important to focus on the story about the project as a collective process of creation, i.e. a dialogue between the interested parties and the project group, where the ‘truth’, i.e. the common purpose of and opinion about the project, is negotiated just like the rest of the project structure. This means that the project manager will have to participate actively in the construction and creation of a common purpose of and opinion about the project that contains the project stories of everyone involved.

In other words, the project manager must write him/ herself into the story, and find his/her place as a main or subordinate character, depending on the purpose of the project. If he/she does not write him/herself into the stories, experience shows that the stories will write themselves, and place the project where it is convenient for the storyteller. Hidden agendas often give rise to countless stories on which a lot of strength is used. Therefore, the person responsible for the project should lead the storytelling, and make sure that the project is currently written into its proper context.

How, when and with whom?

This process involves a great deal of interview and detec- tive work, and it is recommended that it is delegated to the people who have access to the stories, as long as they are communicated to the project group. This would be a natural part of an introductory seminar, where as many interested parties as possible are present and can deliver their versions of the life story of the project. However, it can also be adjusted and integrated into other phases of the project.

If the project manager joined the project in the middle of a process, it is important for him/her to hear the stories from the people affiliated with the project before he/she became involved, even if they are no longer part of the project. Many ‘truths’ and answers are hidden in the old stories, which may explain why the project looks the way it currently does. Of special interest are the stories of why the people who were formerly affiliated with the project stopped working in it or for it.

The questions to the project staff members and to the various interested parties could be as follows:

Questions about the life stories:

Why this project at this time? Why not two years ago and why not two years from now? (For you and your department/organization etc.) Give a historical account of the process which led you to this project and your special role in it. If the project is to be successful, what would look different from how it is today? What are your past experiences with this project? Do you have a piece of good advice based on your own experiences?

Questions about the reputation stories:

l What are the stories about the project and your con- nection with the project? Does the project have any nicknames or pet names?

l If I asked your immediate boss or colleague the above, what would their answers be?

First chapter of the common story

The main task for the project manager will then be to put

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together the first chapter of the common, official story from the many different versions about the project. Typically, this will be in the form of a project description or speci- fication drawn up, for example, after an introductory seminar.

The first chapter could contain the following items:

an introduction to the story (based on the individual versions of the life story of the project); a description of the past of the project, with a particular focus on what problems the project was created to solve, and for whom; a situation report (based on the reputation stories) (what is the situation now, and what is being said?); good advice for the future (experience from previous projects) (what must not happen again, and what should be remembered); a list of the responsibilities, duties and rights of the interested parties and staff members in relation to the impending project work; the conclusive purpose of, and opinion about, the project as established by the project manager and/or project group, and a plan for future efforts to coordinate the stories.

When the common version of the stories (the last item above) has been written, it is important that the first chapter be approved by all the interested parties and staff members, and that there should be an agreement to follow it up. This is an indispensable part of the project description, and it should have official status.

Closing remarks

Working in this way with a project may seem to be an overwhelming prospect, but this is not necessarily the case. The storytelling may take place as part of a startup seminar, lasting from three hours to two days depending on the number of people involved. Experience shows that a lot of energy is released in the storytelling process, as the stories hold answers to all the unanswered questions that every- body involved in the project has. Furthermore, this method takes the interdisciplinary aspects of project management seriously. The respect for the individual’s version of the story and the experience gained from this will lead to respect for the person and the system in and around the project. Together, all these different stories form a part of the project basis which has been largely ignored until now; they concern the future implementation of the project, its

Storytelling as a support tool for project management: M Amtoft

applicability and utility value. The stories hold the key to the actual project basis, i.e. the nonspecified, unspoken expectations of the project. As many people engaged in projects will already know, this is the source of not only the problems but also the success.

References

1 Rushdie, S Haroun and the Sea of Stories Granta (1991)

Bibliography

Allman, L R ‘The aesthetic preference: overcoming the pragmatic error’ Family Process 1982 Allman, L R ‘The poetic mind: further thoughts on an “aesthetic preference” ’ Family Process 1982 Anderson, T Reflekterende Team. Samtal och Samtal om Samtalen Mareld (1991) Boscoll, L and Berthando, P ‘The reflexive loop of past, present and future in systematic therapy and consultation’ Family Process (1982) Bruner, E M ‘Ethnography as narrative’ in Turner, V W and Bruner, E M (eds) 7’he Anthropology of Experience University of Illinois Press, USA (1986) Cronen, V et al. ‘The systematic professional: dominance and action and the question of neutrality’ Human Systems 1991 1 (1) De Bono, E Six Thinking Hats Penguin (1990) Goolishan, A and Anderson, M ‘Human systems as linguistic systems’ Family Process 1988 27 (4) Leppington, R ‘From constructivism to social constructionism and doing critical therapy. Human systems’ J Systemic Consultation & Management 1991 2 Myerhoff, B ‘Life history among the elderly: performance, visibility, and re-membering’ in Back, K W (ed) Life Course: Integrative Theories and Exemplary Populations (1980) Shotter, J ‘Consultant re-authoring: the “making” and “finding” of narrative constructions’ Human Systems 1991 2 (2) 105-121

Mette Amtoji was trained as a teacher, and she holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She works as a freelance psychologist. Her activities include giving courses for the Danish Engineers ’ Graduate Institute on project management, quality con- sciousness and management training, and providing business consultancy services relating to organizational dialogues, project management, quality in cooperative processes, management development, consultant training and performance reviews. She family therapy and individual therapy.

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