From Scheherezade’s divan

“Knowledge narratives make both problems and their solutions more visible,” say SINTEF -scientists Morten Hatling (left) and Emil Røyrvik. Photo: Roar Øhlander

The age of the big reports is past. Today, we need to learn from little stories.

By Magne Gisvold

"As usual, notice of the meeting arrived at an inconvenient time – I had my own cases to follow up. But when the Resources Teamleader issues a contract warning we are always curious. Could this become yet another exciting adventure for the League? The initial briefing was short. Classification: Top Secret. Client: the President of the United States. We had received a call for tenders regarding a special aircraft. The specifications were sufficiently challenging to make it exciting – but would we be capable of making a good enough offer?"

This could well have been the beginning of a teenager’s parody of a super-hero cartoon series. But that is just what it isn’t. The story was written in all seriousness by fully grown technologists in the Computas computing consultancy, and it deals with the processes that take place when the company is submitting a tender for a project.

Making solutions more visible
“Much of our knowledge in Computas is complex, which makes it difficult to pass on; for example knowledge of customer relations, inter-staff relationships, negotiation processes and project implementation. This type of knowledge is suitable for the creation of knowledge narratives. A characteristic of such narratives is that they do not offer a definite answer to a question, but address problems which trigger processes of reflection and discussion. Knowledge narratives make the solutions more visible,” says Åsmund Mæhle of Computas.

Computas employees have experienced how such knowledge stories operate in practice. Not long ago, a project was in the process of coming to a standstill; communication between the customer team and the Computas team was breaking down, and the dark clouds over the project were making it difficult to find a way out of the situation. Both teams were therefore sent on a trip in order to give them the opportunity to talk to each other and find a solution. Among the contents of the first-aid package was a story.
The story that was used at the meeting described a similar case, in which a project was going slowly. One of the experiences conveyed by the story was that this is fairly normal at this stage of a project. “The story was a vital tool that helped both parties to find a way out of the mire. It was created in the form of a PowerPoint presentation, and when we showed the “film” to the client’s team leader before the meeting, she exclaimed: ‘That was just our experience’,” says Åsmund Mæhle.

"At the first meeting of the members of the League we could see that we had a good kick-off point. We already had a solution that was very similar to what the President was looking for – made by Beetle, our wonder-boy technologist."

Focus on the problem, not the person
The idea of using stories to pass on knowledge arrived at Computas via SINTEF, which has been working with the company on the development of a new type of database. Theo Barth, a SINTEF research scientist, tells Gemini how it was:

“Our method of passing on knowledge by means of stories is a modification and development of a method developed by David Snowdon at IBM. In a learning organisation, in which a large proportion of the work is done in the form of projects in the field, it is important that the company should always be learning something from its projects. We try to make the conditions as suitable as possible for communication by using real anecdotes, although we dress them up as fiction. An important point is that the method focuses on the problems described in these narratives, rather than on the persons involved. This makes it easier to look at what has happened from a certain distance. When stories are used in this way, they are a powerful tool and the problems can become a resource for the company.”

True stories
Although Computas already had a handbook of routines for project implementation, Åsmund Mæhle believes that it is hardly ever used.
“For example, if a checklist states that “it is important to leave sufficient time for testing,” most people will just shrug their shoulders and say “Sure!”. A statement of this sort is actually very dry and perfectly obvious. Everyone understands that it is sensible. One the other hand, a true story about a project in which there was very little time for testing, which tells you something about the reasons for the situation and about its consequences, will be much more powerful, since it makes you think more about the problem. There is much more to be read between the lines, which is what the reader or the listener himself needs to find out about.”

"There were almost as many opinions as there were members of the League at the meeting. The Strategy Team Leader cut the discussion short. “Study the situation, and submit your recommendations about the choice of materials within five days”, he said, pointing to Booster Gold."

Many areas of application
Knowledge stories can have a number of different applications:

• They can be used to induct new employees into a company. Many companies have their own stories to tell, about how they perceive themselves and wish to be perceived by the outside world. Stories can give life to this knowledge, and a new employee will therefore experience a greater feeling of closeness to the message than if his “stepfather” gives him a slide-show and says “this is how we are, and this is what we want to be”.
• Stories can be used as part of a methods course, in which employees learn about various types of project. The cartoon stories on these pages, for example, are suitable for illustrating the steps involved in a tendering process, and the sort of problems that a tendering team might encounter.
• Knowledge narratives are an alternative to writing reports about projects after they have come to an end. The story of a project, its problems and how they were solved, may be easier to tell and easier to absorb than a report.
• Stories can also be used vis-à-vis clients, to enable them to understand better how the company works on its projects.
• By comparing the stories of two parties to a conflict, we can obtain greater insight into the sources of the problems involved. It will also be easier to look at the case from the perspective of the other party.

Tool for consciousness-raising
“At the moment, we are involved in gathering stories from the middle-management level in Computas. We use the story-telling process itself as a tool for consciousness-raising in the people who tell them, at the same same time as we collect the stories themselves for later use. With the aid of these stories, we have also revealed discrepancies between different managers’ perceptions of reality. By playing back alternative versions of the stories we can clear up misunderstandings,” says Åsmund Mæhle.

"In order to be sure that we had the necessary information, someone had to find out about the characteristics of alternative aircraft types. Information would have to be prised out of other leagues, regarding their prices, specifications and other relevant details – discreetly, of course, and in such a way as not to arouse suspicion. The obvious choice for this task was J’onn ‘J’onzz – the Martian."

Systematisation
Storytelling has been systematised in Computas. On the company’s Intranet there is a section entitled “Scheherezade’s Divan”, in which all the stories written by staff are gathered. Scheherezade was the narrator of the stories of the “1001 Nights”, who saved her own life by entertaining the Caliph of Baghdad for – of course – 1001 nights. The stories are accessible on the divan in the form of pure text, illustrations, animations, and video interviews.
“We have placed great emphasis on the use of multimedia when staff are writing and experiencing knowledge narratives. It is easier for people to convey just what they wish when they can choose their medium freely,” says Mæhle. He follows up by showing a dramatic story of conflict which is stored on the Net, written by the “toughest technician in Computas”. The story deals with the problems that faced a team of engineers in their struggle to finish a computer program on schedule, and it fetches its metaphors from war literature. “Since we started with this, the narrative method has become a legitimate method of relating experiences and knowledge. This experience – which is presented as an excellent story – would never have been passed on if we had not put so much effort into conveying knowledge in this way,” says Mæhle.

"Batman, who was to lead the project, had not been at the kick-off meeting (he had had to finish another case). When he finally turned up, he was far from certain that this was a suitable job for the League, so he called another meeting that would make a final decision. "

Story-telling seminar
Åsmund Mæhle does not believe that people will start to create stories spontaneously, or that employees will wade through the stories on the Intranet unless they are told to. In order to start the ball rolling, Computas organized a story-telling seminar for its staff last May. During the trip to the mountains, the day was given over to telling stories. Staff were divided into two groups and were given some hints as to potential topics for their stories, such as “projects that went wrong”, or “customer relationships that changed in the course of a process”.
“After lunch, the groups were asked to choose a story that they would like to work on, and they were told to present it in the form of a video, role-play, cartoon strip, or other medium. It was very important to come up with something concrete; a group of engineers cannot just sit and talk. They have to produce something. If we are to persuade people to use the stories presented on “Scheherezade’s Divan”, the stories need to be related to specific activities. When that happens, employees will be curious about what is on the Web,” says Mæhle.

Good stories
“The difficult part is to create good stories,” says Åsmund Mæhle. In order to help them do so, the Computas seminar received a visit from Emil Røyrvik and Theo Barth of SINTEF. In the course of a short March day they had to teach a bunch of technicians how to tell a good story.

"The Martian felt that we should submit an offer, in spite of the tough competition. On the other hand, Batman was not convinced. The situation demanded a compromise. “Can’t we mull over it during the weekend?,” said the Deliveries Teamleader. “I feel quite sure that this would be a suitable challenge for us."

“A core belief for us in SINTEF is that the narratives must get people involved. This is why we began to become interested in the concept of stories as a means of spreading knowledge. We need more interesting ways of spreading knowledge than the traditional methods of pushing it out, such as reports and checklists,” says Røyrvik.
He has a number of tips for story-tellers who are just starting out on the process. Narratives must be about people, the characters involved must do something active, and their activity must have a purpose. If you want to create a story, you must concentrate on what made you curious. There is a good chance that what you think is exciting will also capture the imagination of others.
“It is important to avoid the “knowingness” with which we are familiar from reports. The important message must be capable of being read between the lines of the narrative. A good story will be destroyed as soon as we read that “it is important to increase customer satisfaction,” says Røyrvik, who stresses that narratives need to be subjective, rather than formal, objective, and factually based.
“Feeling are brought into play by the subjective aspects of a story. There is also a democratic tone in narratives, in place of an infallible “voice of God”, which reports and checklists often give the impression of having. This means that stories are much more likely to be spread than the contents of a report,” says Emil Røyrvik.

Just trendy?
But we have all been told stories before. Why have they suddenly become so exciting as a means of spreading knowledge? Is this nothing more than a fancy new trend, or has the world changed in such a way as to leave us in need of this new tool?
“In traditional manufacturing, people often work together in groups; they meet every day, and there is a certain continuity in their relationships. In knowledge companies they lack concrete “things” to gather round and talk about. So we want to make people in knowledge companies more aware of the natural method of passing on knowledge – by telling stories. We are trying to refine this method, so that more people will be able to make use of their own and others’ ability to tell stories,” says Emil Røyrvik.

"The offer was submitted by the deadline. We have designed a superplane that nobody will be able to equal. And just as importantly, we have shown just how enjoyable and fruitful cooperating on a challenging task can be. Yet another example of how nothing – and I really mean nothing – is beyond the capabilities of the joint forces of the Justice League of Computas."