{"id":9763,"date":"2012-05-24T22:38:24","date_gmt":"2012-05-25T05:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=9763"},"modified":"2012-05-24T22:38:44","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T05:38:44","slug":"the-project-story-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=9763","title":{"rendered":"The Project Story Circle. Talking About Transitions."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>&#8220;Once a photograph of the earth, taken from the outside is available, a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose.&#8221; &#8211; Sir Fred Hoyle in 1948.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you draw when you are visualizing a project on a whiteboard?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I draw an arrow from left to right that represents a timeline. Not always. But many times.<\/p>\n<p>The way you visualize, determines your focus. <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been playing with the simple but powerful concept of a <em>Project Story Circle<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/svapm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/storycycle-1024x641.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The project is represented by a circular arrow and is divided in half with a horizontal line.<\/p>\n<p>The idea behind it is the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An organization has the need for something. A challenge has to be conquered. A group of people starts a journey and brings back their result to the organization. <\/li>\n<li>The upper half of the circle represents time spent outside the project. Preparing for the voyage. And getting the results back to the place where it is needed. <\/li>\n<li>The bottom half makes up for project time. <\/li>\n<li>This will focus attention on the  transitions <em>organization-project<\/em> and <em>project-organization<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>This will focus attention on the idea that you undertake the project long before the actual project starts and that it only ends when you have gone full circle; when the actual benefits are realized.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can use this shape when discussing projects. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Where do people join the journey? (indicate on the circle)<\/li>\n<li>In which parts are they active? (indicate on the circle)<\/li>\n<li>Where do they expect problems? (indicate on the circle)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This basic shape is inspired by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gantthead.com\/blog\/The-Project-Shrink\/4266\/\">The Hero&#8217;s Journey<\/a>, the universal structure of myths. What makes this narrative structure so interesting is not that many movies are based upon it. It&#8217;s more the reason <em>why<\/em> so many stories are following this flow. There is a certain appeal to it, we all recognize parts of how we experience our own life story.<\/p>\n<p>One essential part of the Hero&#8217;s Journey is the transformation the hero is going through. In the storyline there is a defining moment when the hero is experiencing a major set back where he is hitting a brick wall. And this wall will be the turning point. During the bottom half of the circle you can also bring in the concept of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.projectshrink.com\/important-project-moments-start-end-and-the-red-convertible-in-the-middle-5401.html\">red convertible<\/a>:  <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I think a project can have a \u201cred convertible\u201d moment. It\u2019s that breakdown, or more that revelation, in which you remember why you were doing something in the first place. \u2026 This transition is the \u201cred convertible\u201d.&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Talking about transitions is important. Transitions reveal patterns. And <a href=\"http:\/\/www.projectshrink.com\/when-your-project-chakras-are-blocked-5377.html\">antipatterns<\/a>. It\u2019s the moment when contrast is at its peak. When everything remains the same, we don\u2019t notice our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.projectshrink.com\/group-interaction-using-rules-or-by-self-organization-5691.html\">rhythms and boundaries<\/a> that much. When all of a sudden everything is changing, we start to notice what felt natural before.<\/p>\n<p>I think the <em>Project Story Circle<\/em> can assist you in discussing those transitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Once a photograph of the earth, taken from the outside is available, a new idea as powerful as any in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":289,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,939,652],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communications","category-change-2","category-creativity"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/289"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9763"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9769,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9763\/revisions\/9769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}