Instructional Story Design: Develop Stories That Train

Once Upon a Time, Storytelling Met Instructional Design

From children to adults, everybody likes a good story. Stories are memorable, actionable, and emotional. We are constantly making sense of the world by forming stories, and that makes them perfect for instructional design.

Instructional Story Design is a practical guide to writing and developing stories for training. It takes what you already know about a story’s power to connect with people and offers a clear methodology for the otherwise daunting process of creating a compelling story.

Master story designer Rance Greene shares his powerful yet familiar process to discover, design, and deliver instructional stories. He presents the two essential elements that must be present to tell a story for training: relatable characters and strong conflict. These elements create a desire for resolution and grab learners’ attention.

This book offers advice for unearthing the root of the performance problem, creating action lists for learners, and convincing stakeholders about the effectiveness of stories. Case studies from household companies such as Pizza Hut, Southwest Airlines, and PepsiCo show story design in action. Job aids and resources include an audience profile questionnaire, character description worksheet, storyboard template, and tips for developing stories using graphics, audio, and video.

With this book, you’ll:

• Sharpen your analysis skills to discover potential training stories.
• Design relatable stories that concretely connect with learning objectives.
• Easily develop captivating stories with tools you already own.
• Plan your next steps to implement your instructional story.

Now, after thousands of talent development pros have read the book and implemented its principles, the overwhelming majority laud its practicality.
 
And it shows. Training programs have been transformed by Story Design. 

TESTIMONIALS FROM:
 
PIZZA HUT
"Our next generation training experience feels realistic, believable, relatable, and authentic. Instructional Story Design is inspirational, creative, and a total must for people who want to design memorable, emotional training that sticks."

GREAT DANE TRAILERS
"Instructional Story Design helped to build our confidence in taking story-based approaches by giving us a set of simple tools that we could start using instantly."

SENDERO CONSULTING
"We incorporated the principles of Story Design to film scenarios for a course that helped improve our staff's professional acumen. The debrief of the scenarios, and the retention of the material is so much better than before."

Rance Greene consults companies who need business solutions that harness the power of stories to connect with their people emotionally and equip them for action. He designs stories to communicate value propositions, manage change, and teach new skills. His training solutions have been recognized by ATD, The eLearning Guild, Training Magazine, and The Telly Awards. Follow Rance at www.needastory.com.