Change can be scary. When considering making a change at work, you may
think, “What if we implement a new procedure and it doesn’t work?,” or “What
if this new business structure doesn’t yield the results we intend it to?”

It’s perfectly normal to have these questions when making any level of
change within your organization, but with a little testing, you can answer
these questions, make the proper adjustments, and ensure that you see the
intended outcomes you wish to accomplish while supporting those directly
affected by these changes.

So, how can you test something as abstract as a policy change?

Storyboarding is a great tool that allows you to

craft a narrative

that demonstrates how policies, services, and any other intangible changes
will impact an organization, its workforce, and customers. By crafting a
narrative, you can test out your idea through

prototyping

to receive feedback on your plans, adjust your plans based on feedback, and
implement a plan you feel confident will succeed.

Creating a Storyboard

A storyboard has three main segments:

1. Setting the problem
2. Determining how your intended user/audience discovers your policy or service
3. Demonstrating the benefit of your policy or service

Generally, limiting your storyboard to four to six segments gives you enough
space to tell the full narrative of the problem you’re looking to solve
while keeping your research participants engaged.

Visual depictions of each step of your storyboard helps create immersion to
your narrative. Even if you don’t feel like you’re an artist,

everyone has the capability to communicate visually! Stick figures are highly encouraged to help bring to life each stage of
your storyboard and help your participants understand the impact of your
story. Here’s a storyboard template to help you get started.

Testing Your Storyboard

Testing your storyboard requires that you find the appropriate stakeholders
and users and craft targeted questions that will give you the answers you
need. Here’s how to get started:

• Find your participants. When looking for participants, you
should

seek out individuals who will be directly affected by the service or
policy you are implementing and who will be
implementing the policy or service. You’ll need between 30 and 45 minutes of their time to have them review
your storyboard and answer any follow-up questions you have for them.

• Craft your questions. The questions needed to test your
prototype will need to be open ended to allow honest feedback from your
participants without leading their answers, but targeted enough to ensure
you get the information you need to test your policy or service.

1. First, set your measurements for success. You’ll need to document your
   expectations and what the intended impact of the service or policy is to be
   able to compare it against your testing results.
2. Then, identify any major features or aspects of your storyboard you want to
   hone your questions on.
3. Next, create two to three objectives per feature that you would like to
   focus on. Objectives should be specific and focus in on particular aspects
   of a feature, like the discoverability of the feature or ease of use.
4. Once you have your objectives set, you can start crafting your questions!
   Make sure that your questions tie back to at least one of your objectives,
   but it’s perfectly fine to have questions that relate to more than one
   objective.
5. With your questions crafted, you can create your testing script you’ll use
   with participants. If you’re testing with more than one group of people,
   don’t be afraid to tailor the script you use to their specific needs and
   actions as they relate to the policy or service.

Use the graphic below to help you get started.

Refine and Reflect

You’ve created your storyboard, and you’ve tested it. Now it’s time to
analyze the results! Start by asking yourself: What went according to
expectations? What didn’t? What areas of improvement were identified?

Based on your results you’ll have either confirmed that the policy or
service will impact your organization as intended or not. You may need to
make a few small tweaks to move forward with the project, but you may also
need to

go back to the drawing board

to find something that will work better for your intended audience.

If you did make a lot of changes, retesting an updated storyboard can help
finalize and hone your policy or service to a place where you feel
comfortable to launch.

Use storyboarding to refine your policies and procedures, gather early
feedback, and ensure growth and support for all stakeholders, without the
risk of a full launch.

Visit

innovation.ibx.com

for more information about innovation behaviors and tools.

This content was originally published on

IBX Insights.

About Jaimie Yakaboski

As a Senior Innovation Consultant for the Independence Blue Cross Innovation
Team, Jaimie has a passion for research, seeing each opportunity as an
adventure—searching for insights that can then be pieced together to form
innovative solutions. Having spent the first four years with Independence
Blue Cross as a UX Designer, Jaimie’s transition to the Innovation Team felt
like a natural next step in their career to be able to expand on the design
process and apply new and innovative ways to approach problem solving.
Jaimie looks forward to encouraging and inspiring teams to collaboratively
tackle any problem they may be facing.