Pebellslearn by building
0%
RoadmapsMatrixCoursesSandboxSign in
Public Speaking and Presentation Techniques  ›  Lesson

Storytelling in Technical Talks

Storytelling 12 minA technical story follows a person who wants something, meets a problem and finds a way through, which gives facts and features a reason for the audience to care.

Storytelling in Technical Talks

Rainkit has launched a new feature: forecasts in 15-minute steps for the next two hours, instead of one number per hour. Meera could open that part of her talk with a slide that says exactly that. Or she could start with a person, a problem and a bad evening. Only one of those openings makes the room care about the feature before they've seen it.

The rule

Someone wants something, hits a wall, and finds a way through.

Stories give facts a reason to matter. A technical story needs three parts:

  1. A character who wants something. Ideally a developer much like the people in the room, with a goal they would recognise.
  2. A wall. The specific problem that blocks them. The more concrete, the better: a time, a place, a number.
  3. A way through. How they got past it, and what changed afterwards.

Notice who the hero is: the character, not the product. The product is a tool the hero picks up. "Rainkit swooped in and saved the day" makes the audience roll their eyes; "Farah found a way to hold her riders back for twenty minutes" makes them lean in, because they can picture themselves as Farah.

A few more guidelines:

  • Keep it short. Sixty to ninety seconds is plenty for an opening story.
  • Use true stories: your own mistakes, or a user's story told with their permission or with identifying details removed. Never invent or inflate a customer's results.
  • Specific beats general. "Thirty orders stuck in a downpour at 7:40 pm" is a scene. "Some users had issues" is a shrug.

The shortcut

Pain before feature. Before you show any feature, spend two or three sentences on the pain it removes, told from one person's point of view. Then show the feature as the way through.

From feature slide to storyStep 1 of 5

  1. The feature

    "Rainkit now gives 15-minute forecasts for the next two hours." True, and forgettable.

A common mistake is a story with no wall: "Farah used Rainkit and it worked great." Without a problem, nothing is at stake, and nobody remembers it.

Drills

Answer fast — trust the rule.

quick drill

Who should usually be the hero of a DevRel story?

quick drill

What does "pain before feature" mean?

quick drill

Which detail makes a story feel real?

quick drill

Meera wants to tell a customer's story from the stage. What should she do first?

Remember

  • Someone wants something, hits a wall, and finds a way through.
  • Shortcut: pain before feature. Two or three sentences of someone's problem, then the tool.
  • Trap: making the product the hero, telling a story with no wall, or inventing results.

Practice — level up

0/1 solved

Write your answer, then compare it with a rubric and a model answer.

ExplainTurn a feature into a story

Rainkit now gives forecasts for exact GPS points instead of 1-kilometre grid squares. Explain how Meera could introduce this in a talk with a story, naming the character, the wall and the way through, and why this works better than announcing the feature.