Storyboarding is a project planning tool that helps teams identify and illustrate the various steps needed to complete a given project. Storyboarding provides a visual guide to each task that needs to be assigned and worked on in order for a project to be completed.
The storyboarding phase of project planning begins early in the project development process and gives teams an opportunity to brainstorm ideas, creatively and visually identify objectives and goals, discuss potential challenges and bottlenecks, and organize the key tasks and milestones needed for successful project completion.
Storyboarding in Media vs. Storyboarding in Project Planning and Software Development
While storyboards have been used for years in the development process for media like films, television shows, and books, their use in project development is more recent. The storyboarding premise works the same for both though the quick illustrated outline or blueprint in a storyboard helps visually identify the project s various steps (or chapters) and helps break down larger projects into more understandable components that can be worked on.
Larger projects often incorporate multiple storyboards that combine to make a larger, more complete storyboard. By outlining the entire process early on, a storyboard for a complex project can reveal potential complications and problems that would likely be much more expensive and time-consuming to address when discovered at a later stage of development.
Changes and adjustments to storyboards are much easier to make as well, and they can be a key tool in developing software applications or services in an agile manner. The Agile methodology of software development in fact relies on a combination of storyboarding and user stories to rapidly develop and deploy software projects.
