Four areas, each with its own habits to build
The four modules map onto four distinct skills. This page goes deeper into each one than the homepage overview does, including the kind of exercises used and the mistakes each area tends to surface.
Narrative selection: deciding what the story is even about
Before any structuring happens, participants work through a finished project and separate two piles: material that explains what happened, and material that explains why it was hard. Most people over-index on the first pile. This part of the course is spent training the eye to notice the second.
A common exercise involves rewriting a case study's opening paragraph three separate times, each time anchored to a different possible tension point in the same project, then discussing with peers which anchor produces the most honest and specific story. There is rarely one correct answer, but some anchors clearly produce thinner material than others.
Setup, tension, resolution as a working structure
The setup establishes what was true and assumed before the engagement started. The tension names the specific difficulty, whether that is a flawed assumption, a stakeholder disagreement, or a deadline that made the obvious approach unworkable. The resolution shows how the approach changed in response, not just what the final numbers were.
Participants often find the tension section the hardest to write, mostly because admitting difficulty can feel like admitting weakness. Part of the module addresses that directly: a story with no real tension in it reads as either lucky or dishonest, and neither builds confidence in the reader.
Framing data as an answer, not an ornament
Every metric considered for inclusion is tested against one question: what question does this number answer for the specific reader in front of me? A figure that answers "did this work" is different from one that answers "was this worth the cost," and conflating the two tends to weaken both.
This area also covers when to leave a number out entirely. Sometimes a qualitative observation, a quote from a stakeholder meeting, or a simple before-and-after description communicates more clearly than a percentage would, particularly when the underlying sample or context is too small or specific to generalize from responsibly.
Adapting one story across a keynote, a page, and a call
A keynote version can build slowly and use silence. A website page version has to front-load the resolution because most readers scan before they commit to reading in order. A sales call version has to survive interruption, since the other person may ask a question halfway through the setup and derail the sequence entirely.
Participants take one story they developed in module two and produce three short versions of it, then review each with peers who evaluate whether the same underlying tension still reads clearly once the format changes. The final piece of this module is building a personal library: a simple tagging system for story fragments, organized by the objection or situation each one addresses rather than by client name.
Not sure which area you need most?
Some participants arrive confident in structure but weak on data framing, others the reverse. A short conversation can help clarify where your current case studies are strongest.
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