“No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.” ~ Daniel Kahneman

Steve had done everything right or so he thought. His slides were crisp, the metrics were airtight, and the logic was sound. When he pitched a feature pivot to leadership, he expected nods. 

Instead, he got silence and then resistance. “Didn’t we already commit to this roadmap?”

He added more charts, more data to convince leadership. But the more he proved, the less they moved. Steve walked out frustrated.

His idea wasn’t rejected because it was wrong. It just didn’t resonate.

Like most product managers, Steve was trying to inform when the room needed to align. He’d jumped straight to facts, skipping the story arc that made those facts meaningful.

That’s where the IOU Canvas comes in. It’s a simple shift that moves people from knowing → believing → acting.

The next meeting, Steve ditched the slide deck. He opened with the story of a user who loved the product until the feature got in her way. Then he revealed the data. By the time he reached the “unfold,” the leadership team wasn’t defending the past; they were designing the fix.

Same data. Different order. Different outcome.

Before your next roadmap or sprint review:

Because the shortest path from logic to buy-in isn’t more data. It’s better story flow.

Steve didn’t become a better salesperson. He became a better sequencer. And that made all the difference. If your insights deserve more impact, revisit the original IOU edition here.