What can NarraFirma help me do?

Updated

NarraFirma is a web application that helps you carry out your own Participatory Narrative Inquiry (PNI) projects from start to finish. It is built for people who want their community or organization to work with stories — collecting and interpreting personal experience stories to surface insights a group can actually use. It supports the process; it does not replace the judgment of a trained consultant or facilitator.

The core job: run a PNI project end to end

PNI is a form of Participatory Action Research in which groups of people share and work with their stories of personal experiences to understand each other and make collective sense of complex issues. NarraFirma's stated purpose is to help you carry out your own PNI projects from start to finish, so the tool follows the whole arc of a project rather than one isolated step.

Two ways it supports you while you work

The site describes NarraFirma in two complementary roles:

It's a checklist

NarraFirma provides practical guidance as you work, including:

  • Questions for you to answer
  • Recommendations based on the conditions you describe
  • Activities that help you make decisions
  • Just-in-time advice

This means the guidance adapts to what you tell it about your situation, rather than handing you one fixed procedure.

It's a journal

NarraFirma helps you keep a record as the project proceeds, so the decisions and observations you make along the way stay tracked instead of scattered.

What kinds of problems it's aimed at

The site frames PNI around helping a community or organization do things like the following, drawn from real project examples:

Situation What listening to stories did
Community market planning The board of a community market listened to its customers to keep the market going strong
Work-life balance Managers discovered their people were overworked because everybody thought everybody else should do more
Merging cultures After a big company absorbed a small one, people in both groups shared stories to understand how the two cultures could work together
Theft prevention A police force overturned long-standing assumptions about when, where, and why people steal

The common thread: stories dig deeper and reach further than surveys or assumptions alone, and participation by ordinary people surfaces insights the group can use.

Who it's for — and what it isn't

NarraFirma fits you if you want to run a PNI project yourself and want structured guidance, decision support, and a running record to keep you on track.

It is not a substitute for expertise. The site notes that Cynthia Kurtz wrote the book on PNI (Working with Stories) and, with Paul Fernhout, wrote NarraFirma, and that Cynthia offers support, training, and consulting. So the software is the toolkit; human support and training are separate offerings you can seek out if you need them.

Where to go next

  • Try it — the site offers a "Try it!" entry point to explore the application.
  • Learn the method — read about PNI in Working with Stories in Your Community or Organization and the related Working with Stories book series.
  • Get training — the PNI Practicum Courses are online, project-based practice for PNI.
  • Set it up — installation, GitHub, and WordPress resources are linked from the site, along with a FAQ and a blog.