Presentation Development Primer: Storyboarding, Slide Design

Crowdsourced Business
Presentation Design Service
Presentation Development Primer
Storyboarding, Slide Structuring,
Graph Design
August 31, 2013
This document teaches the basics of developing an effective business presentation.
It covers methodologies widely practiced by top management consulting firms, such
as McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. It covers the topics of Storyboarding, Slide
Structuring, and Graph Design. As presentations serve as both communication tools
and work products, presentation development is a useful skill to have.
ORIGINAL PROJECT DETAILS
http://pptlab.com/ppt/Management-Consulting-Basics-Presentation-Development-Primer-43

PPT Lab (www.PPTLab.com) – Crowdsourced Business Presentation Design Service 2
PPT Lab (www.pptlab.com) is the only crowdsourced
presentation design service. Get consulting-quality
presentations at a fraction of the cost!
Each month, we will create well over 50 slides of for our members.
As a member, you will drive what business slides we create by
submitting your own presentation projects to our team. All
presentations will be created by a team of management
consultants and follow the Consulting Presentation Framework.
www.PPTLab.com
support@pptlab.com

Contents
 Overview
 Storyboarding
 Slide Structuring
 Graph Design

This document teaches the basics of developing an effective business
presentation, based on methodologies practiced by consulting firms
Overview
This document teaches the basics of developing an effective business presentation. It covers
methodologies widely practiced by top management consulting firms, such as McKinsey, Bain, and
BCG.
This document is divided into 3 sections:
• Storyboarding. Storyboarding refers to developing the “story” that the presentation will follow.
Please note there are many different frameworks for creating storyboards. This just covers one of
the methods.
• Slide Structuring. Ever notice how you can spot a consulting deck almost immediately? They
embody a similar look and feel. This section dissects the framework used to create the consulting
slide, which consists of a Headline, Body, and Bumper.
• Graph Design. This section teaches you how to select the proper graph for your slide.
Presentation development is a useful skill to have, because presentations is one of the mostly used
communication tools in any workplace. Furthermore, presentations are work products that are easily
and widely circulated both within and to outside an organization. For a consultant, this skill is even more
critical, because PowerPoint presentations are often all that is left with the client after the engagement
ends.

The best management consultants have mastered the skill of developing
effective storyboards
Storyboarding – Introduction
Storyboarding is a requisite skill for any successful consultant. Below are some rules of thumb
governing the concept of storyboarding.
Learning the art of storyboarding takes time—it requires a lot of practice and
many projects.
 Storyboards are developed before the analysis begins. It is not the other way around, as
many may assume.

Storyboards guide the analysis and research. For instance, when creating the storyboard,
you may realize a piece of analysis is missing. You will then decide whether you need to do this
analysis or to adjust the storyboard.
 The length of the presentation is not important—the storyboard is more important. In
fact, it is the story that determines the length of the presentation.

Good storyboards require no verbal explanation. If the storyboard isn't strong enough to
convey the message you intend, then your story is wrong. Furthermore, a business
presentation is often distributed around without the verbal explanation. In such cases, we need
to ensure the intended messaging and story remain consistent to anyone who receives the
presentation.
THIS IS A PARTIAL PREVIEW
You can download the full document at http://PPTLab.com.
PPT Lab is a crowdsourced presentation design service.

The storyboard can be developing by following the first 3 steps of the 6-
phase problem solving process, illustrated below
Storyboarding – Problem Solving Process Approach
The above problem solving process is a popular methodology used by management
consulting firms when structuring their engagements.
Define the
problem
Structure the
problem
Develop the
analyses to test
the
issues
Build
workplan
Run the
test and
analyses
Synthesize
and report
By step three, before we start
the analysis, we will have
enough information to construct
our storyboard

In the initial steps, we define the problem statement—we also give the
problem meaning, direction, and structure
Problem Solving Process – Initial
Steps
Define the
problem
Structure
the problem
Develop the
analyses to
test the
issues
Build
workplan
Run the
test and
analyses
Synthesize
and report
1. DEFINE THE PROBLEM 2. STRUCTURE THE PROBLEM
Can Flevy.com increase its
operating margin, particularly
by lowering its costs?
Increase revenue
Cut costs
Reduce labor costs
Reduce hosting
costs
Reduce search
engine marketing
costs
Are there SEM
providers?
Are there cheaper
hosting plans?
Can salaries be
lowered?
Can staff be
reduced?
Increase traffic
Increase conversion
Raise prices
Charts and
Analysis
ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE

Now, let’s create a storyboard based on these expected findings
Expected Findings Development
Try to keep the solution sentence crisp and concise—preferably maintain it at only 1
sentence.
Are there SEM
providers?
Are there cheaper
hosting plans?
Can salaries be
lowered?
Can staff be reduced?
• Most employees are working long hours
and engaged in extra duties—it is
unlikely staffing levels can be reduced
• It is likely some employees are overpaid
relative to the market and can have
their salaries lowered
• Hosting is a commodity and there
should be low cost providers that will
allow us to reduce hosting costs by
20%
• Flevy.com can utilize cheaper SEM
providers from offshore companies
• Certain levels of employees are paid
above their market salaries
• There are no excess capacity, as
employees are working long hours and
taking on extra tasks
• We can find a low cost hosting provide
without sacrificing uptime and reduce
costs by 20%
• Flevy.com can utilize an offshore SEM
provider to reduce SEM costs by 50%
Can we write
this more clearly
and build
a story?
ORIGINAL EXPECTED FINDINGS RE-ORDERED AND RE-WORDED FINDINGS

These expected findings become your slide Headlines
Headlines Development
The “Headline” is the text that appears at the top of each slide (in blue font, as you see
in this presentation).
Certain levels of employees are paid above
their market salaries
There are no excess capacity, as employees are
working long hours and taking on extra tasks
We can find a low cost hosting provide without
sacrificing uptime and reduce costs by 20%
Flevy.com can utilize an offshore SEM provider to
reduce SEM costs by 50%
Can you see the story now?
In this example, we only looked at the
cost side of the decision tree. If we also
looked at the revenue enhancement
opportunities, the story would of course
be longer.

The storyboarding process is powerful enough to cover any concerns you
may have
Storyboarding – Final Concerns
The storyboard forces you to be concise and deliver a message as opposed to data—
clients like messages.
What if the data or message in the
storyboard changes after the analysis?
?
What if the storyboard has no story?
?
What if I have data that does not fit in my
storyboard?
?
• That is normal—you will just adjust your
analysis and story accordingly
• That is impossible—if you don't have a story,
then you are not linking the data together
correctly
• Either the data is incorrect (which is very
unlikely) or your storyboard needs to change
(more likely the reason)

The Headline is at the top of the slide.
A slide is composed of 3 key components—the Headline, Body, and
Bumper
Slide Structure Overview
This is the “Bumper” statement, oftentimes also called the “Kicker”
by many consulting firms.
1
The Bumper appears at the bottom
of the slide.3
The Body occupies the central
part of the slide.
2 THIS IS A PARTIAL PREVIEW

The Headline is the first thing your audience reads—and it conveys the Key
Message to the slide
Guidelines and Rules of Thumb – Headline
Reading all the Headlines, in order from the first slide to the last, should tell a
coherent story—i.e. your storyboard.
 The Key Message goes into the Headline.
 The Headline should be 2 lines max. If you find yourself exceeding 2 lines, reword to cut
down the length.
 Avoid empty statements.
 Say something meaningful that directs attention to the slide’s important point. For
instance, “ROE varies greatly across businesses.”
 Use Headlines as the storyboard to your document.
 The Headline should only be 1 sentence.

Follow the “Rule of Two”
Guidelines and Rules of Thumb – Rule of Two
Limit every element to 2 lines:
• Report title
• Subtitle
• Headlines
• Bullets
• Dashes
• Bumpers
The human eye finds it very difficult to follow more than 2 lines of text. Anything exceeding 2 lines tends
to get lost or ignored.

First, the Headline must be aligned with the graph we are displaying—i.e.
the headline must pick out the Key Message in our data
Headline Message and the Graph
In designing the content that goes into the slide, the
first thing we must consider is: Does the Headline
pick out the Key Message in the data?
In other words, can the audience understand the
content of the slide (typically a graph) just by reading
the Headline?
Levels in a company
Difference
from
benchmark
$
Certain levels of employees are paid above
their market salaries

Lastly, verify that we are using the right type of graph
Graph Type Selection
Levels in a company
Difference
from
benchmark
$
Illustrative Headline message—certain levels of
employees are paid above their market salaries
THIS IS THE GRAPH TITLE
Is this the right type of graph to use?
• Information  Use Graphs
• Time series  Use Line Charts
• Share  Use Pie Parts
• Position  Use Matrix / 2x2 Charts
• Size  Use Bar Charts
• Comparisons  Use Bar/Stacked Bar Charts
• Degree  Use Harvey Balls
• Composition  Use % Ball/Area Charts
Does the graph send one message clearly?
Do you need to label the data points (with numbers/key)?
Do the data points add up?
What units are being displayed?
• What is the scale?
• What and should be the origin of the scale?
What are the data points in this order?
• Random pattern for effect
• Chronological
• Size
• Alphabetical
Is a legend needed?
Depending on the type of graph, you may end up hiding or highlighting
the key insights.

For a more in depth discussion on presentation design and development,
check out the eBook, Become a PowerPoint Guru (from LearnPPT.com)
Become a PowerPoint Guru
Become a PowerPoint Guru covers the following topics:
• The Basics – Covers the initial steps of setting up your
PowerPoint button shortcuts, keyboard shortcut keys, and the
Consulting Presentation Framework.
• Getting Your Story Straight – Learn to construct an insightful and
cohesive story for your audience using concepts like the Pyramid
Principle and MECE. Understand the psychology of your audience
and how to structure each slide accordingly using the PCPV
framework.
• The Art of PowerPoint – Learn basic to advanced diagramming
techniques (including how to construct "The Missing Powerpoint
Diagram"). Understand the multitude of charts at your disposals,
when to use each kind, and how to design them in PowerPoint.
This eBook is available at http://learnppt.com/ebook.php.
All of PPT Lab’s presentations are developed based on the principles covered in this
book.

PPT Lab (www.pptlab.com) is the only crowdsourced
presentation design service. Get consulting-quality
presentations at a fraction of the cost!
Each month, we will create well over 50 slides of for our members.
As a member, you will drive what business slides we create by
submitting your own presentation projects to our team. All
presentations will be created by a team of management
consultants and follow the Consulting Presentation Framework.
www.PPTLab.com
support@pptlab.com

Presentation Development Primer: Storyboarding, Slide Design

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