PowerPoint Storytelling: How McKinsey, Bain and BCG create compelling presentations

ruticker 04.03.2025 23:47:53

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# Transforming Presentations into Compelling Stories Big name consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG all do one thing really well: they create amazing presentations for their clients. But it's not just the formatting and design that makes these presentations so special; it's the story they tell. In this video, I'm going to teach you how to take your presentation and turn it into a story with clear takeaways, compelling insights, and an engaging narrative. I'll walk through each step of the storytelling process in detail and show you a couple of examples of what this looks like in the real world. All that and more coming up! --- Hi everyone, my name is Paul, and I'm an instructor at the Analyst Academy. We provide advanced PowerPoint presentation design and data visualization training to consulting, strategy, and finance teams. So if that sounds like something you're interested in, make sure you visit us at [theanalystacademy.com](http://theanalystacademy.com). When building a presentation, regardless of who the audience is, you have one primary goal: to make it as easy as possible for the audience to understand what you're trying to tell them. This can be difficult. Business presentations tend to have a lot of data and information, and it can be hard for the audience to grasp the key insights right away, especially if they're trying to also listen to the speaker and think about what they're going to say in response. So when building your deck, it's especially important to make sure it's structured in a way that makes it clear, insightful, and engaging. It's something top consulting firms do really well, thanks in part to two important concepts: the SCQA framework and the Pyramid Principle. ## The SCQA Framework In simple terms, SCQA is just a framework for presentations that allows you to craft a story around the information you're trying to present. It stands for **Situation, Complication, Question, and Answer**. Every presentation is an answer to some question, such as: - Should we acquire this company? - How did this marketing campaign perform? - What did you find in your research? The SCQA framework allows you to provide context for that answer. Practically speaking, this means that your main deck is used to show your answer, while the situation, complication, and question provide context for that answer. ### Example: Disney Theme Park Recommendation Let's consider an example. Say you're on a consulting case for Disney. The executives have asked you to make a recommendation for where they should build their next theme park. The main part of your presentation will be the actual recommendation and all the supporting details. But then the situation, complication, and question will form your introduction slide. - **Situation**: Disney is looking to grow revenue by opening a new park. - **Complication**: They need to decide where to open this park. - **Question**: Where should Disney open its next theme park? Then the main part of your deck answers this question. Notice how this brings the presentation to life. It puts the presentation in context and tells the audience why they should care, instead of just dropping them in the middle of your data. You're leading them along and creating a narrative. ## The Pyramid Principle Now, that brings us to the second important concept: the Pyramid Principle. If you've watched our other videos or taken some of our advanced courses, you'll know that we talk about the Pyramid Principle a lot, especially as it relates to slide structure. Put simply, the Pyramid Principle is just a way of communicating information where you start with the main idea and then provide the supporting details and data of that idea. Going back to our Disney example, the main idea would be on top, then the two supporting points would be below that. If you recall, the question is: Where should Disney build a new theme park? Let's say that your answer is that Disney should build a new theme park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Two supporting reasons for that answer might be: 1. Rio is a major tourist destination. 2. The Disney brand is strong in Brazil. If you wanted, you could continue creating additional layers to your pyramid with more supporting details and data. In a presentation, the way you would communicate this is from top to bottom. The reason why that approach is so effective is because you provide the audience with context first before giving them more granular detail. Plus, it helps the audience know exactly what you're trying to tell them and how you've reached each of your conclusions. ### Structuring Your Presentation Remember, your main goal is to make it as easy as possible for the audience. If you were to turn each of these ideas into its own slide, you would rearrange them like this: 1. Introduction Slide 2. Main Idea 3. Supporting Details And voila! You've got yourself a story. This is the exact approach they use at every major consulting firm to build client presentations that are incredibly clear, compelling, and persuasive. Now, it doesn't always look exactly like this in practice. There are lots of factors that can influence the final version of a deck, not to mention other slides that I didn't talk about, like an executive summary slide, next step slides, or the appendix. But generally speaking, this approach works really well. In fact, did you notice it's the same approach I used for this video? I started the video by stating the situation: when you build a presentation, you want to make it as easy as possible for the audience. Then I introduced the complication: business presentations tend to have a lot of data and information, so making it clear can be difficult. The implicit question then became: how can you make your data-heavy presentations easy to understand? Then I moved on to my answer, which was to provide a clear structure to your presentation using two key concepts: the SCQA framework and the Pyramid Principle. The end result, I hope, is a video that's clear, easy to follow, and insightful. But you'll have to let me know what you thought down in the comments. If you think you or your team could benefit from learning how to consistently build high-quality, persuasive presentations for clients, internal stakeholders, or anyone else, make sure you check out our advanced courses at [theanalystacademy.com](http://theanalystacademy.com). Each course is carefully crafted with clear and actionable insights, multiple real-life examples and case studies, hands-on exercises, quizzes, downloads, and a whole lot more. We sell courses to individuals, corporate strategy and finance teams, as well as consulting firms of all sizes. If that's not for you, then no worries! We've got lots of great free content on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and over on our blog, so make sure you check those out as well. Thanks again for watching, and best of luck in your own slide making!

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