What are the steps of storyboarding and producing slides in a consulting project?

Hi,

there are of course different approaches depending on project, client, setting, etc. but in general this is the process:

The process of problem-solving and generating slides in management consulting typically involves several stages and iterations. Here's how it generally works:

1. Initial Storyboarding:

• At the early stage of a project, when there is limited information and a basic understanding of the problem, initial storyboarding can begin. This process is often led by the project manager, partner, or senior team members.
• Storyboarding involves outlining the structure and key points of the presentation. It's like creating a rough skeleton of the story (i.e. empty slides with headlines or drawings of a slide). This may include defining hypotheses, key questions, and the general flow of the presentation.
• Team members may be asked to contribute their insights and ideas, but the focus is on creating a preliminary structure rather than producing detailed slides. The goal is to align the team on the project's direction and approach.

2. Data Gathering and Analysis:

• Once data collection and analysis begin, the team gains more insights and information. It's common for the initial hypotheses to be refined or adjusted based on the findings.
• During this stage, team members work on analyzing data, conducting research, and developing insights. Some slides may be created to capture early findings or to illustrate key points, but these are often preliminary.

3. Reiteration and Slide Development:

• As the project progresses, findings become more refined and concrete. This is when slide development intensifies.
• Slides are created or revised to reflect the most up-to-date and relevant information. This may involve creating new slides, modifying existing ones, or removing outdated content.
• The storyline evolves as the team gains a deeper understanding of the problem and the insights emerge. Slides are aligned with the evolving story.
• The process is iterative, with regular feedback and discussions among team members, managers, and partners. Slides are refined to ensure they effectively communicate the key insights and recommendations.

4. Final Presentation:

• In the final stage, the presentation is polished and fine-tuned. This includes refining the storyline, formatting slides, and ensuring clarity and consistency.
• Presentations are often rehearsed to ensure a smooth delivery during client meetings or internal discussions.

In summary, initial storyboarding helps set the direction for the project, but the majority of slide production occurs in the later stages when more data and insights are available. Slides from the initial stage may be useful as a starting point, but they are often revised and supplemented with new content as the project progresses and the storyline matures. 

Hope that answers your question.

/Marvin

Hi there!

Yes, cool question, happy to provide a perspective. 

Basically, here are the main steps that you go through to create a document / prepare a presentation:

1. There's a call/meeting in the team (usually the more senior members) to align on what is the problem that the presentation is trying to solve. They agree on a few high-level ideas / principles
2. Somebody takes the lead to put this into a dot/dash (usually the engagement manger / project leader or associate partner). That's a word document with bullet points that make the case for the story that was agreed in the previous call. These bullet points will then turn into powerpoint pages. 
3. The document is then circulated to a few other of the senior leaders and refined based on their feedback
4. The project leader or associate then creates the dummy deck - basically the bullet points turn into action titles on separate pages. Then stickers are added on each of the pages with what content needs to be added.
5. The project leader then assigns different sections to different team members. 
6. Experts and support staff are leveraged as needed to generate the content for the slides
7. From here there's a candence of calls as the document evolves to make sure that the feedback from senior members is collected. 
8. Once it's client ready, it's usually shared with clients to collect additional feedback - usually starting with junior clients and/or the sponsor of the project of the client side 
9. All this additional feedback is integrated. The doc is presented to the senior client. 

That's it. 

Hope this helps! And let me know if you have follow-up questions.

Best,
Cristian

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Hi,

Sharing some perspectives on this. Take note that the type of project (e.g. PMO vs CDD), team setup and timelines (6 month project vs 4 week project) will greatly affect the definition of the process and the variables (e.g. “initial stage” in a DD is Day 0/Day 1; “initial stage” in a long PMO implementation may be 1 month)

1. Initial storyboarding

Ideal/Expectation: 

• Ideally you'd want to have a full ghost deck / storyline aligned very early
• This should be done by case leadership (Partner + manager)
• The best managers I've worked with have nailed down a storyline within week 1 (and then subsequently kept to it)
• Depending on the nature of the client relationship, you may or may not also run by a partial (or even full) version of the storyline
• When exactly slide production starts is a little more flexible and grey - typically you'd only want to do this once storyline/section storyline are aligned, but sometimes there are several ‘no-regrets’ slides that may be prioritized

Reality (what may happen):

• You may be on a team with multiple partners who are unable to align on a storyline or have conflicting ideas and a manager who is unable to manage them
• You may have a perfect and pre-aligned storyline but the partner comes in the day before the SteerCo and rips it apart
• You may present your ideal version of the storyline after the first SteerCo and the client completely challenges it and you have to revise the entire storyline

2. Reiterate findings and revise the storyline

Ideal/Expectation: 

• Ideally, the master story is a ‘living’ document, in the sense that it should evolve as you have new insights and/or direction that is relevant for the client
• Ideally, everyone wants (should) to reduce redundant work. If your ‘initial stage' story is spot-on, then often it is just revising and adjusting the content
• However, you may also have to create new slides as new questions / objectives arise during the course of the project, and this is just part of the iterative problem solving approach

Reality (what may happen):

• Scope creep driven externally by clients that bombard your team with extra requests that require extra slides to be made that were not originally part of your storyline
• Scope creep driven internally by managers/partners leading to extra slides that only end up in the appendix

Some final thoughts

I guess one thing you are trying to clarify is the distribution of slide generation/work throughout the case - this is something that is really variable and dependent on many factors (client, project type, internal team leadership, internal working team etc).

In my experience, the best cases have been front-loaded (but these are very rare), and most ‘good’ average cases have an average distribution of work throughout the case - e.g. you finish what you need for the first SteerCo, then you work towards the second Steerco etc.

Happy to chat more in detail if you'd like, just drop me a dm

In the consulting industry, the process of problem-solving and slide generation typically involves collaboration and iteration. Here's how it generally works:

Initial storyboarding: At the early stage of a project, when there is limited information and a basic understanding of the problem, the project lead or partner will typically generate initial hypotheses or a high-level storyline. This helps provide a starting point for the team's analysis. However, it's important to note that problem-solving is a collaborative effort, and team members are encouraged to contribute their ideas and insights.

Slide production: During the initial stage, when there is limited information, the focus is more on gathering data, conducting analysis, and developing a deeper understanding of the problem. While it's less common to produce detailed slides at this stage, it may be helpful to create a basic structure or outline to guide the analysis. The emphasis is on gathering insights and refining the storyline.

Reiterating findings and revising the storyline: As more information is analyzed and insights are generated, the storyline and slides may need to be revised. This involves refining the content, incorporating new findings, and ensuring the story flows logically. It's common to recycle and build upon the usable slides produced earlier, while also creating new slides to reflect the updated analysis and insights.

Overall, the process of slide generation and iteration is dynamic and iterative. It involves continuous collaboration, analysis, and refinement as the team gathers more information and develops a deeper understanding of the problem. The goal is to create a compelling and logical story that effectively communicates the insights and recommendations to the client.

Hi there,

Feel free to reach out to learn how to do this - I have run trainings for consultants at major corporations (e.g. PwC, Kearney, etc.) on exactly this type of topic.

1. Initial storyboarding

Yes and no. At the very beginning you have a framework. As time progressed you start to create the storyboard. This gets revised in interations as new information comes in, and, especially, when the Partners / Principals get their eyes on it.

2. Reiterate findings and revise the storyline

Both. You might have a full re-build or regutting. However, the best consultants/project leads know how to take Partner feedback and tweak/adjust what has been already done.

It might be moving slides around.

It might be rewording the framework

It might be cutting/addiing specific slides

And please, remember, this isn't a 2-step process but rather a continuous process of iteration.

===========Here are some PowerPoint Tips===========

I recommend that you start to approach it this way: boil down good vs bad design into principles, determine the key things to check in a slide, identify what small tweak changes a slide from looking average to awesome.

For example:

1. Always align items on your slide
2. Look to keep even spacing and sizing between multiple items (i.e. if I have 4 icons down the left column, I make them the exact same size, and set them all to be equidistant from each other)
3. Use colors to highlight focus areas and draw the eye - but don't overuse colors! (Maybe my first column will be dark blue with white text, if it's asking the key questions we have. Or maybe if I have a "summary" or 3 takeaways on a slide I'll bold + add color to the specific words/phreases that each takeaway is really addressing)
4. Identify what you are trying to achieve from the slide and then pick your template - there are probably 5 template I cycle through based on what I need. Coloring + content make them look different from each other, but boiled down, they're all quite simple (i.e. a table slide, a sequence slide, a 3 key takeaways slide, etc. etc.)

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/powerpoint-skills-4072

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/why-are-powerpoint-presentations-made-by-consultants-considered-good-when-most-pages-are-so-crowded-8494