mckinsey presentation 2022

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47 real mckinsey presentations, free to download.

Table of contents

Consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG are notoriously secretive about both their clients and their slide decks.

Even so, there are a few publicly available McKinsey slides floating around the internet that can be fun to look at and get inspired by. For your convenience, we’ve rounded them up here and divided them into categories, along with short summaries of each deck.

But be warned: Many of the decks are older and for external purposes like presentations for industry conferences or extracts of McKinsey Global Institute reports. 

You can find similar lists of presentations for Bain here and BCG here .

If you want to see some recent real-life consulting slides used with corporate clients, go to our templates to get specific full-length case examples related to each topic.

Full list of available presentations:

Client projects:

• McKinsey - Helping Global Health Partnerships to increase their impact: Stop TB Partnership (2009)
• McKinsey - USPS Future Business Model (2010)
• McKinsey - Capturing the full electricity efficiency potential of the U.K. (2012)
• McKinsey - Modelling the potential of digitally-enabled processes, transparency and participation in the NHS (2014)
• McKinsey - Refueling the innovation engine in vaccines (2016)
• McKinsey - Lebanon Economic Vision - Full Report (2018)

Industry reports/market overviews:

• McKinsey - The changed agenda in the global sourcing industry: perspectives and developments (2009)
• McKinsey - What Makes Private Sector Partnership Works: some learnings from the field (2011)
• McKinsey - The Internet of Things and Big Data: Opportunities for Value Creation (2013)
• McKinsey - Laying the foundations for a financially sound industry (2013)
• McKinsey - Manufacturing the Future: The Next Era of Global Growth and Innovation (2013)
• McKinsey - Insurance trends and growth opportunities for Poland (2015)
• McKinsey - Challenges in Mining: Scarcity or Opportunity? (2015)
• McKinsey - Restoring Economic Health to the North Sea (2015)
• McKinsey - How will Internet of Things, mobile internet, data analytics and cloud transform public services by 2030? (2015)
• McKinsey - Overview of M&A, 2016 (2016)
• McKinsey - Five keys to unlocking growth in marketing’s “new golden age” (2017)
• McKinsey - Using Artificial Intelligence to prevent healthcare errors from occurring (2017)
• McKinsey - Digital Luxury Experience (2017)
• McKinsey - Technology’s role in mineral criticality (2017)
• McKinsey - The future energy landscape: Global trends and a closer look at the Netherlands (2017)
• McKinsey - European Banking Summit 2018 (2018)
• McKinsey - Current perspectives on Medical Affairs in Japan (2018)
• McKinsey - Investment and Industrial Policy: A Perspective on the Future (2018)
• McKinsey - Moving Laggards to Early Adopters (Maybe even innovators) (2018)
• McKinsey - Digital and Innovation Strategies for the Infrastructure Industry (2018)
• McKinsey - The Future of the Finance Function –Experiences from the U.S. public sector (2019)
• McKinsey - New horizons in transportation: mobility, innovation, economic development and funding implications (2020)
• McKinsey - Accelerating hybrid cloud adoption in banking and securities (2020)
• McKinsey - COVID-19 - Auto & Mobility Consumer Insights (2020)
• McKinsey - Race in the workplace: The Black experience in the U.S. private sector (2021)
• McKinsey - The top trends in tech - executive summary download (2021)
• McKinsey - Women in the Workplace (2022)
• McKinsey - Global Hydrogen Flows: Hydrogen trade as a key enabler for efficient decarbonization (2022)
• McKinsey - McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook 2022 (2022)
• McKinsey - Global Economics Intelligence; Global Summary Report (2023)
• McKinsey - Fab automation - Artificial Intelligence (date unknown)

McKinsey Global Institute reports (McKinsey’s business and economics research arm):

• McKinsey - Context for Global Growth and Development (2014)
• McKinsey - Perspectives on manufacturing, disruptive technologies, and Industry 4.0 (2014)
• McKinsey - From poverty to empowerment: India’s imperative for jobs, growth and effective basic services (2014)
• McKinsey - Attracting Responsible Mining Investment in Fragile and Conflict Affected Settings (2014)
• McKinsey - A blueprint for addressing the global affordable housing challenge (2015)
• McKinsey - Jobs lost, jobs gained: Workforce transitions in a time of automation (2017)
• McKinsey - Reinventing Construction: A Route To Higher Productivity (2017)
• McKinsey - Outperformers: High-growth emerging economies and the companies that propel them (2018)

Miscellaneous projects:

• McKinsey - How companies can capture the veteran opportunity (2012)
• McKinsey - The Five Frames – A Guide to Transformational Change (date unknown)

Helping Global Health Partnerships to increase their impact: McKinsey (2009)

54 page pre-read deck for a board meeting during a longer project. Describes project overview, key findings from current phase, as well as next steps. Detailed and systematic walk-through. Good inspiration for : How to divide a project into relevant phases. Presenting detailed findings for different areas and summarizing these in suggested next steps for each area.

Download the presentation here.

USPS Future Business Model (2010)

39 page deck describing the recent context and base case going forward for USPS, as well as potential change levers and what is required to change course short term. Good inspiration for: Structuring a coherent strategy document with a clear storyline.

Capturing the full electricity efficiency potential of the U.K. (2012)

61 page main deck + 68 page appendix covering a full analysis and recommendations for becoming more energy efficient. Appears to have been prepared for the UK government. Excellent deck with many good slide designs and the full end-to-end storyline from baseline calculation to potential efficiency measures to barriers to prioritization and recommendations of measures to take. Good inspiration for : Creating a full report of a project analysis and recommendations based on that analysis. Presenting data in clear slides. Presenting and analyzing potential measures systematically.

Modelling the potential of digitally-enabled processes, transparency and participation in the NHS (2014)

3 page deck + 13 page appendix describing the context, methodology, and outcome of a quantitative model to analyze the net benefits of various technology interventions for the NHS. Also includes an analysis of the net opportunities against the ease of implementation, and ends with a recommendation of the four most impactful actions to take. Good inspiration for: Structuring and explaining a quantitative model including drivers and expected impact.

Refueling the innovation engine in vaccines (2016)

40 page discussion document for NVAC as part of a longer project. The deck goes over the state of the industry, challenges to innovation and potential solutions, as well as what role NVAC can play. Good inspiration for: Creating a clear and structured storyline that balances data-heavy slides with verbal/abstract slides.

Industry reports & market overviews:

The changed agenda in the global sourcing industry: perspectives and developments (2009) 35 page dense deck presented at a Global ICT services sourcing conference. Covers the development of the onshore-offshore industry, what it is expected to look like going forward, and the imperatives for management to successfully navigate the future. Good inspiration for: Creating a complete and comprehensive market picture, as well as framing recommendations.

​​What Makes Private Sector Partnership Works: some learnings from the field (2011) 12 page deck describing public-private partnerships around agriculture in Africa. The deck identifies where in the value chain there could be partnership possibilities, as well as examples of successful partnerships and what is needed to succeed. Good inspiration for: Presenting a value chain. Visually representing different partnership models (or other types of models).

The Internet of Things and Big Data: Opportunities for Value Creation (2013) 18 page picture-heavy deck used in an oral presentation around the topic of IoT and big data. The deck first describes IoT’s growth in recent years before moving into how IoT works on a high level and what the possibilities and challenges are.

Good inspiration for: Using quotes to enhance a storyline.

Laying the foundations for a financially sound industry (2013) 17 page deck going over the current financial situation of the global steel industry before briefly touching on the outlook and then discussing possible measures to become more financially stable. Contains a fairly detailed and interesting EBITDA model with different drivers of EBITDA laid out. Presented at a Steel Committee meeting. Good inspiration for: Creating clear graph slides. Visually representing a quantitative model.

Manufacturing the Future: The Next Era of Global Growth and Innovation (2013) 38 page deck covering the current state of US manufacturing and five disruptive trends that are reshaping the industry. Good inspiration for: Summarizing trends and relating them to a specific value chain. Many good graphs and ways of presenting data (both quantitative and qualitative) visually.

Insurance trends and growth opportunities for Poland (2015) 25 page deck covering the status of the Polish insurance market and five main trends shaping the market, as well as a case of a different market and how that has changed. Presented in connection with the Polish Insurance Association. Good inspiration for: Systematically presenting various trends and their expected impact without becoming too monotonous visually.

Challenges in Mining: Scarcity or Opportunity? (2015) 10 page main deck + 30 page appendix describing the current status of mining and how the value chain will potentially change due to new innovations. Presented during World Materials Forum. Good inspiration for: Presenting a value chain in different ways, as well as which areas of the value chain will change/can be innovated.

Restoring Economic Health to the North Sea (2015) 28 page deck used for an oral presentation about the cost increases in the UK oil industry and potential ways to mitigate these. Good inspiration for: Creating a simple and clear storyline with a strong narrative arc that works well for a live presentation.

How will Internet of Things, mobile internet, data analytics and cloud transform public services by 2030? (2015) 15 page fairly high-level deck describing IoT and other digital trends and how they will potentially impact various industries and current ways of doing things. Good inspiration for: Presenting a trend and following with a good example/case study.

Five keys to unlocking growth in marketing’s “new golden age” (2017) 26 page deck going over five main levers to pull in marketing; science, substance, story, speed, and simplicity. Describes each lever in a few slides using mainly images, icons, and other graphics. Good inspiration for: Creating light, image-based slides that still tell a story and get the message across.

Using Artificial Intelligence to prevent healthcare errors from occurring (2017) 25 page dense deck describing how AI/ML (machine learning) is changing industries, the possible use cases in healthcare, and what barriers exists/which key things need to be in place to enable an advanced analytics implementation. Good inspiration for: Showing quantitative potentials for different use cases/levers and summarizing these in a visually clear way. Creating one-pagers on specific use cases.

Digital Luxury Experience 2017 (2017) 24-page support deck for an oral presentation going over three areas of change for the luxury industry, hosted by a luxury goods umbrella organization. Good inspiration for: Using simple graphs and numbers to illustrate a point.

Technology’s role in mineral criticality (2017) 28 page deck first describing some overall technology trends and how they may impact the minerals industry including potential opportunities. Then going into productivity issues in mining and potential fixes, as well as a deep dive into two commodities. Presented at the World Materials Forum. Good inspiration for: Presenting complex data on relatively simple slides and making the message visually clear.

The future energy landscape: Global trends and a closer look at the Netherlands (2017) 38 page graph-heavy deck describing the current energy landscape and three major trends expected to impact it going forward, as well as how it specifically applies to the Netherlands. Presentation to the Dutch financial sector. Good inspiration for: Different ways of presenting numbers and graphs in clear, compelling visuals.

European Banking Summit 2018 (2018) 10-page deck going over the status of European capital markets, particularly concerning the US. Mainly focused on current numbers, not a lot on the path forward. Good inspiration for: Making classic consulting-style graph slides.

Current perspectives on Medical Affairs in Japan (2018) 20 page deck covering the current status and trends impacting Medical Affairs in Japan, as well as four priorities for leadership going forward. Good inspiration for: Creating divider slides that also function as executive summaries.

Investment and Industrial Policy: A Perspective on the Future (2018) 16-page main deck + 7-page appendix describing the rise of globalization, its impact on economic growth, and recommendations for policy-makers. Fairly high-level, although with some good data slides. Presented as part of a panel discussion at the UNCTAD Trade And Development Board. Good inspiration for: Creating visually clear data-heavy slides. Condensing a potentially long storyline into a few key slides.

Moving Laggards to Early Adopters (Maybe even innovators) (2018) 18 page word-heavy deck used in an oral presentation on the topic of digitalization in manufacturing. Covers the challenges of digital manufacturing, then goes over survey output from the industry, before ending with three recommendations for businesses. Good inspiration for: Presenting verbal findings and recommendations in simple slides with icons.

The Future of the Finance Function –Experiences from the U.S. public sector (2019) 14 page deck used in an oral presentation for a government finance function conference. The deck goes over what challenges CFOs etc. face in the current environment and five ways to move from transaction to value management going forward. Good inspiration for: Presenting different levels of maturity of a given function and supporting this with data.

Fab automation - Artificial Intelligence (date unknown) 17 page deck discussing the potential for AI in the semiconductor industry by first describing what AI is, then how it applies to fab, and finally what is required to unlock that potential. Good inspiration for: Creating different types of slide designs that balance text and numbers to avoid a monotonous or boring storyline.

McKinsey Global Institute reports:

Context for Global Growth and Development (2014) Sub-title: Extracts from McKinsey Global Institute research for UN Session on “Financing for global sustainable development”. 11-page deck focusing mainly on key findings from a longer research report put out by McKinsey Global Institute. Good inspiration for: Creating different slide designs for graphs and numbers.

Perspectives on manufacturing, disruptive technologies, and Industry 4.0 (2014) 17-page slightly ad hoc deck with extracts of a longer report put out by the McKinsey Global Institute on manufacturing. Goes over why manufacturing is important, how the boundaries of industry and services are blurring, how digital manufacturing is growing, and finally where governments can support from a policy perspective. Good inspiration for: Different slide designs and presenting data in a visually appealing and clear way.

From poverty to empowerment: India’s imperative for jobs, growth and effective basic services (2014) 13-page deck + 8-page appendix going over India’s poverty issues and potential change levers. Extract of a longer report put out by the McKinsey Global Institute. Good inspiration for: Creating clear and compelling quantitative slides in different formats.

Attracting Responsible Mining Investment in Fragile and Conflict Affected Settings (2014) 8 page deck describing the development of resource-driven countries and six dimensions for governments to focus on to realize the full potential going forward. Extract from a longer report put out by the McKinsey Global Institute. Good inspiration for: Creating a short and to-the-point storyline following the SCQA framework (situation-complication-question-answer), although the “Q” is implied.

A blueprint for addressing the global affordable housing challenge (2015) 49 page deck going into first what the affordable housing challenge looks like in numbers, followed by levers to narrow the affordability gap. The deck is a summation of a longer report put out by the McKinsey Global Institute. Good inspiration for: Illustrating change levers and their quantitative impact, both collectively and separately.

Jobs lost, jobs gained: Workforce transitions in a time of automation (2017) 16-page deck going over how automation and computers have historically affected jobs, and what potential impact it will have in the future. Summary of a longer report put out by the McKinsey Global Institute. Good inspiration for: Creating data-heavy slides. Keeping the storyline simple and to-the-point.

​​Reinventing Construction: A Route To Higher Productivity (2017) 14-page deck describing the current state of construction, in particular productivity, before briefly going over seven potential improvement areas and how government intervention might help. Very high-level deck summarizing a longer report by the McKinsey Global Institute. Good inspiration for: Using an agenda or divider slide actively to both summarize and outline the storyline.

Outperformers: High-growth emerging economies and the companies that propel them (2018) 16-page deck describing the main highlights of a research report by McKinsey Global Institute on high-growth emerging economies. The deck first goes over the data on how these economies are performing, followed by the proposed reasons why, and the outlook going forward. Good inspiration for: Creating different graph-heavy slide designs.

How companies can capture the veteran opportunity (2012)

34-page main deck + 12 page appendix going into how employers can leverage veteran talent. The document is divided into three main sections; 1) what is the business case for hiring veterans, 2) what are the best practices are for finding, hiring, onboarding, and retaining veterans, 3) what resources are available to assist employers’ veteran recruiting efforts. Good inspiration for: Systematically presenting an opportunity and how to best leverage that opportunity. Creating slides to show processes and decision trees.

The Five Frames – A Guide to Transformational Change (date unknown)

33-page deck discussing organizational “health” and diving into a five-step approach to transformation. The deck is structured as a kind of simple playbook to use when undertaking e.g. a digital transformation. Good inspiration for: Directly applicable high-level playbook when embarking on a small or large transformation. Structuring a process.

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The state of customer care in 2022

Customer care leaders are facing a perfect storm of challenges: call volumes are up, employees are leaving and harder to replace, and digital solutions aren’t yet delivering on their full promise. Add rising customer expectations and decades-high inflation  to the mix, and it’s easy to understand why customer care leaders are feeling the pressure.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Jeff Berg , Eric Buesing , Paul Hurst, Vivian Lai, and Subhrajyoti Mukhopadhyay, representing views of McKinsey’s Customer Care service line.

The stakes couldn’t be higher as teams try to adapt to a postpandemic era of customer care. Over the past two years, leaders have had to quickly adapt systems and ways of working to accommodate the shift to working from home—up to 85 percent of their workforces, in some cases. Contact center employees are harder to hold onto, and nearly half of customer care managers experienced increased attrition in 2021, leading to performance variability.

Over the past two years, customer care leaders have had to quickly adapt systems and ways of working to accommodate the shift to working from home.

While digital solutions and the shift to self-service channels will solve many of these challenges, they aren’t quite reaching the goal. For most organizations, the vast majority of digital customer contacts require assistance, and only 10 percent of newly built digital platforms are fully scaled or adopted by customers.

Not surprisingly, McKinsey’s 2022 State of Customer Care Survey has found that customer care is now a strategic focus for companies. Respondents say their top three priorities over the next 12 to 24 months will be retaining and developing the best people, driving a simplified customer experience (CX)  while reducing call volumes and costs, and building their digital care and advanced analytics ecosystems.

With challenges on all fronts, the question now confronting leaders is how best to prioritize investment across the people, operations, and technology aspects of their customer care strategies. Knowing where to focus or what to do first isn’t easy, and businesses need to move quickly. Companies that don’t invest in this area face the possibility of further talent attrition, customer dissatisfaction, and even loss of market share.

But customer care is also now a major opportunity for businesses. Done well—through a combination of tech and human touch—it is an area where companies can drive loyalty through a more personalized customer journey while unlocking greater productivity, increased revenue, improved job satisfaction, and real-time customer insights.

This article presents the key findings of the 2022 State of Customer Care Survey and how businesses are shifting priorities at this critical time.

Challenges on all fronts

To uncover the latest trends in customer care, McKinsey surveyed more than 160 industry leaders and experts at the director, senior director, vice president, and C-suite levels to find out how their operations have been affected over the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Care is at an inflection point

The survey findings indicate that customer care is at an inflection point. Call volumes are higher and more complex than before, while companies find themselves struggling to find talent and train them to proficiency at pace.

As customer care increasingly moves online, the distinction between digital and live interactions has also begun to blur. Organizations are looking for new capabilities that will enhance both the customer and employee experience in “moments that matter”—those interactions that may have previously happened face to face or have significant influence on overall CX.

Compared with results of the 2019 State of Customer Care Survey, customer care leaders are now more focused on improving CX, reducing contact volumes, deploying AI assistance, and increasing revenue generation on service calls (Exhibit 1).

Customer care talent is increasingly scarce

Higher call volumes and more complex calls are challenging existing capacity—61 percent of surveyed care leaders report a growth in total calls, with increased contacts per customer and a growing customer base as the key drivers. And 58 percent of care leaders expect call volumes to increase even further over the next 18 months.

While a growing customer base is a positive sign for business, it puts greater pressure on contact centers that are already under strain. More customers mean increased call numbers, and with more complex calls, customers tend to have to phone contact centers over and over again—further affecting capacity and resulting in a more negative CX overall.

To make matters worse, talent attrition is affecting customer care capacity. Employees are leaving faster than they did before the pandemic—a result of the Great Attrition—and are more difficult to replace. Nearly half of surveyed managers report increased employee attrition over the past 12 months.

The top-cited reason for employees leaving is poaching by competitors—58 percent—alongside employee burnout, employee dissatisfaction, lack of advancement opportunities, and poor work–life balance (Exhibit 2).

Retaining talent could prove vital in the race to maintain capacity. New hires require significant staff training, with 41 percent of surveyed leaders reporting that it takes between three and six months to train a new employee for optimal performance and a further 20 percent saying it takes more than six months.

Uniting self-service and live channels

Many companies have made significant investments in digital care capacity in recent years, though cross-channel integration and migration issues continue to hamper progress. For example, 77 percent of survey respondents report that their organizations have built digital platforms, but only 10 percent report that those platforms are fully scaled and adopted by customers. Only 12 percent of digital platforms are highly integrated, and, for most organizations, only 20 percent of digital contacts are unassisted.

In an increasingly digital first environment, however, customer care is fundamental to how organizations interact with their customers. Leaders in this field are asking, “How do we create a better, more personalized experience through digitally enabled services?”

Businesses are investing in three critical areas

Faced with the challenges of a fast-changing and demanding environment, companies can’t afford to refrain from acting on the customer care storm. Over the past two years, customers have flocked to digital channels because of the pandemic, and organizations have had to race to meet their needs with new channels that support remote and digital transactions.

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In a postpandemic future, this pivot to digital is likely to keep growing. And while many companies believe that they have made significant strides in their customer care transformation journey, a significant number remain at a foundational level—they are improving self-service options and automating common requests but haven’t yet moved far enough along the journey to distinguish from their competitors. Meanwhile, those that have the leading edge are leveraging real-time customer behavior insights and conversational AI to deliver proactive customer outreach.

Customer care leaders say their top three priorities over the next 12 to 24 months are to retain and develop the best people, drive a simplified CX while reducing call volumes and costs, and build out their digital care ecosystems.

Retain and develop the best people

Traditionally, customer care talent has been regarded as cheap, easy to replace, and relatively low skilled. But with call volumes growing and calls becoming more complex to resolve, these employees now require more strategic consideration.

With three out of five surveyed leaders citing attracting, training, and retaining talent as a top priority, businesses are looking at ways to build a better organizational culture. Two of the most effective ways to do this—according to customer care leaders—are to find ways to motivate and build trust with employees and to encourage leaders to listen and act on employee feedback (Exhibit 3).

Shift the interactions

Shifting the workload away from transactional, repetitive calls can address a number of the headaches facing customer care leaders. The move can free up capacity to improve CX while offering more rewarding work to employees.

Companies are looking to shift from a transactional to a solution-oriented interaction during the live, complex calls that matter most to customers. Organizations are also turning to self-service channels and tech to resolve high volumes. And the strategy is working. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed that decreased their call volumes identified improved self-service as a key driver (Exhibit 4).

Organizations are planning to increase digital interactions one and a half times by 2024. The top three areas identified for investment include tech that improves omnichannel and digital capabilities—for example, chatbots and AI tools—automated manual activities in contact centers, and advanced analytics capabilities.

Despite digital tech taking on more of the burden for customer service interactions, human assistance will likely remain an important driver of overall CX, especially in the moments that matter. Customers want fast, efficient service, but they also want personalized customer care, whatever the channel of engagement.

Develop AI-powered customer care ecosystems

The growing challenges around increasing volumes, rising complexity, and limited talent availability are unlikely to be solved at scale without AI and data analytics. Companies can optimize the entire customer operations footprint by using tech to measure performance, identify opportunities, and deploy value-capturing change management, thus delivering critical operations insights and impact at scale.

For customers, AI-driven tools like predictive analytics can deliver a personalized and proactive experience that resolves issues before customers are even aware that they exist—enhancing CX at every point along the customer journey. Tech can also assist in developing a high-performing workforce by identifying optimal work processes and practices using analytics. Automated coaching can potentially be deployed to every individual, supporting efforts to attract, develop, and retain scarce talent.

How CEOs can win the new service game

In the AI-powered care ecosystem, around 65 percent of tasks and 50 to 70 percent of contacts are automated, creating a true omnichannel experience that provides a consistent and seamless experience across interactions. In this way, the potential of contact centers could be unlocked to become loyalty-building revenue generators through greater solutioning and sales excellence.

Putting priorities into practice

CX is fast becoming a key competitive area. Companies that don’t prioritize their strategy and digital transformation journeys are likely to face continued customer dissatisfaction, as well as talent attrition—thus threatening their brand and market competitiveness.

Getting customer care right depends on prioritizing and investing across the people, operations, and tech aspects of the customer care strategy. Companies can consider the following key steps as they look to build out their capabilities and invest in their digital care ecosystems:

• Start by setting out the vision for the customer care organization, capturing what excellence looks like.
• Conduct a rapid but thorough due-diligence-style assessment of people, processes, and capabilities, looking at the customer care operation in a new light to identify not just incremental changes but a reimagined, large-scale transformation.
• Path one follows a traditional design approach, which may take longer but prove less risky, as the entire transformation is considered at the outset.
• Path two involves an interactive and agile design, test, and iterate methodology, which may lead to new solutions quickly.
• Leverage the full suite of available technologies and analytical approaches that are driving successful outcomes in customer care, including natural language processing (NLP) and AI in frontline operations to match work to workers, together with cognitive AI assistance for resolving simpler customer queries.

Personalized digital interaction nowadays is an expectation rather than a luxury or an added perk, and customer care is the issue at the heart of this digital first environment—companies can’t afford to stumble at this juncture. If done well, however, customer care presents a great opportunity to build loyalty and long-term relationships with customers, creating organizational resilience for the future.

Jeff Berg is a partner in McKinsey’s Southern California office; Eric Buesing is a partner in the Stamford, Connecticut, office; Paul Hurst is a consultant in the Charlotte, North Carolina, office, Vivian Lai is a consultant in the New York office, and Subhrajyoti Mukhopadhyay is an expert in the Chicago office.

The authors wish to thank Karunesh Ahuja and Charles-Michael Berg for their contributions to this article.

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Mckinsey & company publishes 2022 environmental, social, and governance (esg) report.

The report details McKinsey's measurable progress toward accelerating sustainable and inclusive growth in line with its aspirations — catalyzing decarbonization, building inclusive economies, institutions, and workforces, and setting the standard for accountability and compliance 

NEW YORK , June 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- McKinsey & Company today released its 2022 ESG Report, " Creating a more sustainable, inclusive, and growing future for all ." The report outlines how McKinsey has partnered with its clients and communities to drive positive, enduring change and measure its impact around the world.

"As a proudly global firm, we feel a deep responsibility to the societies where we work and live," said Bob Sternfels , Global Managing Partner of McKinsey & Company. "While the events of 2022 challenged governments, businesses, and citizens alike, we remain resolute in our long-term aspiration to accelerate sustainable and inclusive growth. We hope the stories in this report will inspire even bolder aspirations and innovations in the years ahead."

The impact of the firm's work is significant and measurable. McKinsey clients contribute 20 percent of global GDP growth, create one million jobs per year, and make up 80 percent of reported CO 2 emissions reductions.

Report highlights include McKinsey's progress in 2022 toward:

Catalyzing Decarbonization

McKinsey aspires to become the largest private sector catalyst for decarbonization, and partners with a range of companies to help them innovate, cut emissions, and transition to sustainable growth models.

More than 3,500 McKinsey colleagues worked on over 1,600 sustainability engagements with more than 600 clients across nearly 60 countries and in every industry.

McKinsey continued to progress toward its net-zero goal, introducing an internal carbon fee on all air travel.

McKinsey launched fresh solutions like Frontier , an advance market commitment for carbon removal, and Catalyst Zero , an innovative tool to help clients decarbonize at unprecedented speed and scale.

Accelerating Inclusive Growth

McKinsey is partnering with clients to help build inclusive economies, institutions, and workforces that reflect its communities.

Leap by McKinsey colleagues helped McKinsey clients build nearly 200 new businesses—creating more than 20,000 jobs and $140 billion in value.

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McKinsey Slide Breakdown

By Paul Moss

When creating a slide attention to detail and proper structure can make all the difference..

In this post I’ll be reviewing a slide from McKinsey’s 2018 presentation, “Investment and Industrial Policy: A Perspective on the Future” from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (source info below). 

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The very first thing to notice about this slide is the title: “Global flows account for approximately 10 percent of global GDP output; data flows account for a large (arguably largest) chunk of that contribution”. And right away I’m already impressed. The title is a complete sentence and not only that but  it summarizes everything on the slide,  which is exactly what you want.

“Investment and Industrial Policy: A Perspective on the Future” McKinsey, October 2018

There are many reasons why you should do this but probably the biggest reason is that it helps the audience interpret the rest of the slide. When you’re making a slide, your main goal is to  make it as easy as possible for the audience to understand your main message,  and there’s no better way to do that then to spell it out.

The underlying concept for all of this is the  Pyramid Principle  (covered in detail  here ). The ke idea is that you want to start by communicating your key point first,  then  communicate the details. And that is exactly what McKinsey has done here by putting a summary of the slide at the top, then the details below it.

The next thing they’ve done really well is to use color contrast to  highlight the most important parts of the slide.  Notice how they use a bright orange color to highlight the section on data flows, which clearly connects to segments of the title.

Then they use it again for the takeaway box (bottom of the slide) to highlight how the data flows impact the other flows. These are arguably the two most important parts of the slide. But then in other, less important parts of the slide, they use black and grey.

The reason why you want the important stuff on your slide to pop is because it’s going to make it so much easier for the audience to  connect the data on the slide with the main takeaway in the title.  Remember that by the time you finish building your slide you will have been looking at it for a long time, and you’ll already know where the insights are.

But the audience will be looking at it for the first time. And not only that, but they’ll probably also be trying to listen to the speaker and prepare to make their own comments. Even for smart people this can be cognitive overload, so you’ll want to do whatever you can to  make your slide simple and easy to follow.

Then along those lines, another thing I like about this slide is the use of icons. They’re not the best looking icons but they do serve a functional purpose, which is to lighten the load on your brain. In other words, it’s much quicker for me to understand the chart and the labels on the axis when I have nice little pictures that give me an idea for what each label means.

It might not seem like it makes much of a difference, but with the icons I can skim through the labels and understand what they mean without having to read through each one individually. The effect is small, but when the audience only has a few seconds to read through your slide, it can really make a difference.

Now let’s move on to the data part of this slide – specifically their choice of chart. By choosing a waterfall chart over a common bar chart, they’ve made it easy for us to see both the total of all flows, but also how those flows are broken down and where data flows fits into the picture in terms of size (before accounting for its secondary effects that is).

Another chart they could have chosen by the way is a pie chart, but I’m really glad they didn’t because a pie chart makes it much harder to compare each of the categories against each other, plus you wouldn’t really be able to single out the total as they’ve done here, or add  callouts quite as cleanly.

Generally speaking,  a pie chart is actually a terrible chart to use  in most circumstances so usually it’s best to avoid them all together. See our video explanation about it  here . 

Another thing we have to talk about is the overall alignment throughout the slide. It’s absolutely perfect. Everything on the slide is perfectly aligned and everything seems to be in place. It might seem like a small detail to consider, but this is something consulting firms obsess over because for them, the presentation  is  the final product. 

Then the last thing to mention is the  overall attention to detail throughout the slide.  Not just in terms of formatting, but also with how exhaustive they are with notes and sources. They’ve included stuff that isn’t obvious like the first footnote that shows how the chart represents data from 139 countries, and stuff that needs a further explanation like the second footnote about migration.

Plus they’ve also included detail that’s obvious but still helpful, like the note on the bottom about numbers not summing due to rounding. Chances are that anyone who reads this slide probably knows that sometimes the numbers in a chart won’t completely add up due to rounding issues, but McKinsey wants to be thorough here so they include it anyway. And this is exactly the type of thing that makes McKinsey McKinsey: attention to detail in everything they do.

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It’s great to learn the techniques that strategy consulting firms like McKinsey & Co use to build compelling slide decks. But sometimes you just want to see McKinsey presentations to see how those techniques are applied in the real world.

In fact, we think that reviewing presentations from real-world strategy projects is one of the best ways to improve your own slide skills — along with joining a high-quality presentation course.

The problem is that it’s quite hard to find good-quality McKinsey presentations. Most of them are commercial in confidence and, even if they’re not, they’re scattered all over the web.

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• McKinsey – A Blueprint For Addressing The Global Affordable Housing Challenge (2015)
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• McKinsey – Challenges In Mining: Scarcity Or Opportunity? (2015)
• McKinsey – Context For Global Growth And Development (2014)
• McKinsey – Covid-19 – Auto & Mobility Consumer Insights (2020)
• McKinsey – Current Perspectives On Medical Affairs In Japan (2018)
• McKinsey – Digital And Innovation Strategies For The Infrastructure Industry (2018)
• McKinsey – Digital Luxury Experience (2017)
• McKinsey – Digitally-Enabled Processes In The NHS (2014)
• McKinsey – European Banking Summit (2018)
• McKinsey – Fab Automation – Artificial Intelligence (Unknown)
• McKinsey – Fintech: How Financial Institutions In Europe (Should) Prepare For The Future (2017)
• McKinsey – Five Keys To Unlocking Growth In Marketing’s “New Golden Age” (2017)
• McKinsey – From Poverty To Empowerment: India’s Imperative For Jobs, Growth And Effective Basic Services (2014)
• McKinsey – Helping Global Health Partnerships To Increase Their Impact (2019)
• McKinsey – How Companies Can Capture The Veteran Opportunity (2012)
• McKinsey – How Unconventionals Are Changing Global Oil And Gas Markets (2013)
• McKinsey – How Will Internet Of Things, Mobile Internet, Data Analytics And Cloud Transform Public Services By 2030? (2015)
• McKinsey – Insurance Trends And Growth Opportunities For Poland (2015)
• McKinsey – Investment And Industrial Policy (2018)
• McKinsey – Jobs Lost, Jobs Gained: Workforce Transitions (2017)
• McKinsey – Laying The Foundations For A Financially Sound Industry (2013)
• McKinsey – Lebanon Economic Vision – Full Report (2018)
• McKinsey – Manufacturing The Future: The Next Era Of Global Growth And Innovation (2013)
• McKinsey – Modelling The Potential Of Digitally-Enabled Processes, Transparency And Participation In The Nhs (2014)
• McKinsey – Moving Laggards To Early Adopters (2019)
• McKinsey – New Horizons In Transportation: Mobility, Innovation, Economic Development And Funding Implications (2020)
• McKinsey – Outperformers: High Growth Emerging Economies (2018)
• McKinsey – Overview Of M&A, 2016 (2016)
• McKinsey – Perspectives On Manufacturing, Disruptive Technologies, And Industry 4.0 (2014)
• McKinsey – Race In The Workplace: The Black Experience In The U.S. Private Sector (2021)
• McKinsey – Refueling The Innovation Engine In Vaccines (2016)
• McKinsey – Reinventing Construction: A Route To Higher Productivity (2017)
• McKinsey – Restoring Economic Health To The North Sea (2015)
• McKinsey – Technology’s Role In Mineral Criticality (2017)
• McKinsey – The Changed Agenda In The Global Sourcing Industry (2019)
• McKinsey – The Five Frames – A Guide To Transformational Change (Unknown)
• McKinsey – The Future Energy Landscape: Global Trends And A Closer Look At The Netherlands (2017)
• McKinsey – The Future Of The Finance Function –Experiences From The U.S. Public Sector (2019)
• McKinsey – The Internet Of Things And Big Data (2013)
• McKinsey – Us Productivity Growth: The Company And Sector Story (2015)
• McKinsey – Using Artificial Intelligence To Prevent Healthcare Errors From Occurring (2017)
• McKinsey – USPS Future Business Model (2010)
• McKinsey – What Makes Private Sector Partnerships Work (2011)
• McKinsey – Women In The Workplace (2022)

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Focus on the Now, New, and Next in your strategic planning . This is a free slide deck in PowerPoint and Google Slides presentation format.

Introduction

Are you considering where your business can grow in the next few years? You may have heard of McKinsey’s three-horizon strategy framework, or you may not.

In any case, it’s one of the most effective ways for almost any company to think about growth. A three-horizon framework is a strategy tool with roots in organizational psychology and decision science that helps leaders understand which opportunities will have the most significant impact on innovation in their company and how to get there.

It’s a relatively simple model with enormous implications for how we think about growth at our companies and find new opportunities for expanding our businesses.

• This blog post covers everything you need to know about the three-horizons framework and why it matters for planning your organization’s future growth.
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The 3 horizons model

Everything you need to know about the model, what is the three-horizons growth framework.

This strategy framework's basic idea is that companies have three growth horizons—a short-term horizon, a near-term horizon, and a long-term horizon. Baghai, Coley, and White first articulated the model in The Alchemy of Growth in 2000.

Each horizon represents an opportunity to expand the business by increasing revenue and profit or bringing in new customers.

The idea is that companies that can focus on all three horizons at once are more likely to succeed than those that focus their energy on just one.

The challenge is that it’s easy for companies to lose focus on one or two of these horizons as they get caught up in the day-to-day.

Why should you care about the 3H growth framework?

It is essential to have a growth strategy for your business in place. But how do you get started?

The 3H growth framework can be a helpful guide to get the whole company or your team thinking about the different opportunities for growth and innovation. To get maximum impact from the 3H framework, leaders must prioritize sharing this thinking with their teams across their business.

Horizon 1: Where to focus to achieve immediate impact (1-3 years)

The first growth horizon is focused on near-term impact and the core business. This is where you’ll find the lowest-hanging fruit that will generate revenue quickly and boost your company’s bottom line.

For example, you can increase sales with your current products or target new customers in your existing markets. You can also boost growth by reducing costs and increasing efficiency. As you consider this growth horizon, it’s important to understand where you’re starting from. Take a good look at your business's current metrics, whether revenue, profitability, or another metric, and identify the low-hanging fruit that will give you an immediate boost.

Once you do, you can focus your team’s energy on tackling the low-hanging fruit and start seeing results quickly.

Horizon 2: Where to invest for near-term growth (2-5 years)

The second horizon of growth is where you can start to invest in longer-term growth initiatives. This could mean investing in new products and services, expanding into new markets, or investing in new business models. Some of these initiatives may take a bit longer to show up in your company’s metrics but will be crucial for growth in the long run.

As you start thinking about this growth horizon, consider where your business is currently. You may be at a point where it makes sense to start looking outside your current markets to find new customers. It may also be an excellent time to focus on a particular product line that has seen growth but is still below expectations.

Horizon 3: Where to focus for long-term growth and future opportunities (5+ years)

This is where the majority of your growth efforts should be focused.

To succeed in this horizon, you’ll need to think about how customers use your company’s products and services, what customers’ broader needs are, and where new technologies will have the most significant impact.

You’ll want to invest in initiatives that will impact your business long-term, like finding new ways to connect with customers or expanding into new markets. Technologies that are likely tohave a significantg impact in the coming years, like AI, blockchain, and robotics, can also be a good area of focus for this growth horizon.

What is the key to success at each stage? Focus on the Now, New, and Next

Horizon 1: Superior and Excellent Execution for immediate impact, profitability, and value creation (NOW)

Horizon 2: Positional Advantage to ensure near-term growth and value creation (NEW)

Horizon 3: Insight & Foresight to ensure long-term growth and value creation (NEXT)

McKinsey Three Horizons Model - Now, New, and Next

The Criticism of the Three Horizons Model

According to Steve Blank's HBR article 2019, the world nowadays is more dynamic, and the 3-time horizons are no longer constrained by time. In particular, Horizon 3 innovations can disrupt the status quo much faster than initially anticipated, especially when the time horizons are no longer constrained by time.

Today, with all the technological advancements, disruptive Horizon 3 innovations can be delivered as fast as projects for Horizon 1 in the existing product line.

Key takeaway

McKinsey's Three Horizons growth framework is an effective innovation strategy tool that helps companies consider growth opportunities and where to focus to make the most significant impact.

The first growth horizon is focused on achieving immediate impact, the second on near-term growth, and the third on long-term growth.

Discover our Alternate McKinsey Three Horizons Guides & Templates

Please enhance your strategic planning with our additional content and resources.

McKinsey Three Horizons of Growth: A Strategic Framework for Business Expansion (published April 2023)

Achieving Balanced Business Grwoth: A Workshop Template on McKinsey's Three Horizons (published May 2023)

Sustainability and the McKinsey Three Horizons Model: A Path to Eco-Friendly Growth (published May 2023)

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McKinsey-style business presentations

Grow a business.

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Presentation skills are essential to success in any business. This article explains how to structure a McKinsey-style business presentation, step by step, from a single slide to a complete deck. We discuss how to prepare… ... read more Presentation skills are essential to success in any business. This article explains how to structure a McKinsey-style business presentation, step by step, from a single slide to a complete deck. We discuss how to prepare for a presentation, how to structure the material, and how to deliver the presentation. close

What can we learn about presentations from the most successful management consulting companies like McKinsey, BCG, or Bain?

Prezlab has had the privilege of working with some of the best management consulting firms in the region and has helped a slew of consultants and consulting companies with their presentations. We thought it would be a great idea to jot down what the most successful management consulting companies such as McKinsey, BCG, and Bain do in their presentations to make them such a success. Their presentations are elegant, articulate, well-organized, engaging, and pack a mighty punch.

Great consultants are problem-solvers. In our opinion, this is a must for consultants. When this ability is coupled with the ability to design a great presentation, that’s when the magic happens. Because with the power of effective communication and delivery, they can change minds and convince their audience that their solutions are the most effective. Unfortunately, a lot of management consultants lack this ability. This blog is meant to bring you a little closer to becoming an effective communicator of solutions via presentation design .

Think of a great presentation like a movie; storytelling is the most central aspect. The idea of your presentation as a management consultant is to present and unpack complex ideas in the most simplified and easy-to-understand manner. Apart from storytelling, the other aspects of your presentation would be data and analysis. All of these elements should work in unison and be coherent with each other to make one singular point, the solution. If you want to learn more about this aspect of a presentation then read our blog: Effective remedies to dull and boring presentations .

Before you start, ask yourself the following questions:

01 Who is my target audience and what is their level of understanding of the problems?

02 How long should your presentation be?

03 How much time would your audience like to spend on your presentation?

04 What do they care about?

05 What action would you like them to take after your presentation?

The typical elements of a management consulting presentation

1 – executive summary.

The executive summary is a situational summary of the problem at hand and the gist of your presentation. This is mostly written for top management who don’t have the time to go through the entire presentation and just want a powerful summary.

2 – Table of Content

A table of content helps spark interest and give your audience an idea of what is to come. This is usually shown right at the beginning before you begin presenting your material.

3 – Action Title

The action title is your single point or key idea that you will be proposing in the rest of the presentation. Every point you introduce should connect back to the action title.

4 – Chapters and Body of Slides

The chapters and body of slides are the slides that conform to the narrative. You can split the presentation into chapters to break it into more palatable sections. Use the slides to present your story backed by the data and analysis.

5 – Conclusion and recommendations

The conclusion reinforces and reiterates your final point or your solution. This section summarizes all your main ideas and condenses them into a central theme.

One aspect that makes sides from McKinsey and other top management consulting firms stand out is the use of engaging visuals that go side by side with the data being presented in the slides.

Another aspect of McKinsey slides is the constant and conscious attempt to keep the number of slides to as few as possible. This default instinct is to present as much data as possible. The false impression that most management consultants have is that if they say more, they have a better chance of winning their audience over.

Nothing can be further away from the truth. Once you start thinking this way you would be surprised how you can chop down 20 slides to 2 slides without losing any real impact. Presentation formats such as the PechaKucha or Guy Kawasaki methods limit their slides to a certain number and work within that specific parameter to tell a story.

McKinsey consultancy slides also do not use a lot of bullet points – it is a surefire way of losing your audience’s interest. Studies have shown that people are more likely to remember information presented as images and pictures rather than bullet points. Steve Jobs, one of the greatest presenters of all time, never used bullets in any of his presentations, and we wrote a blog on  5 Presentation Lessons You Can Learn from Steve Jobs  if you are interested in learning more .

Key features from McKinsey slides worth keeping in mind:

01 Choose a professional font like Arial or any other professional font

02 Keep colors to a minimum and keep the color scheme consistent across all the slides

03 Highlight the key points

04 Avoid clutter, give your slides enough breathing space

05 Ensure proper and correct alignment

06 Have a “source” section at the bottom of each slide

07 No fancy graphics or animations

And most importantly: make sure each side has an action title that encapsulates the key idea of that slide in a one-liner (maximum two sentences). The idea is that if someone reads just the action titles of each slide, they should get the gist of your presentation.

If you want to see some of McKinsey’s presentations in action then check out the links below:

Jobs lost, jobs gained: Workforce transitions in a time of automation

Reinventing Construction

Laying the foundations for a financially sound industry

If you would like to get your McKinsey-style slides designed by Prezlab, get in touch with us .

Let us design your presentation!

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Introduction to business presentations, why we wrote this guide.

350 PowerPoint presentations are given per second. The vast majority of them suck.

They are too long, too dull, too full of useless detail, too generic. And these bad powerpoint presentations matter a lot.

They are how we represent ourselves and our work to the world, they are the culmination of our analysis and our thinking. They are our value-add.

And they are terrible.

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Receive a pdf copy of this 10,000-word ' Advanced Guide to McKinsey-style Business Presentations' as part of our Accelerator Kit .

The disturbing challenge for many of us is that 'terrible' simply isn't good enough. Our careers depend on our business presentations not being terrible.

We wrote this guide in the hopes that, in our own way, we can have a disproportionate impact on your success - your success in presenting yourself, your ideas, and your value add. We hope you find this guide useful.

Our goal was to create the most comprehensive online guide to writing McKinsey-style business presentations on the web. At over 10,000 words, we think it is safe to say - job done!

Who is this guide for?

If you need to write a business report, update a team, complete a consulting assignment, or develop an investor pitch deck, and you are not sure where to start, this guide is for you.

If you need to write a senior executive presentation and are struggling to collect your thoughts, then this guide is for you.

If you are looking for tips, tools and resources to create your presentations faster and make them better, you are going to love this guide.

From PowerPoint newbie to strategy consulting veteran, you'll definitely learn something new that you can use to make your presentations sing.

How to use this Guide

Use The Advanced Guide to Writing McKinsey-Style Presentations in the way that works best for you. We have formatted and structured the Guide to take advantage of the web. You can use it for reference, inspiration, or as a how-to-guide. Be sure to bookmark the guide so that you can reference it in the future.

If you feel that you have a handle on writing business presentations - and just want to learn a new tip or two - then jump to the relevant section of the guide and dive in! We’re sure you'll find some new tricks and tips to add to your arsenal.

If you have a basic grasp of writing business presentations, but are looking to add a layer of depth to your knowledge - then you should read the guide in order.

Here is an overview of each of the chapters in this Advanced Guide to Writing McKinsey-Style Presentations.

Chapter 1: One of the Most Valuable Business Skills You Can Master

Presentation writing skills are under-rated. They have, in fact, a profound effect on your career success. 

In Chapter 1, we will layout the reasons why developing presentation skills can accelerate career advancement and explore why writing presentations is such a deceptively challenging task. 

We'll also introduce a framework for thinking about the skills one must master to become truly proficient at writing business presentations.

Chapter 2: The Many Schools of Business Presentation Design

There is a lot of conflicting advice out there. And a lot of fantastic presentation styles which one can emulate. In the end, as with much in life, the answer to 'which style should I copy?' or 'which advice should I follow?' is 'it depends'.

In this chapter we expand on the general 'horses for courses' answer. We'll introduce you to a number of alternate schools of presentation design and layout the precise circumstances under which each is powerful. We’ll explain how you select the presentation style and approach that matches your purpose.

This is your one stop shop for understanding the various presentation ‘schools-of-thought’ and for determining which high-level presentation approach you should adopt.

Chapter 3: The Consulting School of Presentation Design

The dirty little secret of presentation writing is that the vast majority of presentations that we write are not presented! At least not in a formal, auditorium kind of way.

This has profound implications on the style of presentation which you should adopt.

In this section we will explore the characteristics of the McKinsey (or consulting in general) style presentation and identify the things it does well and why this style is so useful.

Chapter 4: The Five Disciplines

There are five disciplines one must master to become great at writing killer business presentations. This is the heart of our process and of the SlideHeroes course:

•   The Power of Logical Structure
•   The Art of Storytelling
•   The Science of Fact-based Persuasion
•   The Harmony of Design
•   The Drama of Performance

Chapter 5: The Power of Logical Structure

Your job is to communicate an answer to a question. When the audience cannot follow your answer, when they cannot follow the logical steps that flow through your argument, they become frustrated.

Logical structure helps comprehension.

But sometimes it can be difficult.

In this chapter we will dive deep into several business writing techniques you can use to help structure your presentation.

•   How to group your ideas (the right number and nature; the right level of abstraction)
•   Inductive and deductive arguments
•   The special role your Introduction plays in establishing context and framing the question you will ultimately answer

Chapter 6: The Art of Storytelling

At their heart, all presentations are stories.

Our brains are wired to learn from and remember stories. Presentations that effectively make use of storytelling techniques are easier to understand and remember.

In this chapter we explore the hows and whys of storytelling within business presentations.

Chapter 7: The Science of Fact-based Persuasion

The focus of this chapter is on the need for facts and data, and how to present them.

To better understand how to present facts in the form of data we will start with Edward Tufte and a theory for the visual display of quantitative information.

We will also explore the differences between tables and graphs, and how to know when to use each.

The chapter will conclude with an overview of the standard graphs that are most commonly found in business presentations.

Chapter 8: The Harmony of Design

 How do I make my slides look good?

We get this question a lot. Usually the implicit assumption underlying that question is that it is a PowerPoint (or Keynote) question.

I don’t know how to use this stupid tool to make my slides look good.

In fact, creating good looking slides is, in the main, not a question of PowerPoint skills (it is a basic tool, pretty easy to learn). It is a design question, not an IT question.

And design is a little trickier.

The good news is that the basics of slide design are not difficult to master because, in general, less is more.

This chapter focuses on straight-forward design strategies you can employ to create amazing looking slides. We will also discuss tips and techniques that you can apply to improve the delivery of your presentation.

Chapter 9: The Drama of Performance

One of the things we emphasize strongly at SlideHeroes is the need to focus on the creation of the presentation material - the content, the structure, the story and the data.

But you better believe a presentation is a performance. Delivery matters, even if you are sitting down.

This chapter focuses on the kind of preparation and practice that is required to take a well written deck and deliver a great public speaking performance.

Chapter 10: The Process

At SlideHeroes we have a step-by-step process for applying each of these five disciplines, in the right order, so you can quickly go from a blank sheet of paper to ‘congratulations!’ on a job well done.

This chapter lays out that process for you.

Chapter 11: The Tools

We list a set of recommended tools that you can use to help create a great business presentation.

Chapter 12: Final Thoughts & Next Steps

In the final chapter of the Advanced Guide to Writing McKinsey-Style Presentations we provide some thoughts on where to go for more help and how the SlideHeroes course builds on the material contained in this Advanced Guide.

Who are we?

This post is the most popular on our site and, as a consequence, a lot of readers discover SlideHeroes for the first time via this Advanced Guide.

So who are we and what do we do?

SlideHeroes provides online, video-based business presentation training .

We help students become top-tier consultants, top performing sales people, superstar analysts and highly successful business professionals.

We help teams improve their corporate communication skills.

In our free course trial, we offer free video lessons that teach:

•   Our full Who, Why, What and How process for creating killer presentations
•   How to identify the key question your presentation must focus on answering
•   How to structure the introduction of your presentation to plant this question in the mind of your audience

FREE  Course Trial

Start improving your presentations skills immediately with our free trail of the Decks for Decision Makers course.

Chapter 1: One of the Most Valuable Business Skills you can Master

The ability to write clear and impactful PowerPoint-based McKinsey presentations is, for young and mid-level professionals, one of the most valuable skills you can master.

Here’s why:

•   PowerPoint (Keynote) is the de facto paradigm for internal corporate communication today
•   The ability to present ideas and results in an understandable and compelling way can be a key differentiator (frankly many people are simply not very good at it)
•   Strong communication skills make professionals more effective - being understood the first time, saves time

The problem many young professionals face is that unless they luck out early in their career and learn the craft of creating business presentations from someone pretty exceptional – they probably suck at it.

Becoming awesome is harder than most people realize

Becoming exceptional at crafting board-level presentations (presentations that kick ass) is tough. Much harder than most people realize.

Most of us initially dismiss the challenge as a PowerPoint formatting challenge - a time consuming technical challenge that should be delegated.

In fact, crafting successful presentations is a multi-disciplinary challenge that requires the mastery of a broad SET of distinct skills:

•   The ability to order ideas in a logical and structured way
•   The skill to utilize words succinctly, powerfully, accurately
•   Numeracy, and the ability to communicate data effectively
•   Taste - the appreciation for and ability to create aesthetically pleasing design
•   Charisma and executive presence

Only some of these 'presentation skills' are taught in schools or formally in organizations. Many from this list are either very challenging to master, or are seen (by many) as simply innate.

‘How to use PowerPoint’ courses do not teach these skills either.

And to master all of them? Well, that is the challenge.

Chapter 2: The Many Schools of Business Presentation Design

There are many, many different 'schools' of presentation style. Different approaches to crafting and delivering a business presentation.

Here are a few to give you a flavor:

The ‘Pecha Kucha’ School

Pecha Kucha is a presentation style in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (six minutes and 40 seconds in total). It is a format designed to keep presentations concise and fast-paced and is often adopted for multiple-speaker events (PechaKucha Nights). PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.

Here is an example from the author Dan Pink of a Pecha Kucha presentation. Dan briefly explains the format and then goes on to give a Pecha Kucha about a favorite topic of his. It is a pretty good example. Unfortunately Dan messes up the pronunciation of Pecha Kucha (lots of people do). If you are curious as to how to pronounce Pecha Kucha, have a look at this video .

When to use Pecha Kucha

•   Oral ‘stand-up’ presentations only, good for conference presentations
•   When you only have 6 minutes and 40 seconds
•   When a focus on fast-pace, conciseness and entertainment are paramount

The ‘TED Talk’ School

TED Talks are, quite simply, some of the most fascinating talks you will ever hear. The power of the ideas, and the skill of many of the presenters in the delivery of these ideas, has popularized an 18 minute presentation format that emphasizes story and big ideas.

Listen to Andrew Stanton from Pixar talk about what makes a great story:

When to use the ‘TED Talk’ style

•   Oral ‘stand-up’ presentations only
•   When you want to tell a story
•   When the focus is on big ideas
•   When you are presenting at TED (of course!)

The Lessig School

Larry Lessig is a Harvard Law Professor, founding board member of the Creative Commons, and strong proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum.

He is also an amazing speaker. Lessig has, over the years, developed a very unique style that he has continued to refine. Have a look:

Interesting characteristics of Lessig’s unique style include:

•   Many, many slides; sometimes pausing for only a moment between each
•   Slides contain either a single, compelling image or simple text
•   Talks built around compelling stories or anecdotes
•   Variable speaking pace, with an almost preacher like cadence
•   Passion (righteousness even)
•   Strong narrative core (don’t be distracted by the novelty of the slides). These are very, very well written talks

When to use the ‘Lessig’ style

•   When story plays a major role in communicating your message
•   When the focus is on big ideas and themes
•   When your narrative is where the power is coming from

Guy Kawasaki School

Guy Kawasaki, former Chief Evangelist at Apple and a silicon valley venture capitalist, evangelizes the 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint presentations. The rule states that a presentation should have no more than 10 slides, take no longer than 20 minutes, a contain no font smaller than 30pt.

When to use the ‘Guy Kawasaki’ style

•   When you are pitching to Guy Kawasaki (or other VCs)
•   When your audience already has a good understanding of the content and likely structure of what you will say (as Kawasaki's VC-pitch examples illustrate in the video above)

Sit-down style presentations

There are many other styles. You may have noticed that these approaches to presentations have one thing in common; these Schools are all oriented towards the ‘stand-up in front of a crowd and give a speech’ type of presentation.

When we say presentation, we often mentally picture ourselves standing in front of a crowd. And this is a problem.

The majority of business ‘presentations’ are not made standing-up in front of a crowd. Instead, they are made sitting down, around a table, updating a project team, or presenting our thinking/ideas/suggestions to our boss.

The context of these types of ‘sit-down’ meetings has a profound effect on the style of the presentation we need to give.

These types of meetings and presentations:

•   Will be more detail oriented (performance to-date, operational reviews, financial reviews, project-plan updates, etc.)
•   Consist of small groups, in a more intimate setting
•   Are more likely to result in discussion, going off on tangents or drilling-deeper
•   Likely have the participants holding a hard-copy of the presentation in their hand, inches from their nose
•   Can cause similar levels of public speaking anxiety as speeches

Speeches, in this context, are, shall we say… inappropriate.

Yet the vast majority of the 'presentation training' literature is focused on teaching what we should do when we are standing up in front of our audience (to give a speech). Some of it focuses on the creation of the presentation, but for presentations in a forum type setting.

Learning to give a presentation is not the same as learning to create a presentation

Our focus here is on what to do when you are sitting down. Our focus is on the creation of content for the presentations we give everyday. The project update / status report / executive board business presentation.

These types of business presentations require a specific presentation approach that the consulting school of presentation design is tailor made for.

McKinsey & Co. are universally regarded as the gold standard in strategy consulting. McKinsey's multi-million dollar advice is delivered in a very specific way.

There are a number of factors that make the McKinsey presentation, or Consulting style of presentation, unique and powerful:

•   Clear, logical structure: The presentation takes you step by step through an argument
•   The logic is sound (bullet proof!), the argument is complete
•   Strict, consistent slide format - minimalist in design
•   Data intensive: Assertions are proven with facts; and facts are data-driven whenever possible
•   Quantitative data and other evidence is displayed and structured in simple and clean charts
•   The key messages are contained on the slides of the presentation
•   Can be read in advance, forwarded to others without losing meaning

This is not an exhaustive list of the characteristics of this style of presentation, but these are perhaps the most material. Hopefully you can see how they distinguish the consulting business presentation style from other approaches.

Zen-style presentations popularized by Garr Reynolds, for example, stand in stark contrast (reliance on imagery; focus on conference-style presentations).

Below is a BCG presentation, which is a good example of this type of presentation. We have annotated it with comments on how it could be even better, but, in general, it is a good example.

Fine, but does this approach work outside of consulting?

This approach to business presentation design applies across a range of different business situations:

•   Board meetings, senior executive meetings
•   Solution selling
•   Project updates / status meetings
•   Start-up investment pitches
•   Financial performance reviews etc. etc. etc.

If you are still in doubt as to when to use this style of business presentation, here are a few tests to apply:

•   Is it a business situation?
•   Do you need to communicate information in some depth?
•   Is it a ‘sit-down’ type setting (almost intimate)?

Have a look at the following presentation for an example of why the first test above is important ;-)

To create great presentations requires skills across a wide range of areas.

There are 5 disciplines one must master to effectively write and present impactful business presentations:

•   The Power of Logical Structure

The rest of this Advanced Guide to McKinsey-Style Presentations will dive deep into each of these disciplines.

Structure is a beautiful thing.

It brings order, clarity. It enables understanding. We know it when we see it (even if it is just subconsciously) because comprehension immediately becomes easier. Our mind is automatically sorting information into distinctive groups and establishing hierarchies of relationships between these groups (semantic network model) all the time.

Effective structure is the first commandment of presentation creation.

But what is logical structure? How do you create a presentation that has logical structure?

There are half a dozen or so tricks, which when employed obsessively, can allow you to quickly cut through most of the pitfalls (and fairly unhelpful theory of logic) to produce a structure that works.

Group your ideas together to form an argument

Your mind is automatically imposing order on everything around you, all the time. You are grouping, classifying and imposing relationships on all the information your brain processes.

The goal in crafting a presentation is to facilitate the mental processing that is going on in the mind of your audience. To make this processing as easy as possible.

We can do this in two ways:

1. Rule of 7 Updated: Limit the Number of Your Groups to 4

George Miller, a Harvard psychologist, published a famous study in 1957 entitled ' The Magic Number Seven, Plus Or Minus Two '. This led to a well know rule of thumb that stated people only had the capacity to process 7 chunks of information at a time. Further research has enabled us to refine our understanding of how this rule changes depending on our definition of 'chunks' of information. More recent conclusions state that people can really only process 4-5 concepts - and only one at a time.

As a consequence, we should seek to structure our ideas into groups of 4-5 or less.

Put simply - there is no such thing as 7 or 9 of anything. If you have a list of 9 things, then you need to go up a level of abstraction and group them into 3-4 buckets.

It is easy to take this insight too far. There is no magical number of bullets per slide. Edward Tufte has some interesting things to say about this here . At its core, this is about a relatively self evident truth: Your audience will struggle to process information. Help them out by being aware of the number of discrete ideas you are sharing at any one time.

2. MECE: Ensure your Groups are Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive

MECE stands for mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive. It is terminology that today is synonymous with McKinsey and other top-tier consultancies.

The term refers to the idea of structuring lists of ideas in ways where the list is:

•   Collectively Exhaustive (collectively, the ideas in the list cover all possible components of the idea)
•   Mutually Exclusive (individually, each idea in the list is distinct from each of the other ideas, there is no overlap between ideas)

The easiest way to get your head around these ideas is with an example.

The following list of the 7 dwarves is not collectively exhaustive:

We are missing Doc!

The following list of options for where to go for dinner is not mutually exclusive:

•   Restaurants East of our current location
•   Italian restaurants
•   Restaurants with music
•   Restaurants South of our current location

There is overlap within this list. There could be Italian restaurants east of us. Some restaurants south of us could have music.

This 'test' (is this list MECE?) is extremely powerful technique in ensuring logical structure and improving the clarity of your presentation.

You will be surprised at how many groups of ideas you will create which will fail this test - and result in you thinking about additional, great points and ideas that make you argument even more powerful.

Inductive vs deductive arguments

Deductive reasoning.

Deductive reasoning starts out with a general statement, or hypothesis, and examines the possibilities to reach a specific, logical conclusion.

The scientific method uses deduction to test hypotheses and theories. The deductive argument presents ideas in successive steps. An example of this type of argument is:

•   John is ill
•   If John is ill, he will be unable to attend work
•   Therefore, John will be unable to attend work

Inductive Reasoning

Inductive reasoning (know also as induction or 'bottom-up' logic), is a kind of reasoning that constructs general arguments that are derived from specific examples. Inductive arguments can take very wide ranging forms. Inductive arguments might conclude with a claim that is only based on a sample of information.

Here is an example of an inductive argument.

•   Two independent witnesses claimed John committed the murder.
•   John’s fingerprints are the only ones on the murder weapon.
•   John confessed to the crime.
•   So, John committed the murder.

Generally, our advice is to construct inductive-based arguments. They are easier for an audience to absorb because they require less effort to understand.

The challenge is that our instinct when writing a presentation is to present our thinking in the order we did the work, which is usually a deductive process.

DON"T DO THIS. No one cares what you did. How hard you worked. They want an answer to a question, not a tour of what you were up to for the last month!

Pay special attention to the Introduction

The start of a presentation requires special attention from a structural point of view.

It contains many traps which can lead unsuspecting authors astray. The purpose of the presentation is to address a question in the mind of the audience. The objective of the introduction is to establish the groundwork to plant this question, so that the rest of our presentation can focus on answering it.

The best approach for achieving this is Barbara Minto's SCQA framework. Buy Barbara's exceptional book The Pyramid Principle .

Context (or starting point): Where are we now?

Financial performance last year was fantastic, but growth has stalled in the first quarter…

Begin at the beginning. The Situation/Context or Starting Point is the background or baseline that anchors the rest of the story that will subsequently unfold. It is comprised of facts that the audience would be aware of and agree with in advance of reading the presentation. This helps to ground the presentation and establish a common starting point.

Typical situations are “we took an action”, "performance was good", "we have a problem".

Soon the audience will be asking themselves “I know this – why are you telling me?”. This is where the complication comes in.

Catalyst (or Complication): Something has changed...

A strategy for returning to growth has been proposed...

What happened next? The Complication creates tension in the story you’re telling. The key objective of the complication is to trigger the Question that your audience will ask in their mind.

Typical complications: “something is stopping us performing the task”, “we know the solution to the problem”, “a solution to the problem has been suggested” and “the action we took did not work”.

Question: The Question in the Mind of the Audience

Is this the right strategy?

The Question arises logically from the Complication and leads into the Answer. It is not explicitly stated in the introduction, it is implicit.

Typical questions: “what should we do?”, “how do we implement the solution?”, “is it the right solution?” and “why didn’t the action work?”

Answer (or Solution): Your answer to the Question

Yes, it will drive growth because…

The Answer to the Question is the substance of presentation and your main point. It is your recommendation. Summarize it first – completing your introduction – then break it down into details and write the main body of your presentations. This is where we develop our inductive argument, deploying groups of MECE ideas on the way to proving our point.

Call to Action (or Next Steps): What you want the Audience to do

We need to do this next

The call to action is the list of next steps that you want your audience to do.

You need next steps.

In fact, the next steps are the objective of your entire presentation. You want to identify these next steps early in the process of developing your presentation so that you can be sure to design a presentation that drives your audience to the action you desire.

Don’t leave the thinking around what the next steps are until the end.

Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact. Robert McKee, Author and Screenwriter

Storytelling is a timeless human tradition. Before the written word, people would memorize stories that shaped cultures for generations. We are wired for communicating through and learning from stories.

All presentations are, at their heart, a story.

Via storytelling techniques we can elevate our presentations to something that moves people. Sometimes, it is obvious that this is our goal. We are presenting at TED. We are making a speech to our employees about our new strategy. We are delivering our first State of the Union address...

Often, it is not.

Our topic may feel mundane - lacking the grand themes that great stories seem to require. When this happens, often our mistake is in framing the objective of our presentation as an exercise in conveying information - to update.

Rather, the objective of our presentations should be to persuade. To, in-fact, establish in the minds of the audience an important question, and persuade that audience of the validity of our answer.

When we need to update - we need to identify the question the audience should have in their minds as a consequence of the update. In many case it will be ‘what do I need to do next’.

As a rule of thumb:

If you don't have something to say, why are you presenting? If you are presenting, know what you have to say.

Why stories are effective.

There are a couple of reasons why stories can be more effective than fact-based arguments at persuading audiences.

1. While some opinions people hold are rational and thought-out, many others are emotional

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Your favorite sports team?

You cannot change an emotionally charged opinion with a rational argument, but you can get your audience to empathize with a hero in a story and thereby affect the emotions they have connected to that subject.

Presenting a rational argument immediately activates the audience's critical mind, inviting him or her to analyze and counter-argue. By immersing your audience in a story, you bypass that resistance.

2. Stories are memorable and, as a consequence, are easier to repeat

As we have discussed, our brains think in terms of stories. We find it easier and more efficient to process stories. In fact, we have a pronounced bias towards stories.

As a consequence your audience is much more likely to remember the stories you tell them (and the messages those stories contain) and more likely to repeat them to others.

What makes a great story?

As a primer, have a listen to Academy award nominated documentary film maker Ken Burns (The Civil War, Jazz) talk about story (especially the fist half). In the video Burns explores what makes a great story. The '3' Burns references is what we are seeking to capture in any great presentation.

Nancy Duarte does a fantastic job of exploring how story is critical to the creation of a great presentation.

In this video, Nancy makes the point that stories and reports occupy opposite ends of a spectrum.

She makes the case that in order to convey the meaning behind your report, you need to introduce elements of story, in order to engage with your audience on a more human level. The appropriate balance you need to strike between story and reporting will be entirely driven by the context of your own presentation.

We can have facts without thinking but we cannot have thinking without facts. John Dewey, Pragmatist philosopher (1859 - -1952)

The Bare Assertion

CEO: So you are saying that I need to invest $100 million now or we will go out of business?

Presenter: Yes.

CEO: And why is that again?

Presenter: Because I said so…?

To convince and persuade in today’s corporate world business people must construct evidence-based arguments. They must demonstrate, not simply assert.

Edward Tufte makes a great case for what he calls informational depth.

Executives are not dumb. When you are presenting to them they need informational depth. When people are presenting to you, you need to figure out what their story is, but also need to decide whether you can believe them. Are they competent? … Detail helps credibility. Edward Tufte, Author, statistician & professor

This, unfortunately, requires significant effort, work, and thinking to pull-off.

The effort required to do this is also a key reason why so many poor presentations lack a fact-based approach to persuasion. There are no short cuts. This is where real effort pays off with discriminating audiences.

Often discriminating audiences (senior executives, investors, advisers, challenging customers) will see their role being a ‘stress-tester’. They will test your assertions. Challenge your data. Poke, probe and dissect your analysis.

Your audience does this because they suspect what you are saying is important. And if they act on what you are saying, and it turns out you were wrong… well this would reflect negatively on them. So, in a way, receiving the third-degree in a presentation can be a good sign.

If you pass the test.

It is for situations like this that you need data, facts and proof. You will be eaten alive if you simply assert.

But your data, facts and proof should be in support of your structure, your story. The goal is not to squeeze in all the analysis you have done. Inevitably much of your analysis will not be required to make your central argument. Be equally ruthless in sorting and prioritizing what analysis is required to make your point.

Tables and Graphs

They are fundamentally different.

When you have data that you would like to present, resist the urge to throw it into the sexiest 3D pie chart you can create.

Instead, think first about how you intend to use the data and what point you are trying to make with the data.

Graphs and tables excel at different things and depending on your purpose, one will be a better choice than another.

The primary benefit of a table is that it makes it easy to look up individual values. There are four uses of data for which a table is a good option:

•   Look-up individual values
•   Compare individual values (but not entire series of values)
•   Present precise values, and
•   Present both summary and detail values

Business Charts, on the other hand, present the overall shape of the data. Graphs are used to display relationships among and between sets of quantitative values by giving them shape.

Use charts and graphs when:

•   The message or story is contained in the shape of the data
•   The display will be used to reveal relationships among whole sets of values

Common Graphs

Quantitative values can be represented in graphs using the following:

• Shapes with varying 2D areas
• Shapes with varying color intensity

When determining what type of graph to select, it is absolutely critical that you first consider what you are trying to say with the data.

When you are in the diagnostic phase of your work, you may not know what the data has to say, so you will try a few different approaches. But once it comes time to creating your presentation, the data on the page exists to support the message you have in your headline. You will have a very specific message you will want the data to convey. You will have a specific relationship that you will want to represent.

And here are what graphs are best to illustrate each type of data relationship:

Design is thinking made visual. Saul Bass, Graphic Designer and Academy Award-winning filmmaker

Some people don't see the same way you do

Some people's visual processing thought routines are more word oriented, others are more visually oriented.

Visual thinking is the phenomenon of thinking through visual processing - it has been described as seeing words as a series of pictures.

Research by child development theorist Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that about 30% of the population strongly uses visual/spatial thinking, another 45% uses both visual/spatial thinking and thinking in the form of words, and 25% thinks exclusively in words.

This research has a profound impact on how we need to think about communicating our ideas. It is the principle reason (although most people don't really recognize it) why there has been a shift from the vertical memorandum (written in word, exclusively text), to the horizontal PowerPoint presentation (written in PowerPoint, containing text and visuals) - modern presentations are easier to understand!

It demands of us as presentation creators to continually think about how our ideas and concepts can be represented both verbally, but also visually.

Design is important, but can be challenging

Design, for many, is a challenge. Many attempt to solve this problem by hiring an agency to design a PowerPoint template for them. Or outsourcing the entire presentation design.

We recommend a different approach, one rooted in investing a bit of effort and in applying a good understanding of the type of design that works best for presentations.

Invest the time to make the presentation look decent

Many people believe (or use an excuse) that 'it's the content that counts'.

Spend the effort to make the presentation look good (it isn’t that hard).

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Practice a simplicity design ethos - not simple thinking

The very basics of slide design are not difficult to master because, in general, less is always more.

The very best presentation design eliminates the excess. It is a minimalist strategy to focus on only what matters, and to avoid distracting the reader away from the central point.

This minimalist design approach is not an aesthetic preference. It is a design strategy to support our presentation goal - the communication of our message. The design of our presentation, of each slide, should be solely focused on supporting that goal.

Focus on what your point is, and the key evidence required to prove that point - design around this.

You do not need to be a graphics designer to create very effectively designed presentation slides.

Here are some basic design rules of thumb to get you started:

Rules of Thumb (applied aggressively, obsessively)

1. adopt a message-driven slide layout.

•   Have a single, primary idea per slide
•   Put this main idea in your headline that spans the top of the page
•   Make your headline no more than two lines long
•   Put content in the main body of the slide that contains the proof of the main assertion / idea that is in the headline

2. Align all elements on each page neatly

•   Make sure the position of the headline on each slide is in the exact same spot on every slide
•   When you flip through your slides (like with those old picture books that created moving images when you flipped through them) the position of the headline should not move, the font size should not change
•   This also goes for other common design elements on each slide (logo, copyright notice, page number etc.)

3. In many instances, a picture is worth significantly more that 1,000 words

•   Use powerful, relevant images
•   Do NOT use stock photography
•   Do NOT use clip art
•   Use images judiciously, don’t go over board

4. Colors should be muted; Brighter colors used for emphasis

•   Don't use bright colors like red, orange or yellow, except to highlight an important point
•   Use a tool like Adobe Kuler to design an attractive color scheme that won't give your audience a headache

5. Use whitespace, use contrast

•   Be careful to use enough spacing – whitespace between lines and paragraphs is good
•   Whitespace improves legibility, increases comprehension, increases emphasis, and creates the right one
•   Use contrast to emphasize difference
•   Ways to create contrast include using contrasting colors, sizes, shapes, locations, or relationships

6. Don't use crazy animations, 3D, or random special effects

•   Just don't. Emulate modern 'flat' design style (think Metro interface, google design refresh etc.)
•   The wow of your presentation comes from the power of your ideas. Spiral animation entrances are not going to help

7. Don't use pie charts

•   This is a pet peeve of mine, but pie charts are visually difficult to interpret - other chart types (bar charts) are significantly more effective
•   Serious presenters know this and don't use them - when you do it makes you look like an amateur

8. Use typography

•   Custom fonts give your presentation a nice distinctive look that allows it to stand out in a sea of Arial
•   Many great custom fonts are now available for free - check out Google Fonts, they can be downloaded and used on your desktop within PowerPoint

The passions are the only orators that always persuade. Francois de La Rochefoucauld, Author, moralist (1613 - 1680)

Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe. Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1874 - 1965)

The presentation has been written. The work has been put in. It is time to start thinking about the act of delivering the presentation.

Our view is that ‘winging it’ tends to not be a good strategy.

Preparation

Preparation, once the deck has been written, means practice.

We suggest the following approach:

1. Develop a script

Write down a formal voice-over script of what you will say. Write this down in advance.

Adopt simplified language. You want to be interpreting the content on the slide, not reading it!

2. Memorize the script

Rehearse until you have memorized your script. We know this is boring. Try speaking the script out loud. In our experience it is very difficult to memorize a script simply reading it to yourself.

3. Finally, abandon the script

Once you have spent enough time memorizing the script you will start to feel comfortable deviating and embellishing.

Use your script as a road-map during delivery, rather than a crutch. It is your safety net.

This robust approach takes time and, to be honest, may only be appropriate for the most important of meetings. But it works.

Deliver with Conviction, Passion and Drama

You must believe in your material for others to believe in you.

A fact-based approach to persuasion, and logical structure are techniques that, when applied, position you to have a very high degree of confidence in your material.

The standards are high (and sometimes unforgiving). By meeting them in advance, you can enter the room with a high level of confidence in your material.

Enthusiasm is contagious.

Show your passion for the material. If the topic is as dull as dishwater, show passion for the elegance of your thinking and the power of your recommendations. This is killer.

A little drama (mixed in with some storytelling) can really elevate a presentation.

This drama can be inherent in the complication/catalyst. It is also embedded in the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). Play this up and occasionally reference the implications of what you are saying to this.

Chapter 10: The Process to Write a Killer Presentation

What follows are a set of presentation tips in the form of a step-by-step list of what you need to do to create a killer presentation. The SlideHeroes course includes an interactive checklist that allows you to keep track of each step as you progress.

Before you start, determine where in the thinking process you are.

Ask yourself the following key questions:

•   Have you finished your analysis, and are now embarking on the final phase of summarizing your findings? 
•   Or are you still trying to figure out the question you should be answering?

Often people will turn to PowerPoint long before they have completed their thinking – try to resist this urge, use paper instead.

Once you are finally ready to write your presentation - stop.

Consider crafting your elevator pitch instead.

Imagine: your meeting has been cancelled, but you manage to catch your audience in the elevator on the way out of the building. You have 1 minute – what do you want to say?

Often we are better at ‘getting to the point’ orally. As soon as we start thinking in terms of a presentation, we can sometimes lose the plot. This exercise will help you capture the main thrust of what your presentation is meant to convey early on in the process.

Apply our 'Who, Why, What, How' process

Begin the process of writing a business presentation by reviewing our 4-step process. This process is your roadmap of what you need to do. Briefly review what you need to do at each step:

•   Identify WHO your audience is
•   Determine WHY you are speaking with them
•   Determine WHAT your answer is to your audience's question
•   Decide HOW to best communicate that answer

Once you have taken stock, determined where you are in your thought process, and are ready to proceed.

The first major step is to identify WHO our audience is.

This sounds easy. But there are critical nuances that you need to be aware of which we will explore.

A. Identify Who your Audience is

Determine who the hero of your presentation is (hint it is not you - it is your audience).

A nuance to be aware of is that sometimes the true target of your presentation may not be obvious. You may be speaking to a group you don’t know well and, as a consequence, may not have a full understanding of the political dynamics at play. Who are the true decision makers? Who can truly help you progress to the next step?

During this step you need to take the time to identify who within your audience you are truly speaking to – who matters.

B. Profile your Audience

Once you have identified your Audience, spend some time profiling them.

Ask yourself the following questions about your audience:

•   How much will the audience know about the situation/topic before we start the presentation?
•   How do they prefer to consume information?
•   Visual bias? Numerical bias?
•   Pre-read in advance?
•   What is the best timing of messages?

The second major step in our process is determining WHY you are presenting and your goal for the meeting.

A. Determine the Context of the Presentation

The next three tasks in our process are focused on building our Introduction and isolating the question we are answering for our Audience.

The reason we are creating a presentation, is always to answer a question that is in the mind of our audience.

The context is the background to the presentation. It contains information the audience already knows.

B. Identify the Catalyst of the Presentation or meeting

The Catalyst is the complication in the story that has resulted in the problem we are here to answer.

What happened, changed or was realized that is causing us to meet today? What led us to do the analysis or work to answer your question?

C. Determine the Question

Determine the question you are there to answer.

Most questions will fall into one of these 4 types:

• I have a problem: Why did it happen? or,
• I have a problem: What should we do?
• I have a problem, someone has suggested a solution: Should we adopt that solution?
• I have a problem, someone has suggested a solution: How should we implement this solution?

D. Determine the Objective / Next Step for the Meeting

You need next steps. You need a call to action. The objective of your presentation should be for your audience to DO SOMETHING as a result of you presenting your material.

What do you want your audience to do?

What do you need your audience to understand to achieve the meeting’s goal?

The third major step is to determine and write WHAT your answer is to your audience’s question.

The Power of Logical Structure

A. gather existing work; develop new thinking.

Do the work.

This is where your own domain expertise comes in. Suffice it to say, you need to do the work, the analysis, the thinking to answer the question.

•   Gather existing content (improve on it)
•   Conduct new analysis

Create ideas first, slides second.

B. summarize and organize your ideas.

•   Organise your argument into logical groups
•   Bucket arguments into MECE groups
•   Use visual thinking tools to capture and organize your ideas

The Art of Storytelling

A. storyboard the presentation.

Storyboarding is a technique for writing that was first developed by Walt Disney for use in the creation of animated movies.

Have a listen to Pixar describe how they use storyboarding in film:

Storyboarding is a fantastic technique for developing presentations because it allows you to work on text, visuals and structure simultaneously.

The Harmony of Design

B. develop a slide template, c. develop content for each slide.

•   Write out each heading for each slide
•   Write out each sub-heading for each supporting piece of evidence/chart
•   Design charts and supporting visuals
•   Open PowerPoint!
•   Populate slides with supporting evidence

The Science of Fact-based Persuasion

D. develop graphs and tables for your data.

•   Determine what tables or chart types are best for the data you wish to show
•   Create the tables or charts
•   Reduce and eliminate chart-junk
•   Design tables and graphs to emphasize the key data elements that support your story

The Drama of Performance

A. practice.

Practice makes perfect. So practice.

•   Do an initial run through of the presentation. Speak the presentation out loud and improvise
•   Write this version down as a formal script
•   Run through the presentation two or three more times working on length, simplifying language
•   If the length needs editing, revise the presentation, eliminating or combining slide ideas
•   Present to someone else to solicit feedback and simulate a ‘live’ presentation
•   Run through the script a few more times and then park it
•   Get a good night’s sleep; review the script once or twice just before the presentation
•   Conduct a pre-presentation flight-check to ensure you have everything you need
•   Deliver with conviction, passion and drama
•   Focus on just a few things to ensure a great delivery:
• Manage your stress - quite your mind, breathe, relax
• Adopting the right ‘tone’ and approach
• Being yourself. Relax!
• Communicating both verbally and physically (kinetically)
• Answer your Audience’s questions

Below are the set of presentation tools we recommend to create fantastic business presentations.

Presentation Creation

I know everyone rags on PowerPoint. It just isn’t PowerPoints fault.

It is still the best we have got.

Pretty cool 'zoom' transition effects. Kind of hard to use, places huge emphasis on design skills.

Chart Design

We can do so much better than PowerPoint and Excel…

Plotly charts look great. The interface is easy to use and there is a good variety of chart types to select from.

RAW (open source)

Similar to Plotly, RAW produces great looking charts. There is a wide selection of chart types (you can also create your own). Powerful.

Image Design

Web apps that help create fantastic graphics, easily.

Image design tool. Very, very easy and quick. Pretty Awesome.

Poor man's Photoshop. Particularly good at retouching photos.

Productivity

PowerPoint plugins that can turbo charge your productivity

Plugin that enables you to quickly create complex Waterfalls, Marimekkos, Gantts and Agendas within PowerPoint. A favorite.

PowerPoint Add-In to improve visual quality and help with proofing.

Presentation Distribution

The YouTube for presentations.

If you have made it this far, well done! ;-)

If you are still hungry for more here are some great books, blogs and courses(!) that may pique your interest.

I recommend the following great books:

•    The Pyramid Principle , Barbara Minto
•    Slideology , Nancy Duarte
•   The Visual Display of Quantitative Information , Edward Tufte
•   Show Me the Numbers , Stephen Few

The following blogs are among my favorites:

•   Storytelling with Data , Cole Nussbaumer
•   Presentation Zen , Garr Reynolds
•   SlideMagic , Jan Schultink

Our course (Decks for Decision Makers)

The Decks for Decision Makers course takes the concepts covered in this Advanced Guide to Writing McKinsey-Style Presentations and drills deeper into each. In the course, video lessons and PowerPoint slide examples allow you to fully explore all of the many concepts discussed in this Guide.

Try our Free Trial to get a flavor of the course.