What are McKinsey-style slides?

McKinsey-style slides are business slides built the way strategy consultants build them: each slide has an action title stating one conclusion, the body proves that title with a chart or framework, figures carry source lines, and the titles read in order form a complete argument that starts with the answer. The term is descriptive; the method is taught widely across consulting.

What is an action title on a slide?

An action title is a slide headline written as a full-sentence conclusion, such as “Churn doubled after the price change”, rather than a topic label such as “Churn”. It tells the reader what to think before they look at the evidence, and everything below it on the slide should prove it.

How long should an action title be?

One sentence, no more than two lines — roughly 15 words as a practical ceiling. It should contain a verb and, where possible, a specific number. If you need more words, the slide is probably making two points and should be split.

What is the Pyramid Principle in presentations?

The Pyramid Principle, developed by Barbara Minto at McKinsey, structures communication top-down: the main answer first, then a few grouped supporting arguments, each backed by evidence. In a deck, the answer goes on the executive summary, the supporting arguments become key-slide titles, and the evidence fills the slides beneath them.

What is the difference between SCR and SCQA?

SCQA — situation, complication, question, answer — is Barbara Minto’s framework for opening a document. SCR — situation, complication, resolution — is a common consulting shorthand for the same idea with the question left implicit. Both lead the reader from something they accept, through what has changed, to your answer.

What is a ghost deck?

A ghost deck is a skeleton presentation in which each slide contains only an action title and a rough sketch of the exhibit that will prove it. Consultants build it before collecting data so the storyline can be tested and agreed early, then fill the slides with evidence and rewrite any title the data does not support.

What should an executive summary slide include?

The whole argument on one slide: the situation, the complication, your recommendation, the key numbers behind it and the decision you need. Its title should state the recommendation. If a senior reader saw only this slide, they should be able to make the decision.

What are horizontal and vertical logic in a deck?

Horizontal logic means the slide titles, read in order, tell a complete and persuasive story on their own. Vertical logic means everything on a slide supports and proves that slide’s title. Consulting decks are checked for both: first the storyline, then each slide.

Can AI make McKinsey-style slides?

Yes, with a division of labour. ChatGPT and Claude are strong at drafting pyramid storylines and rewriting topic titles as action titles. NOXI generates the analytical layouts — strategy houses, funnels, Gantt charts, scorecards and data charts — with sources on the slide and exports clean PowerPoint, free. You still own the hypothesis, the so-what test and the verification of every figure.

How to Make McKinsey-Style Slides: The Consultant's Method (2026)

TL;DR — McKinsey-style slides in one screen

It is a method, not a template. Consulting-style slides come from how the argument is built — answer first, one message per slide, evidence under every claim — far more than from fonts or colours.
The core device is the action title: every headline is a full-sentence conclusion (“Churn doubled after the price change”), not a topic label (“Churn”). Read the titles alone and you have the whole story.
Structure comes from Barbara Minto’s Pyramid Principle: lead with the answer, group the support beneath it, open with situation–complication–resolution (SCR).
Consultants build a “ghost deck” first: a storyline of action titles on empty slides, tested with the reader before any chart is drawn.
AI helps at both ends. ChatGPT and Claude are strong at storylines and action titles; NOXI generates the analytical layouts (strategy houses, funnels, Gantt charts, scorecards, charts) with sources on the slide and exports clean PowerPoint, free.

Quick answer: to make McKinsey-style slides, write the answer first and build the deck backwards from it. Give every slide an action title — one full sentence stating the conclusion — so the titles alone tell the story. Put one message on each slide, prove the title with the body (a chart, table or framework), highlight the key number in one accent colour, and put a source line under every figure. Plan it as a ghost deck: action titles on empty slides, checked with your reader before you add data. Open with an executive summary built on situation, complication and resolution, following Barbara Minto’s Pyramid Principle.

Disclosure: this guide is published by NOXI, an AI presentation maker that generates consulting-style analytical layouts. NOXI is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group or Bain & Company; “McKinsey-style” is used descriptively for a widely taught way of building business slides. The method works in any tool, including plain PowerPoint, and where another tool is the better choice we say so.

Definition What is an action title? An action title is a slide headline written as a full-sentence conclusion — “Churn doubled after the price change” — rather than a topic label — “Churn”. It tells the reader what to think before they look at the evidence, and the body of the slide exists to prove it. A deck whose action titles, read in order, make a complete argument is the defining feature of consulting-style slides.

What makes a slide “consulting-style”?

A consulting slide is recognisable by six habits. None requires special software; all require you to know what you think before you open a slide editor.

Action titles. The headline is a conclusion in one sentence, with a verb and, where possible, a number: “Online sales grew 34% while stores stayed flat”.
One message per slide. If a slide makes two points, it becomes two slides. If you can state what the slide says in one sentence, that sentence is the title.
Horizontal logic. Read only the titles through the deck and they form a complete, persuasive story. Busy executives often read nothing else.
Vertical logic. On each slide, everything below the title proves the title. Nothing is decorative, and nothing the title claims is left unsupported.
Sourced numbers. Every figure has a source line — “Source: company filings 2025; team analysis” — and footnotes explain definitions and estimates.
Clean layouts with deliberate emphasis. A grid, white space, one accent colour used only on what matters, labels placed directly on the data.

Consulting slides are designed to be read, often without a presenter, so they skip decoration and are denser than keynote slides. For the broader principles behind any professional deck, see our guide to professional presentation design.

Start with the answer: the Pyramid Principle and SCR

The foundation of the consulting slide is Barbara Minto’s The Pyramid Principle. Minto joined McKinsey in 1963 as its first female MBA hire and, while editing consultants’ reports, noticed that the clear ones shared a structure: one governing idea at the top, supported by a few grouped arguments, each supported by evidence. Her own site describes the current edition, The Minto Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking and Problem Solving, as a standard text across the major consulting firms. She is also credited with MECE — groupings that are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.

For slides, the pyramid becomes three rules:

Answer first. The recommendation comes at the start, on the executive summary — not as a reveal at the end. Readers want the conclusion, then the reasons.
Group and summarise. Supporting points are grouped, typically three to five per level, and each group’s summary becomes a section divider or key action title.
Order logically. Within a group, points follow a deliberate order — by time, by structure or by importance — never the order you found them in.

SCR: how to open the story

Minto’s introduction framework is Situation–Complication–Question, leading to the answer at the top of the pyramid; consultants often shorten it to SCR — situation, complication, resolution. The situation is something the reader already accepts (“Our subscription business grew 40% a year for three years”). The complication is what changed (“Since the March price change, monthly churn has doubled”). The resolution is your answer (“An annual plan and faster onboarding would recover most of the loss within two quarters”).

Rule of thumb If you cannot state your recommendation in one sentence, you are not ready to build slides. Write the sentence first; it becomes the top of your pyramid.

Action titles: rules and 8 before/after examples

Action titles are the quickest improvement to any deck you already have.

A full sentence with a verb. “Revenue by region” is a label; “Asia drove 70% of revenue growth” is a title.
State the “so what”, not the “what”. Say what the data means for the reader, not what the chart shows.
Quantify. “Fell 12%” is more credible and memorable than “fell sharply”.
Two lines at most. About 15 words is a practical ceiling; more usually means two messages.
Provable by the body. Every claim in the title must be visible in the evidence below it.
Written as a sequence. Titles should read as consecutive sentences of one argument.

Eight topic titles rewritten as action titles (figures are illustrative):

Topic title	Action title
Churn	Monthly churn doubled to 6% after the March price change
Market overview	Mid-market is growing three times faster than enterprise
Q3 results	Q3 revenue beat plan by 4%, but gross margin fell two points
Competitors	Two rivals now match our price; none match our onboarding speed
Customer survey	Customers leave over setup time, not price — 58% cite onboarding
Cost structure	Logistics is 40% of cost and the only line outgrowing revenue
Options	A partnership reaches the target fastest at the lowest risk
Next steps	Approving the pilot this month lets us launch before the Q1 freeze

The right-hand column, read top to bottom, is most of a board discussion; the left tells the reader only what each slide is about. Avoid two failure modes: the hedged title (“Churn may potentially be influenced by pricing”) — if evidence is uncertain, say so precisely: “Pricing explains roughly half the churn increase” — and the overreaching title, which claims more than the chart shows and costs every other title its credibility.

How do you write an executive summary slide?

The executive summary is the whole argument on one page — often the only slide a senior reader studies. Two formats work:

SCR format. Three to five bold-led paragraphs following situation, complication and resolution, ending with the recommendation and the decision required. Best for decks that will be read rather than presented.

Storyline format. The action titles of the key slides in order, each with one line of evidence. It doubles as a table of contents and suits decks that will be presented.

Either way, a strong executive summary states the answer in its title, contains the key numbers rather than references to them (“churn doubled to 6%”, not “see p. 7”), ends with the ask — what decision, by when — and is drafted first as a hypothesis, then rewritten last to match the evidence. The test: if this were the only slide the CEO read, could they decide?

12 consulting layouts and when to use each

Consultants choose a layout because its shape matches the claim: a comparison needs a side-by-side, a change needs a waterfall, a plan needs a timeline. These twelve cover most slides in a strategy deck.

Layout	Use it when	Common mistake
Strategy house	Vision, pillars, foundations	Overlapping pillars
2×2 matrix	Prioritising on two criteria	Vague, unmeasured axes
Waterfall	Explaining a change A → B	Too many small bars
Gantt / roadmap	Phasing work over time	No milestones or owners
Funnel	Stage-by-stage conversion	Stages without numbers
Issue tree	Breaking down a problem	Branches not MECE
Scorecard / Harvey balls	Comparing options	Too many criteria
Bar chart + callout	One number matters	Callout repeats title
Process flow	How something works	More than 7 steps
Stakeholder map	Who matters, their stance	Names without actions
Before / after	Showing what changes	Unequal comparisons
Driver tree	Decomposing a metric	Drivers that don’t add up

Strategy house The roof is the aspiration, the pillars are three to five priorities, the foundation is the enablers (people, data, capital). Pillars must be distinct — if two both contain the new app, restructure them. Title it with the strategy itself, not “Our strategy”.

2×2 matrix The best-known consulting 2×2 is BCG’s growth-share matrix, put forward by Bruce Henderson in 1970. Its lesson holds: both axes must be measurable and relevant to the decision, and the title should say where the items land — “Two of our five products sit in the invest quadrant”.

Harvey balls Generally credited to Harvey Poppel at Booz Allen Hamilton in the 1970s, they suit qualitative ratings across four to six criteria. Beyond that the pattern disappears. Always include a legend.

Charts the consulting way

The classic reference is Gene Zelazny’s Say It With Charts, first published in 1985 by McKinsey’s long-time director of visual communications. His central idea: the message determines the chart. Decide what you want to say, then pick the form. He sorted business messages into five kinds of comparison — component, item, time series, frequency distribution and correlation — each with a natural chart type. Four rules follow.

One message per chart. A chart showing revenue, margin, headcount and share across five regions is a data dump. Keep the one comparison that proves the title; move the rest to the appendix.

Highlight with one colour. Draw everything in grey and put the accent colour only on the bar or line the title is about. The eye goes straight to it.

Label directly. Put values on the bars and series names at the ends of lines; drop the legend and most gridlines. Add a callout on the single number that proves the title.

A source line on every chart. Origin, year, and “team analysis” if you transformed the data; footnotes for definitions. It matters even more with AI-drafted content, because even frontier models invent statistics 3–18% of the time depending on the task. Our guide to AI presentations with research and citations covers verification.

Rule of thumb Cover the title and show someone the chart. If they cannot tell you within about ten seconds what the title should say, simplify the chart or change its form.

The ghost-deck method: how consultants build a deck

The biggest difference between consultants and everyone else is the order of work. Most people collect data, make charts, then look for the story. Consultants write the story first as a ghost deck — each slide holding only an action title and a rough sketch of the exhibit — and then go looking for data. Weak logic gets caught when it costs minutes, not a week of chart-building.

Step 1 — Write the hypothesis

Write, in one sentence, what you believe the answer is: “Churn rose because of onboarding, not price, and fixing onboarding recovers most of the loss.” You will revise it.

Step 2 — Draft the storyline as action titles

Write one action title per slide on sticky notes or empty slides — usually 10–20 for a decision deck. Arrange them as a pyramid: executive summary, then three to five supporting arguments with their evidence slides. Read the titles aloud; move, merge or rewrite until the story flows. Design nothing yet.

Step 3 — Identify the data each slide needs

Under each title, sketch the exhibit that would prove it — “waterfall of churn by cause” — and list the data and its source. Claims that will be hard to prove show up early.

Step 4 — Fill the slides with evidence

Do the analysis and build one exhibit per slide in the layout that matches the claim. When the data contradicts a title — it will — rewrite the title to say what the data shows.

Step 5 — Run the “so what?” test

Ask “so what?” of every title. If the answer is an implication the reader cares about, that becomes the title: “Setup takes 14 days” becomes “Setup takes 14 days — twice the norm — and drives month-one churn.” Cut any slide whose honest answer is “nothing”.

Step 6 — Pressure-test with the reader

Walk the decision-maker or a trusted proxy through the titles only. Where do they push back? What must they believe that you have not shown? The final meeting is then about the decision, not the facts.

Step 7 — Polish

Now apply the finish: consistent title length and position, one accent colour, aligned grids, direct labels, source lines on every data slide, numbers that match across slides, and an executive summary rewritten to match the final evidence.

Steps 1–3 need nothing more than a whiteboard. For the mechanics of building a deck with AI — prompts, verification, export — see how to make a presentation with AI.

A worked example: one ghost deck, ten titles

The churn problem above, as a ghost deck after step 2. Each line is an action title; the bracket names the layout that would prove it.

Executive summary: an annual plan and faster onboarding would recover most of the churn increase within two quarters. [SCR summary]
The subscription business grew 40% a year from 2023 to 2025 on strong retention. [line chart]
Since the March price change, monthly churn has doubled from 3% to 6%. [bar + callout]
Pricing explains about half the increase; slow onboarding the rest. [waterfall]
Customers who finish setup within a week churn at a third of the rate. [highlighted bar]
Two competitors match our price; none match a guided setup. [Harvey-ball scorecard]
Of three options, an annual plan plus guided onboarding scores highest. [2×2 matrix]
The combined fix lifts twelve-month revenue by recovering lost subscribers. [driver tree]
A 90-day rollout in three phases keeps risk low and results measurable. [Gantt]
We need approval for the pilot and two onboarding specialists this month. [next steps]

The titles alone carry the argument. Every number is a placeholder until step 4 — and if the data says onboarding is not the driver, the recommendation changes.

Doing it with AI: what each tool is good at

Drafting storylines, rewriting titles and laying out exhibits are exactly what current AI tools do well — but each does a different part well.

ChatGPT and Claude: storylines and action titles

General assistants excel at the thinking half. Give them your hypothesis, audience and data and ask for a pyramid storyline of action titles; ask them to rewrite topic titles, run a “so what?” pass or play the sceptical CFO. They are weaker at the slide itself: output is plain, and neither reliably puts sources on the slide. Both now have PowerPoint add-ins that edit decks in place, but you still supply the analytical design. Our ChatGPT prompts for presentations include storyline and action-title prompts.

Copilot, Gamma and Canva: a fair view

Copilot in PowerPoint is the natural choice where a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence is already paid for: it drafts a deck from a prompt or a Word file on your organisation’s template, with speaker notes. Layouts are solid-corporate rather than analytical, and it does not cite sources on the slide. Gamma produces a polished first draft faster than almost anything and suits card-style web decks; its analytical layouts are lighter, free-plan exports carry a “Made with Gamma” badge, and its own help centre lists PowerPoint export caveats (see NOXI vs Gamma). Canva has a huge template library, including consulting-look templates, and generates decks from a prompt — but you fill the frameworks yourself, and it does no research.

NOXI: the analytical layouts, sourced

NOXI is built for the second half of the method. Give it your storyline, your files or just the question, state the audience and the decision, and it generates the layouts from this guide — strategy houses, funnels, Gantt timelines, comparison scorecards, data charts — picking the exhibit that fits each claim. Where your data is missing, it researches the context and puts the source on the slide. Edit any element by prompt (“turn this into a waterfall”) or by hand; it is free end to end, frontier models included. Our AI PowerPoint generator guide compares it with other tools on PowerPoint output.

Tool	Storyline	Analytical layouts	Sources on slide	Price
NOXI	Strong	Consulting set	Yes	Free
ChatGPT / Claude	Excellent	Plain	Not reliably	Free / $20/mo
Copilot	Good	Corporate	No	Copilot licence
Gamma	Good	Light	No	Free / paid
Canva	Basic	Templates	No	Free / Pro

Winner — NOXI for turning a storyline into finished analytical slides with sources on the slide and clean PowerPoint, free. Winner — ChatGPT / Claude for thinking through the storyline. Context If colleagues must keep editing data-linked charts inside PowerPoint, a charting add-in such as think-cell is the specialist tool.

Exporting consulting slides to PowerPoint

Consulting decks almost always end up as .pptx. NOXI renders every slide with its own export engine and builds the .pptx itself rather than pushing a PDF through a converter, so the file matches the slide you approved — layout, spacing, colours, typography. Text stays live and editable, the fonts are embedded so the deck looks the same on a computer without them, images keep their original quality, and the file opens in PowerPoint without a repair prompt, on real 16:9 slides.

Three honest caveats. Charts arrive looking exactly as designed but are not editable PowerPoint chart objects — to change the numbers, edit them in NOXI and export again, or rebuild that chart in PowerPoint or think-cell if a colleague must maintain it there. Export needs a free sign-in, and a large deck takes a few minutes because it is built slide by slide. In rare cases a decorative effect such as a soft shadow is simplified, and NOXI tells you which slide was affected.

Common mistakes that make slides look un-consulting

Topic titles. “Market analysis” tells the reader nothing. Every title should be a conclusion.
Two messages on one slide. A slide proving “churn doubled” and “competitors cut prices” proves neither well.
Titles the body does not prove. “Onboarding is the main cause” above a chart that only shows churn rising breaks vertical logic.
Rainbow charts. Six colours, a legend and 3D effects hide the one number that matters.
An agenda posing as a summary. “We will cover the market and options” is not an executive summary. State the answer.
Decorative frameworks. A 2×2 with vague axes looks consulting-style and says nothing. Use a framework only when its shape matches the claim.
Inconsistent numbers. 6% on the summary and 5.8% on slide 7 makes the reader doubt every figure.

Consulting-slide checklist (10 points)

The answer fits in one sentence.It appears on the executive summary.
Every title is an action title.A full sentence with a verb, two lines at most.
Titles alone tell the story.Read in order without the bodies, the argument is complete.
Each body proves its title.Nothing off-message, nothing unsupported.
One message per slide.Any two-point slide has been split.
The layout matches the claim.Waterfall for change, scorecard for options, Gantt for plans, tree for breakdowns.
Charts highlight one thing.Grey plus one accent, direct labels, a callout on the key number.
Every figure has a source line.Origin and year; footnotes for definitions and estimates.
Numbers are consistent.The same figure is identical everywhere it appears.
The reader has seen the storyline.The decision-maker or a proxy reviewed the titles before the final meeting.

Frequently asked questions

What are McKinsey-style slides?: McKinsey-style slides are business slides built the way strategy consultants build them: each slide has an action title stating one conclusion, the body proves that title with a chart or framework, figures carry source lines, and the titles read in order form a complete argument that starts with the answer. The term is descriptive; the method is taught widely across consulting.
What is an action title on a slide?: An action title is a slide headline written as a full-sentence conclusion, such as “Churn doubled after the price change”, rather than a topic label such as “Churn”. It tells the reader what to think before they look at the evidence, and everything below it on the slide should prove it.
How long should an action title be?: One sentence, no more than two lines — roughly 15 words as a practical ceiling. It should contain a verb and, where possible, a specific number. If you need more words, the slide is probably making two points and should be split.
What is the Pyramid Principle in presentations?: The Pyramid Principle, developed by Barbara Minto at McKinsey, structures communication top-down: the main answer first, then a few grouped supporting arguments, each backed by evidence. In a deck, the answer goes on the executive summary, the supporting arguments become key-slide titles, and the evidence fills the slides beneath them.
What is the difference between SCR and SCQA?: SCQA — situation, complication, question, answer — is Barbara Minto’s framework for opening a document. SCR — situation, complication, resolution — is a common consulting shorthand for the same idea with the question left implicit. Both lead the reader from something they accept, through what has changed, to your answer.
What is a ghost deck?: A ghost deck is a skeleton presentation in which each slide contains only an action title and a rough sketch of the exhibit that will prove it. Consultants build it before collecting data so the storyline can be tested and agreed early, then fill the slides with evidence and rewrite any title the data does not support.
What should an executive summary slide include?: The whole argument on one slide: the situation, the complication, your recommendation, the key numbers behind it and the decision you need. Its title should state the recommendation. If a senior reader saw only this slide, they should be able to make the decision.
What are horizontal and vertical logic in a deck?: Horizontal logic means the slide titles, read in order, tell a complete and persuasive story on their own. Vertical logic means everything on a slide supports and proves that slide’s title. Consulting decks are checked for both: first the storyline, then each slide.
Can AI make McKinsey-style slides?: Yes, with a division of labour. ChatGPT and Claude are strong at drafting pyramid storylines and rewriting topic titles as action titles. NOXI generates the analytical layouts — strategy houses, funnels, Gantt charts, scorecards and data charts — with sources on the slide and exports clean PowerPoint, free. You still own the hypothesis, the so-what test and the verification of every figure.
Are charts editable after exporting consulting slides from NOXI to PowerPoint?: Text in the exported PowerPoint is live and editable, fonts are embedded and the layout matches the approved slide. Charts arrive looking exactly as designed but are not editable PowerPoint chart objects with a data sheet; to change the numbers, edit them in NOXI and export again.

Sources & methodology

The method draws on Barbara Minto’s Pyramid Principle and Gene Zelazny’s Say It With Charts, paraphrased rather than quoted, and on widely taught consulting practice. Historical facts and competitor capabilities were checked against the sources below and vendors’ own documentation in September 2026; capabilities change frequently. Figures in the examples are illustrative. NOXI is not affiliated with McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group or Bain & Company.

The Pyramid Principle, SCQ framework and editions — Barbara Minto: the Pyramid Principle concept; Barbara Minto: the textbook.
Barbara Minto’s career at McKinsey and the MECE principle — Wikipedia: Barbara Minto; McKinsey Alumni: Barbara Minto on MECE.
Gene Zelazny and Say It With Charts — Say It With Charts (McGraw-Hill), Google Books; McKinsey Alumni: remembering Gene Zelazny.
BCG growth-share matrix (Bruce Henderson, 1970) — BCG: What is the growth share matrix?
Harvey balls (Harvey Poppel, Booz Allen Hamilton) — Wikipedia: Harvey balls.
Copilot in PowerPoint — Microsoft Support: create a new presentation with Copilot in PowerPoint.
Gamma export formats, free-plan badge and PowerPoint caveats — Gamma Help Center: exporting.
Canva presentations from a prompt — Canva Help Center: create a presentation with Canva AI.
think-cell charting for PowerPoint — think-cell.
AI hallucination rates (3–18% on typical tasks for frontier models, 2026) — Digital Applied benchmark study.

Try NOXI free — give it your storyline or your files and get consulting-style slides: action titles, strategy houses, scorecards, Gantt charts and data charts, sources on the slide, clean PowerPoint export, powered by frontier AI models, at no cost.