Overview
Storyboarding as a technique was developed at Walt Disney Studios in the early 1930s — generally attributed to animator Webb Smith around 1933, who began pinning sequential sketches to a bulletin board to plan scenes before drawing them fully. The technique was quickly adopted across film production as a way to plan a narrative arc, identify structural weaknesses, and make changes cheaply before the expensive production work began.
Consulting firms adopted the same logic for presentations: sketch the structure first, before building slides. In McKinsey's methodology, this takes the form of the ghost deck — a storyboard of the full presentation in placeholder form, developed before (or simultaneously with) the analysis (see also Hypothesis-Driven Approach). A ghost deck typically contains one placeholder "slide" per argument, with a working headline and a rough sense of what evidence would support it. It's the map before the territory.
The discipline rests on two structural tests that apply to every well-built presentation:
- Horizontal logic: the sequence of slide headlines, read alone in order without any body content, should tell a complete, coherent story — "here's the situation, here's the tension, here's what we recommend, here's why, here's what you should do next." If the headline flow doesn't make sense, the deck doesn't make sense.
- Vertical logic: each slide's body content should support, elaborate, and prove only its headline — nothing more, nothing less. A slide that contains information unrelated to its headline is a slide that belongs somewhere else or shouldn't exist.
Together, horizontal and vertical logic create a presentation where every component earns its place. The common failure — a deck assembled from analysis that was done first and structured afterward — almost always violates both tests, because the analysis wasn't designed to support a specific argument; it was designed to explore a question. Storyboarding reverses this: the argument is built first, then the analysis is collected to support it.
When to Use It
Any time a consulting team is building a presentation of more than five or six slides. In a full-length engagement, storyboarding is most powerful at the midpoint — before the analysis is complete — because it exposes what analysis is still needed and what can be deprioritized. In a session, the storyboard is built in the synthesis phase (minutes 70–80) as the team agrees on the argument structure before the Lead Consultant presents.
How It Works
- Agree on the governing thought — what is the single most important message the audience should leave with? This is the top of the pyramid and the final headline of the deck (or the opening headline, depending on whether the deck builds to or leads with the recommendation).
- Map the argument — what are the 3–5 key points that, taken together, justify or explain the governing thought? Write one headline per point. These become the main slides.
- Test horizontal logic — read the headlines in sequence out loud. Does each one follow naturally from the previous? Does the sequence tell a coherent story that leads to the governing thought? Rearrange until it does.
- Sketch the supporting content — for each headline, note what evidence, analysis, or data would make a reader accept it. Don't build the content yet; just identify what's needed.
- Identify gaps — which supporting points require analysis you haven't done yet? Which can be supported by work already done? This is the storyboard's most valuable output: a targeted analytical agenda.
- Build from the storyboard — now build the actual slides, strictly governed by the storyboard. Each slide gets exactly the content needed to support its headline. No more, no less.
Running It in a Session
In the synthesis phase (minutes 70–80 of a 90-minute session), the Scribe takes the board and the Lead Consultant narrates the argument: "Our recommendation is X. To support that, we need to say: (1) [first point], (2) [second point], (3) [third point]. Each of those is supported by what we found in [branches of the analysis]." The Scribe maps this as a rough storyboard — four or five boxes on the board, each with a headline.
The team then checks horizontal logic: does the sequence of those four headlines tell the story? If not, rearrange. Once the storyboard holds, the Lead Consultant knows exactly what to say and in what order. The verbal presentation then follows the storyboard — no improvisation required.
Common Pitfalls
- Building before storyboarding — the most common failure; creating slides before agreeing on the argument produces a deck that reports the analysis rather than makes the case
- Horizontal logic failure — headlines that don't connect; a sequence that presents evidence before context, or conclusion before reasoning; read the headline flow as a skeptic before accepting it
- Headlines as topics — "Market Analysis" is a topic label, not a headline; a real headline makes a claim: "The market is growing but structurally unattractive for new entrants"
- Too many slides — if the horizontal logic requires ten steps to get to the conclusion, the argument hasn't been synthesized; consulting recommendations rarely need more than 10–12 slides
- The storyboard that doesn't match the deck — building a great storyboard and then ignoring it when building slides; the storyboard is a commitment, not a suggestion
References & Further Reading
- Minto, Barbara. The Pyramid Principle (1987, Pitman) — the structural logic underlying storyboarding
- Rasiel, Ethan M. and Friga, Paul N. The McKinsey Mind (2001, McGraw-Hill) — covers the ghost deck and storyboarding discipline
Recommended Books
- The Pyramid Principle — Barbara Minto
- slide:ology — Nancy Duarte
- Resonate — Nancy Duarte