deck-outline-first

Deck Outline First Skill

Decks built slide-first inherit the tool's failure mode: hours of formatting sunk into slides whose argument was never designed, discovered broken in rehearsal (or worse, in the room). The outline-first discipline is outline-before-prose for the slide medium: every slide is one headline sentence — a claim, not a topic ("Churn concentrates in month two" not "Churn Analysis") — the headlines read in sequence as the complete argument, and the skim test (read only the headlines — does the case hold?) runs before any slideware opens. Slides then become evidence for their headlines, which is all slides were ever supposed to be.

What This Skill Produces

• The header — audience, the decision/ask, the time slot (which caps the slide count)
• The headline outline — one claim-sentence per slide, in argument order
• The evidence notes — per slide: what will carry the claim (the chart, the number, the quote — noted, not built)
• The skim test + build rules — the headlines-only read-through, and the rules that keep the build faithful

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The deck's job — what the audience should decide or do at the end (meeting-prep-pack walk-away logic applies to the presenter too); decks without asks are documentaries
• The audience and the time slot — 10 minutes with executives is 6–8 slides; the slot arithmetic caps ambition before the outline overcommits
• The material — the findings/evidence available; headlines claim only what evidence can carry (evidence-grading keeps the claims honest)
• The reviewer — who would restructure this in review; they see the outline, not the finished deck

Framework: The Outline Rules

1. Headlines are claims: every slide title is a full sentence asserting something — "Q3 missed because two enterprise deals slipped" — disagreeable at outline stage, which is the point. Topic titles ("Q3 Results") defer the thinking to the room, live.
2. The sequence is the argument: headlines read top-to-bottom as the complete case — context claim → problem claim → cause claim → proposal claim → evidence-of-feasibility claim → the ask. Reordering costs one drag now; one rebuild later.
3. The skim test is the gate: read only the headlines aloud — a listener who hears just those should get the entire argument and the ask. Where the skim stumbles (a leap, a missing step, two claims in one slide), the outline gets fixed — this test at bullet-stage catches what rehearsal catches at 10× the cost.
4. Evidence is noted, not built: each headline gets one line of what will prove it ("the cohort chart, month-2 spike") — slides needing three pieces of evidence are two slides; headlines with no available evidence are wishes, and the outline is where wishes get caught (chart-choice picks the form later, from this note).
5. The outline gets reviewed, then the build stays faithful: the five-minute outline review with the key stakeholder replaces the slide-48 restructuring; the build rules — one headline per slide, the evidence note becomes the body, nothing new spawns without re-passing the skim test — keep the deck the outline's child rather than its replacement.

Output Format

Deck Outline: [deck] — for [audience] to [ask] · [T] min → ≤[N] slides

The Headlines (in order)

1. [Claim sentence] — evidence: [what carries it]
2. … [The ask slide explicit at the end]

The Skim Test

[The headlines read as one paragraph — does the argument hold? · the stumbles fixed]

Review + Build Rules

[Outline reviewer + the one question · build: headline-per-slide, evidence-as-body, no silent spawns]

Quality Checks

• Every slide title is a disagreeable claim sentence
• The headline sequence survives the skim test as a complete argument
• Each headline's evidence exists and fits one slide
• The slide count fits the time slot's arithmetic
• The outline was reviewed before slideware opened

Anti-Patterns

• Do not open the slide tool first — formatting is where broken arguments hide from their authors
• Do not title slides with topics — topics defer the argument to the live room
• Do not stack claims on one slide — one headline, one slide, or the skim test lies
• Do not headline what evidence can't carry — the outline is where overclaims are cheap to fix
• Do not let the build drift from the outline — every silent new slide re-breaks the tested argument