Day 4

Quick Recap from Yesterday

In our previous emails, we covered:

1. Pyramid way of designing: Your slide decks should always begin with the key takeaway, followed by supporting arguments and data.
2. Story lining: Using the most effective method to communicate to audiance
3. Action titles: Each slide header should communicate a small part of the story, and every action title must be justified by data or visualizations in the slide body.

But here’s the challenge: staring at a blank slide and figuring out the best chart or visualization can be overwhelming. How do you know you’re choosing the right one?

Don’t worry—there’s a science to it, and I’m here to simplify it for you.

Charting is About Clarity

Imagine you’ve just completed a sophisticated analysis, and now it’s time to present your findings. It’s tempting to include all the complex details to showcase your hard work.

But here’s the truth: less is more.

Your slide should use the simplest chart with the least amount of data required to support your action title. Think of it as creating a “minimum viable chart”—just enough to convey your point clearly and effectively.

The Four Types of Insights

Charting doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, there are only four types of insights you can visualize:

1. Comparisons: Show how one dataset is similar to or different from another.
   Example: Comparing Company A’s revenue with Company B’s revenue.
2. Relationships: Show how changes in one dataset correspond to changes in another.
   Example: Ice-cream sales increasing as temperatures rise.
3. Distributions: Show how data is spread over time or another variable.
   Example: The range of salaries across a group of employees.
4. Compositions: Show the breakdown of a dataset into its parts.
   Example: The underlying drivers of cost growth.

That’s it! Once you know whether you’re showing a comparison, relationship, distribution, or composition, you can use a simple decision tree to pick the perfect chart.

The Slide Science Charting Decision Tree

As an agency, we would like to streamline the slide-building process. We reviewed countless slide decks and noticed recurring patterns in how insights were visualized. I first learned this from Den and verified it back with the same outcome. No need to complicate it, use most appropriate chart as per table or image below

And there is a pattern. Here is the simplified view of

1. How to structure Deck like McKinsey, Deloitte, BCG  
2. Importance of Storyline 
3. Secret of slide design in McKinsey style
4. Best way to find which chart to use in slides
5. Design Executive summary that impress (We are here) 

Tomorrow shall be the last chapter for this mini course. Don’t forget to check in.

See you tomorrow 😊