For consultants before the deck
Pyramid Principle and SCQA Storyline Builder
Paste your findings or drop an old deck. Get the one-sentence answer, the points that prove it, and a slide-by-slide outline with action titles.
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Storyline: Mid-size customer churn
Governing thought: fix mid-size onboarding, not price, to stop the churn · 9 slides
- 1Mid-size churn nearly doubled in 2025, from 9% to 17%Line chart: churn by segment, by quarter · churn export, tab 2
- 2Price is not why they leave: 2 of 14 exit interviews raised itTheme table with quotes · exit interviews 1 to 14
- 3Mid-size onboarding takes 74 days, more than twice as long as small accountsBar chart: median days to go live, by segment · onboarding log
- 4Accounts live within 45 days renew at 92%Gap: 2025 data only. Ask the client for 2024.
- 5Three onboarding changes would get mid-size accounts live in 45 daysNot in your material yet · needs the onboarding team's estimate
What you'll get
Your findings as one answer, key points and a ghost deck
- The one-sentence answer, with an SCQA opening that sets it up
- Three to five key points, each with its evidence from your notes
- A ghost deck: an action title and the chart for every slide
Before and after
Your findings in. The argument, slide by slide.
Six pages of notes from a churn study for a field-service software client: a churn export summary, themes from 14 exit interviews, onboarding times by segment and the pricing changes since 2024.
Governing thought: Fix mid-size onboarding, not price, to stop the churn. Situation: mid-size accounts bring in a third of revenue (finance pack, p. 3). Complication: their churn rose from 9% to 17% in 2025 (churn export, tab 2). Question: what will bring it back down? Answer: get them live within 45 days. Slide 3. Mid-size onboarding takes 74 days, more than twice as long as small accounts. Chart: median days to go live, by segment. From: onboarding log. Gap: renewal by onboarding time covers 2025 only. Ask the client for 2024.
Each slide names the evidence it rests on, so you build it against your own material.
Why it works
What is the pyramid principle, and how do you use it?
The pyramid principle structures an argument so the reader gets the answer first and the support beneath it. Barbara Minto, who first taught a version of her course at McKinsey, describes thinking that ends in a single pyramid of ideas held together by a single thought. River's storyline builder reads your findings, finds that single thought, and builds the rest underneath: an SCQA opening, three to five key points and a slide-by-slide outline. Every point shows the evidence it rests on and where it came from.
SCQA is the opening that sets the answer up. Minto's site names a Situation, Complication, Question framework for finding the question in your reader's mind, and consultants add the Answer to make SCQA. Under the answer sits the key line: points that don't overlap and together cover it. Each slide then gets an action title, a full-sentence conclusion of two lines or fewer, so the titles read in order tell the whole story.
Use it once the analysis is mostly done, before you build a slide. In a Harvard Business School study, consultants using AI were 19 percentage points less likely to reach the right answer on a harder task. It was a note to a CEO built from spreadsheets and interviews, much like a storyline, so every point here cites its evidence. Bring in themes from the interview synthesis, and once the slides exist, the consulting deck review reads them the way a partner would.
What lands in your doc
What's in your storyline
- The governing thought: the one-sentence answer that your whole deck has to prove
- An SCQA opening, with the situation, complication, question and answer in four short lines
- Three to five key-line points that don't overlap, each with its evidence and source
- A slide-by-slide ghost deck, each slide with an action title of two lines or fewer
- The chart or table each slide needs, and the file, page or note its data comes from
- A gaps list: the points where the evidence is thin, and what would close each one
How it works
From findings to storyline
Paste your findings
Paste notes, analysis results or interview themes, or drop up to ten files, including an old deck.
River reads everything
It reads all of it first, tagging each finding with the file, page or slide it came from.
Get your storyline
The answer, SCQA, key points, ghost deck and gaps land together in one doc you can edit.
Take it further
Draft the executive summary or plan the analysis that closes each gap, each in a new doc.
How to build a consulting storyline by hand
Start with the answer. Write the one sentence you would say if the client gave you thirty seconds: what they should do, or what is true, and why it matters. If you can't write it yet, you aren't ready for slides. Then test it with SCQA: one line for the situation the client already accepts, one for the complication, the question that follows, and your answer. If the answer doesn't respond to that question, rewrite one of them.
Next, write the key line: the three to five points that prove the answer. They should not overlap, and together they should leave no gap a skeptical client or partner could find. Sort every finding under the point it supports, and notice which points have little beneath them. Those thin points are your gaps. Close each one with more analysis, soften the claim, or cut the point, before the steering committee finds it for you.
Then sketch the ghost deck: one line per slide, each an action title that states a conclusion in two lines or fewer, plus the chart that would prove it. Read the titles alone, in order, and check that they tell the story. Former McKinsey consultant Mats Stigzelius tested five AI presentation tools and found none made a deck he would send to a client. His advice is to generate the structure, then build the slides yourself against the evidence.
Questions consultants ask
Common questions
What is the pyramid principle?
The pyramid principle is Barbara Minto's method for structuring business writing: one main point at the top, the ideas that support it grouped beneath, and the evidence under those. Her book is The Minto Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking and Problem Solving. To lay one out yourself, start from the pyramid principle template.
What is the SCQA framework?
SCQA stands for situation, complication, question and answer. It opens a pyramid-style document: what the reader already accepts, what changed, the question that raises, and your answer to it. Minto's own name for the first three is the Situation, Complication, Question framework. In a deck, the SCQA usually becomes the executive summary slide or the first minute of the readout.
What is a ghost deck?
A ghost deck is a slide-by-slide outline written before any slide is designed. Each slide gets an action title, a full-sentence conclusion of two lines or fewer, and a note of the chart or table that will prove it. Read the titles in order and you should hear the whole argument, which makes it the cheapest place to find gaps.
Will it make up evidence to fill the gaps?
No. Every key point and slide cites the findings it rests on, with the file, page, slide or note they came from, and numbers are copied exactly. When the evidence a slide needs isn't in your material, the outline says so. That slide goes on the Gaps list, with what would close it and who might have it.
Can it make the slides too?
It builds the storyline and the ghost deck, not designed slides. The argument decides whether a deck lands, and slides go quickly once it holds. Every slide arrives with its action title, the chart it needs and its data source, so your team can build it in your own template. For the written version, the executive summary generator gives you one page.
How is this different from asking ChatGPT for an SCQA?
A chat tool will write a tidy SCQA from whatever you type, but nothing shows which of its points your evidence actually supports. River builds the storyline from your own files, tags each point with where its evidence came from, and lists the gaps instead of covering them. Your findings, storyline and later drafts stay together in one project space.
Is my client's material private?
Anything you paste or drop in stays in your own River space unless you share it. River's privacy policy says nothing you upload is used to train AI models, and River's AI providers are bound by their agreements with River not to train on it. Check your engagement letter too, in case your client limits where their information can go.
Your next step
More for your project
Get the argument right before the slides
Paste your findings or drop an old deck. Every slide in the outline shows the evidence it needs and where that evidence came from.