Build the story before slides
Create a logical narrative with tension, evidence, recommendation, and next step before opening presentation software.
How to Avoid Death by PowerPoint
From TEDx Talks. Watch here or open it on YouTube .
During the course primer, listen for ideas that change how you approach “Build the story before slides.” Pause once to capture a useful point, then apply it while producing a one-page presentation spine with audience questions, section claims, evidence, transitions, and final ask.What this lesson is really solving.
Create a logical narrative with tension, evidence, recommendation, and next step before opening presentation software. This is lesson 2 because later decisions depend on a one-page presentation spine with audience questions, section claims, evidence, transitions, and final ask. A deck is a sequence of answered audience questions, not a stack of topic buckets. Use your own numbers, files, environment, and constraints so the result survives outside the course.
Understand the idea before touching the steps.
A deck is a sequence of answered audience questions, not a stack of topic buckets.
Follow these steps in order.
Take the action in each step; then use the deliverable below to prove the lesson is finished.
- 1
Write the audience’s likely questions in order: why now, what is happening, why, what options exist, what should we do, and what happens next.
- 2
Create one sentence per section and test whether the sequence works without visuals.
- 3
Place strongest evidence beside the claim it supports and remove interesting material that does not change the decision.
- 4
Draft opening, transitions, recommendation, ask, and close as spoken language.
See the standard in context.
Priya orders the story around lost activations, two diagnosed friction points, three options, the recommended test, cost, owners, and approval request. The learner saves a one-page presentation spine with audience questions, section claims, evidence, transitions, and final ask and notes the evidence or assumption behind the choice so it can be reviewed and improved later.
Inspect before you move on.
- The finished work visibly includes a one-page presentation spine with audience questions, section claims, evidence, transitions, and final ask.
- You tested the work against this common failure: Designing slides while the argument is still changing, producing polished repetition and missing logic.
- Another person could verify this mastery standard: Another person can read the spine and accurately summarize the argument and requested action.
Your deliverable
A one-page presentation spine with audience questions, section claims, evidence, transitions, and final ask.
Watch for this
Designing slides while the argument is still changing, producing polished repetition and missing logic.
Prove it—don’t just recognize it.
Another person can read the spine and accurately summarize the argument and requested action.
Quick knowledge check
Answer from the lesson—not from confidence alone. Score at least 2 of 3 to unlock completion.
This curriculum-aligned check is scored automatically and stored with your account when signed in. It is an objective learning signal, but it has not yet been independently validated as a standardized assessment.
Tools, templates, and references
Pass the knowledge check above first.
Completion unlocks after a score of 2 out of 3. Then confirm that you produced the lesson deliverable.
Go to the knowledge check