16 Claude Prompts for McKinsey-Style Slide Building
Sixteen copy-paste Claude prompts for McKinsey-style slides, shown in full on the page. They cover the full build: storyline and action titles, slide bodies and layout, exhibit specs, and the partner-ready review pass.
Free skills and prompts for Claude and strategy work
Templates for Claude, ChatGPT and Perplexity — from diagnostics to board-ready decks.
What these Claude prompts for McKinsey-style slides are
Sixteen Claude prompts for McKinsey-style slides, written for consultants, bankers, and strategy teams who build dense, decision-grade decks. Every prompt is shown in full on this page. Copy the one you need, fill the placeholders, and paste it into Claude. There is nothing to download.
These are slide-craft prompts, not a general prompt library. Each one targets a specific step in building a board-ready slide: writing an action title, making a body MECE, specifying a waterfall, or red-teaming the argument before a partner sees it. The prompts are grounded in the named methods consulting decks run on, SCQA, MECE, the Pyramid Principle, and the data-ink discipline behind a clean exhibit.
They are grouped into the four stages of a real build: storyline first, then slide bodies, then exhibits, then review. Run them in sequence on a new deck, or jump to the one prompt that fixes the slide you are stuck on. For the broader Claude workflow around them, see the ultimate guide to Claude for PowerPoint and the walkthrough on how to make McKinsey-style slides with Claude.
The 16 Prompts
The prompts run in the order a real slide build does: storyline, body, exhibits, review. Each stage holds four prompts. Click any prompt to expand the full copy-paste text.
The slide-building pipeline
Stage 1 · 4 prompts
Storyline and Action Titles
Use these before you open PowerPoint. They fix the deck logic first: the sequence of slides, the action title on each one, and the one-slide executive summary that has to land in the first minute. A clean storyline is the difference between a deck that argues and a deck that just lists.
Slide Storyboard / Ghost Deck
Use when: You have findings but no deck structure, and need a slide-by-slide skeleton before designing anything
Why it works: A ghost deck forces one message per slide and a logical sequence before any pixels are placed, so design serves the argument instead of the other way round.
Action Title Writer
Use when: A slide has a topic label like "Revenue" or "Market overview" instead of a sentence that states the takeaway
Why it works: Action titles carry the argument. Replacing topic labels with full so-what sentences is the single highest-leverage edit on a consulting deck.
Action Title Audit
Use when: The deck is drafted and you need to check the titles tell the whole story in order, with no logic gaps
Why it works: Reading the titles top to bottom is how partners pressure-test a deck in ten seconds. Auditing the title string surfaces missing links and out-of-order logic before they do.
SCQA One-Slide Executive Summary
Use when: You need a single governing summary slide that opens the deck and frames the whole argument
Why it works: SCQA (Situation, Complication, Question, Answer) is the standard consulting opening. It earns the recommendation by establishing tension first, so the answer reads as inevitable.
Stage 2 · 4 prompts
Slide Body and Layout
Use these on the inside of each slide, once the title is set. They enforce one message per slide, a MECE body that does not overlap, lead-with-message bullets, and the right layout for the content. This is where dense consulting slides either read clean or collapse into clutter.
One-Message-Per-Slide Rewrite
Use when: A slide is trying to make two or three points at once and feels overloaded
Why it works: Audiences retain one idea per slide. Splitting a multi-message slide into single-message slides raises comprehension and lets each action title do its job.
MECE Body Builder
Use when: The body points overlap, double-count, or leave an obvious gap in the logic
Why it works: MECE (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) is the test partners apply to any list on a slide. A MECE body reads as complete and rigorous instead of arbitrary.
Lead-With-Message Bullets (Dot-Dash)
Use when: Bullets are long, flat, and start with throat-clearing instead of the point
Why it works: Dot-dash structure puts the claim in bold on the dot and the proof on the indented dash. The reader gets the takeaway from the bold line alone and drills down only when they want detail.
Slide Layout Picker
Use when: You know the message but are not sure whether it wants a matrix, a process flow, a comparison, or a simple list
Why it works: The layout should match the logical shape of the content. Picking matrix versus process versus comparison from the message, not from habit, is what makes a slide read as designed.
Stage 3 · 4 prompts
Exhibit and Chart Specs
Use these to specify the exhibit before you build it. They pick the chart type, then write a precise spec for the four exhibits that carry most consulting decks: the waterfall, the two-by-two, the process flow, and the journey. A specced exhibit is one you can hand to a tool and get a clean result.
Chart Chooser
Use when: You have a dataset and a message but are not sure which chart type proves it most cleanly
Why it works: Matching the chart to the comparison being made (composition, ranking, trend, distribution, correlation) is the rule that separates a clear exhibit from a decorative one.
Waterfall / Bridge Spec
Use when: You need to explain how a number moved from a starting value to an ending value through additive drivers
Why it works: A waterfall makes a bridge of drivers legible at a glance. Specifying the start, the ordered deltas, and the end before building it prevents the usual mislabelled, unbalanced bridge.
Two-by-Two Matrix Spec
Use when: You are positioning options, segments, or initiatives across two decision dimensions
Why it works: A two-by-two turns a trade-off into a picture. Defining the two axes and what each quadrant means before plotting keeps the matrix honest instead of a shape with dots dropped in.
Process-Flow / Journey Spec
Use when: You are showing a sequence of stages, a transformation roadmap, or a customer journey with steps
Why it works: A process flow makes a sequence and its hand-offs legible. Specifying each stage with its trigger, action, and output before designing avoids the vague arrow-and-box diagram that says nothing.
Stage 4 · 4 prompts
Review and Red-Team
Use these once the deck is drafted, before it goes to a partner or a board. They strip clutter, enforce consistency across slides, red-team the argument as a skeptical partner would, and prep the questions the room will actually ask. This is the pass that turns a good draft into a deck that survives the meeting.
Declutter / Data-Ink Review
Use when: A slide feels busy and you need to cut everything that does not carry meaning
Why it works: Maximizing the share of ink that conveys information, and cutting the rest, is the discipline behind every clean consulting slide. The review names exactly what to remove.
Consistency Check
Use when: The deck was built by several people or over several days and the slides do not feel like one document
Why it works: Inconsistent titles, units, terms, and formatting read as careless and cost credibility. A systematic consistency pass catches what slide-by-slide editing misses.
Partner Red-Team
Use when: You need to find the holes in the argument before a senior partner or skeptical executive does
Why it works: A structured pre-mortem from the audience's point of view surfaces the weak claim, the unsupported leap, and the missing alternative while you still have time to fix them.
Board Q&A Prep
Use when: The deck is final and you need to prepare for the questions the room will actually ask
Why it works: Anticipating the hardest questions and drafting tight answers turns the Q&A from a risk into a place to reinforce the recommendation. The hostile question is where decks are won or lost.
Stages 1 and 2 fix the logic and the slide body. Stage 3 specs the exhibits that carry the data. Stage 4 is the review pass that gets the deck past a partner.
How to use these prompts
Find the prompt you need
Each prompt is named for the slide problem it solves. Match it to where your deck is stuck. The four stage headings divide the prompts by build phase: start at Storyline for a new deck, or jump to Review if the draft is done and needs a partner-grade pass.
Copy and fill the placeholders
Click Show prompt on the card, then hit Copy. Fill every {{placeholder}} with your real slide content before pasting into Claude. The more specific your inputs, the sharper the action title or exhibit spec Claude returns.
Paste into Claude, then build in PowerPoint
Paste the filled prompt into claude.ai and run it. Claude Sonnet 4.6 handles titles and consistency checks well. Claude Opus 4.8 gives richer storyboards and red-teams on a complex deck. Then take the action title, body, or exhibit spec into your slides.
Tip
Claude gives you the structure and the words. To turn an exhibit spec into a fully editable, on-brand slide without the manual formatting, run it through Oria inside PowerPoint. Oria builds the matrix, waterfall, or process flow as native PowerPoint elements you can refine, not a flat image.
When to use each prompt
Not every deck needs all sixteen. Match the prompt to the slide problem in front of you.
What these prompts are built for
Every prompt pushes Claude toward the same bar a senior associate would hold a slide to before it leaves the room.
For a reusable version of this method that loads into Claude once, see the McKinsey presentation skill for Claude, which packages SCQA, MECE, and the Pyramid Principle into a single skill.