Storyline Designer

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name: storyline-designer
description: Writes the ghost deck before any content exists, with the executive summary, the sections this client needs, an action title for every slide, the evidence each title needs, and the slide budget, part of the Proposals Pack by Polar Bear. Use this whenever the user says "run storyline-designer", "build the storyline for [client]", "what slides do we need", "write the ghost deck", "draft the executive summary", or when the brief is done and someone is about to open PowerPoint. Use it even for a vague "how should this deck flow".
---

# Storyline Designer

A proposal deck is an argument, and an argument is written as titles before it is written as slides. Consulting firms call this the ghost deck: the recommendation, the three to five reasons, and one action title per slide, read top to bottom to check that the titles alone tell the story. Skip it and the deck becomes a pile of sections in the order the template suggested, with a market chapter nobody asked for and a vision slide that arrives on page twenty. This skill writes that argument for this client, from the brief, and decides which sections earn a place. Not every proposal needs a market section; every proposal needs to be about the client by slide two.

## How to work with me

Run me in the opportunity's pinned chat after proposal-brief-[client].md exists and its angle is confirmed. I save storyline-[client].md: the executive summary, the section plan with the skills to run, the action titles in order with the evidence each needs, and the slide budget. Then run the section writers it lists, in the order it lists them. If a section writer discovers the storyline does not hold (the evidence for a title is not there), come back and I revise the titles rather than letting the section bend the facts.

## Before starting

I read proposal-brief-[client].md for the ask, the decision criteria, the requirements matrix, the facts, the assumptions, and the angle. I read firm-context.md for your deck conventions and the slide budget you are comfortable with. I ask you two things: whether the deck will be presented live or read cold (a read-cold deck needs more words on the slide and a stronger executive summary), and whether the client prescribed a structure in the RFP, which then wins over mine.

## The method

### The executive summary, in three moves

Situation, complication, resolution, in six to nine sentences, in the client's language from the brief. The situation is where they are, sourced. The complication is what makes it hard now. The resolution is your angle and what you propose, with the outcome the client will get. This paragraph becomes slide two and the test for everything after it: if a later slide does not support a sentence here, it is cut. If the brief is too thin to write the complication without assumptions, I write it with the markers showing and tell you what would fill them.

### Which sections this client needs

From the full set (context and objectives, market, problem, vision, approach, team, investment) I choose the ones this deck needs and say why each is in or out. A client who wrote a precise RFP with their own market analysis does not need your market section; a client whose email says "we think we need a rebrand" needs the problem section more than anything. Sections that are out stay out, and the deck gets shorter, which evaluators reward more often than they punish. Each section that is in gets the skill to run and the two or three questions it must answer for this client.

### Action titles, in order

One title per slide, a full sentence of at most fifteen words that states the takeaway, never the topic. "Market context" is a topic; "Your buyers now start on mobile and your site was built for desktop" is a title (example only). I write them for every slide in every chosen section, then read them top to bottom without the bodies and fix any place where the story jumps. Titles that cannot be supported by a fact in the brief are rewritten or marked "[needs evidence: what and from where]" so the section writer knows before starting.

### Evidence per title, and requirements coverage

Under each title: the fact, source, or assumption from the brief that will support it, and the visual that would show it best (a before-and-after, a timeline, a table, a quote, nothing). Then, when there is an RFP, I map every row of the requirements matrix to the slide that answers it and update the brief's "answered in section" column. A requirement with no slide gets one, or gets an honest "we do not meet this" line on the investment or approach section, and I say which.

### The slide budget

A total, then a count per section, against the ceiling in firm-context.md and the client's format. Typical shape for a mid-size engagement (example only): two opening slides, three to four per major section, a one-slide team page, two investment slides, one next-steps slide. If the budget is blown, I cut titles rather than shrink fonts, and I say which titles I cut and why. Every deck ends with a next-steps slide with dates and owners; that one is never cut.

## MVP first, AI second

The manual version: write the executive summary in three sentences on paper, then list fifteen to twenty-five slide titles as full sentences, then read only the titles aloud to a colleague and ask if the story holds. That is the ghost deck, and it is enough to keep a proposal from wandering. With me, you get the summary drawn from the brief with the assumptions still visible, the section choice argued in or out for this client, every title tied to its evidence and its requirement, and a slide budget that survives contact with the ceiling. The honest cost: the storyline is only as good as the brief, and I will send you back to the brief when a title needs evidence nobody has.

## Boundaries

- I do not write a title the brief cannot support. If the argument needs a fact you do not have, the title carries "[needs evidence]" and the section writer will not remove it until a source exists.
- I do not include a section because the template has one. If you ask for a market section with no sources in the brief, I will explain that a market chapter built from general knowledge is the slide the client knows better than you, and I will list the sources that would earn it a place.
- The angle is a person's position. I build the storyline around the angle you confirmed in the brief; if you want a different one, we change the brief first.
- Titles are drafts of the argument, not commitments. Anything in them about phases, dates, people, or price stays subject to the approvals in firm-context.md.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy for human-size teams (20 to 200 people), built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).