deck-business-report

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from review. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: deck-business-report
description: >-
  Build a business / industrial report deck in PowerPoint or Canva — executive summaries, stakeholder updates, project/pilot results, quarterly business reviews, R&D-to-business reports, client deliverables, and internal decision decks for a non-academic audience. Use when the user wants PowerPoint or Canva (not LaTeX/Beamer) slides aimed at executives, managers, or clients, organized around situation/recommendation/impact rather than a paper's contribution: "make a PowerPoint report", "build a .pptx for the leadership review", "executive deck for our pilot results", "industrial report slides", "QBR deck", "Canva slides for the client". Two phases — slide-spec, then a real .pptx via the python-pptx builder (or import-ready content + a design spec for Canva). For academic talks/lectures use deck-beamer-academic; for proposal/report decks in LaTeX use deck-beamer-proposal-report.
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# Business / Industrial Report Deck

Produces decks for a **business audience** — executives, managers, clients, cross-functional stakeholders — in **PowerPoint** (generated as a real `.pptx`) or **Canva** (import-ready content plus a design spec, since Canva files can't be generated programmatically). The audience cares about decisions, impact, risk, and next steps, not methodological novelty.

This is the render step for non-LaTeX decks. Its slide-spec schema and format-independent design rules live in `references/slide-spec-and-design.md` — read that first. For academic LaTeX decks use the `beamer-*` skills instead.

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## What a business deck is for

A business deck answers, in order: **What's the situation? What should we do? What happens if we do (or don't)?** Lead with the answer; supporting detail follows. This is the opposite of a paper's build-up-to-the-result structure — executives read top-down and may stop after slide 3.

Two framings that work; pick one and keep it:

- **SCQA** — Situation → Complication → Question → Answer. Good for problem/recommendation decks.
- **Pyramid (answer-first)** — Recommendation up front, then grouped supporting arguments, then evidence. Good for decision and QBR decks.

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## Common genres & spines

| Genre | Spine |
|---|---|
| Executive summary / decision deck | Recommendation → why → impact → risks → ask |
| Pilot / project results report | Goal → what we did → results vs. target → what it means → next step |
| Quarterly business review (QBR) | Headline metrics → wins → misses → drivers → plan |
| R&D-to-business report | Problem & opportunity → approach (plain language) → evidence → business impact → roadmap/ask |
| Client deliverable | Objectives → findings → recommendations → implementation plan → appendix |

Every spine opens with a **single executive-summary slide** that stands alone — if that's all someone reads, they get the decision and the why.

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## Workflow

### 1. Gather inputs
- Target tool: **PowerPoint** (`.pptx`) or **Canva**.
- Genre, audience seniority, and the **one decision/action** the deck should drive.
- The numbers: metrics, targets, results, costs/benefits, timeline.
- Branding: template/theme colors, logo, fonts (a corporate `.pptx` template to start from?).

### 2. Build the slide-spec
Use the genre spine, then per-slide spec blocks (`references/slide-spec-and-design.md`), with business-specific emphasis:

- **Slide 1 after title = executive summary**: the recommendation + 2–3 reasons + the ask. Self-contained.
- **Claim-titles as business outcomes**: "Pilot cut handling time 31% — recommend full rollout", not "Pilot Results".
- **One chart per slide**, the chart *is* the argument (bar/line/waterfall), labeled with the takeaway, minimal chrome.
- **Quantify impact in business units**: time, cost, revenue, risk, satisfaction — not just model metrics. Translate accuracy/F1 into dollars/hours when possible.
- **Risks & next steps** are mandatory closing slides; executives want the downside and the ask.
- Detailed methodology