There’s a default workflow in consulting: open a slide template, create a section for each topic, and start filling in the boxes. Content before slides is the opposite design principle: figure out what needs to be communicated, to whom, and why it matters before deciding how to package it.
When the Template Drives the Thinking
When someone opens a template before the thinking is done, the deliverable becomes a container for content rather than a vehicle for decisions. Sections get filled because they exist, not because the audience needs them. A charter template with twelve fields produces a twelve-field charter regardless of whether all twelve are relevant to a particular program.
The result is deliverables that are complete on their own terms but misaligned with what the audience needs to decide. A program sponsor doesn’t need a comprehensive overview of every workstream’s scope; the sponsor needs to know what the key decisions are, what the risks are, and what needs executive action. A template-driven deliverable buries those answers inside a structure designed for comprehensiveness, not for decision-making.
Starting with Audience and Purpose
Starting with content means starting with two questions every deliverable must answer:
- Who is the audience for this artifact?
- What do they need to know, decide, or do after seeing it?
A readout for a steering committee looks different from a readout for workstream leads. The steering committee needs program-level status, escalation items, and decisions that require their authority. Workstream leads need dependency updates, milestone status, and blockers that affect their team. The same underlying data produces different artifacts because the audiences need different things.
When content is defined before format, the artifact serves its audience. When format is defined before content, the audience serves the artifact (i.e., they sit through material that was included because the template had a slot for it).
The Artifact Landing Test
The practical test for content-first thinking is whether the artifact lands when presented: the audience understands the implication and knows what to do next.
An artifact that lands was designed for the moment it enters. The facilitator knows who is in the room, what they already know, what they’re concerned about, and what decision is on the table; the artifact’s structure serves that specific context. An artifact that doesn’t land was designed for completeness. It contains everything but emphasizes nothing, and the audience receives information without direction.
Content-First Across Engagements
Content-first thinking applies at every step. In intake, the question is: what does the baseline need to communicate, and to whom? In readouts, the question is: what does the steering committee need to hear right now, given where the program stands and what decisions are pending?
Each artifact starts with those questions, and the format follows. Sometimes the answer is a one-page summary; sometimes it’s a table with three rows. The format is a consequence of the content requirement, not a predetermined structure that content fills.
This is a discipline, not a philosophy: it takes longer to build an artifact designed for its audience than to fill in a template. The tradeoff is that content-first artifacts get used. We critique before we create, and this principle holds at eleven pm the same way it holds at the start of the engagement.
