millwright-labs Minto Pyramid
Three rules that override everything below this line:
- If the user did not ask you to change the document, do not change it. Say what you noticed in two sentences and ask.
- If it is a timeline, runbook, tutorial, or note, do not impose this structure on it. Formatting they explicitly asked for is fine; hoisting a conclusion above the sequence is not.
- Never add a fact, figure, section or "lesson" the source does not contain — including arithmetic you performed on the source's numbers.
Step 0 — Gate. Do this before anything else.
Question 1: Does this document ask its reader to accept a judgment or make a decision?
Yes for recommendations, proposals, verdicts, analyses with a conclusion, updates carrying an ask. No for timelines, runbooks, procedures, tutorials, notes, descriptions, thanks, apologies, and anything whose value is the sequence of events.
No → say so in one line and stop. Do not restructure it.
"This isn't a pyramid case — it's an incident timeline, and time order is the right order here. Want me to tighten it as-is instead?"
Question 2: Did the user ask you to change it?
If they named the skill, asked for a restructure, or asked you to write the document — apply it now. No preamble, no asking.
Otherwise — they shared their own draft to look at, or it came up sideways — your entire response is two sentences:
- One sentence naming the specific symptom: where the point actually lands, what's buried under what.
- One question offering the restructure.
"Your recommendation lands in paragraph six, after the investigation narrative. Want me to restructure it conclusion-first?"
Then stop and wait for an answer.
Ordinary review notes they actually asked for can sit alongside it — a wrong number, a weak subject line, a hedge that undersells the case. What must not appear is the restructured version itself: not as a preview, a sample, or "here's what it would look like." The rewrite is the thing being offered — if it's in your message, nothing was offered, and they've been handed a fait accompli on their own writing. This is the most common way to get this skill wrong, and it happens because producing the rewrite feels more helpful than asking. It isn't.
Talk about their draft, not about this skill. Don't narrate the machinery — no "the gate this skill checks", no operation numbers. Name what you see in their words.
If they decline, drop it and don't raise it again in that conversation.
Why offer rather than act: the user knows what you don't — who the reader is, what's political, what was already settled on a call, whose voice this has to sound like. Restructuring someone's draft unasked is rewriting them. Offer once; act on yes.
Overview
Minto's structure, built at McKinsey and published as The Pyramid Principle: the answer first, then the grouped reasons that support it, then the evidence under each reason.
What this fixes is order, not intelligence. Walking a reader through your process and arriving at the point is fine for a story and wrong for a reader deciding in about a sentence whether to keep going. It's also the order most prose is written in, which is why models produce it by default.
The shape
THE ANSWER (one sentence)
┌──────────────┼──────────────┐
Reason 1 Reason 2 Reason 3
│ │ │
evidence evidence evidence
The answer doesn't arrive cold. Minto's introduction, SCQA, is part of the structure — it puts the reader on ground they already accept so the conclusion lands as the answer to a question they now have:
- Situation — what the reader already accepts
- Complication — the tension that makes the question arise: something changed, broke, conflicts, or isn't working
- Question — what that tension raises, usually left implicit
- Answer — your conclusion, which is the top of the pyramid
Include only as much S and C as the reader needs to feel the question. When they already know the situation, one clause is enough. Never more than the answer itself.
Minto's rules
- Vertical — every idea summarizes the ideas grouped beneath it, and each group answers the question its parent raises. If a group doesn't answer the parent's question, it's in the wrong place.
- Same kind — ideas in a grouping are the same kind of idea.
- Logical order — deductive, chronological, structural, or ranked by importance. An order chosen on purpose isn't enough; it has to be one of those four.
A grouping is one of two kinds:
- Inductive — separate ideas of the same type that together support the point above. This is the common case, and the one MECE tests: mutually exclusive (no overlaps), collectively exhaustive (no gaps for the question being answered).
- Deductive — premises that force a conclusion jointly (this is true, this is also true, therefore). MECE doesn't test the sequence. Keep chains short; they can't be skimmed.
Do not force three
Three is a consulting convention, not one of Minto's rules. The logic determines the count. Two reasons that genuinely cover the case beat three where one is a detail wearing a reason's clothing, and a fourth real reason beats three plus filler. If a list runs long, subgroup it rather than making the reader hold seven things at once.
Anything that won't sit under a reason is evidence, or it's cut — with one exception. Risks, constraints, dependencies, and next steps usually aren't reasons, and must not be deleted as though they were; give them a slot at the close. A risk severe enough to change the decision is not a footnote: put it in or beside the answer.
Operations
Once past the gate: hand back a rewrite with operation 1, or run one by name. Every operation is bound by one rule: invent nothing. Every number, name, quote and claim must already exist in the source. Sharpening the language is the job; upgrading "pretty dated" into "a decade behind" is not.
| # | Operation | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Restructure — impose the shape on an existing draft | You have prose and need the pyramid |
| 2 | Buried-lede test — find the conclusion the draft is building toward | You aren't sure what your own point is |
| 3 | Reason audit — test the middle layer against Minto's rules | Reasons feel repetitive, thin, or arbitrary |
| 4 | So-what pass — cut sentences that support nothing | The draft is bloated |
| 5 | Email version — compress to the same shape | The deliverable is an email, Slack post, or update |
1. Restructure
Rewrite this using the Minto Pyramid. Open with only the context I need to raise the question, then my single main conclusion in one sentence. Then the supporting reasons — as many as the logic requires, not a fixed three. Then the evidence under each. Check two things and tell me if either fails: each reason answers the question my conclusion raises, and the reasons are the same kind of idea. Move risks, constraints and next steps to a short closing section. Cut anything else that doesn't sit under a reason, and list what you cut. Add no facts that aren't already in my draft.
2. Buried-lede test
Read this draft and tell me the one conclusion it is actually building toward. If I had a single sentence to give my boss, what would it be? Then show me where I hid it, and how many words a reader gets through before they reach it. If the draft doesn't support one conclusion — if it's inconclusive, or answers several questions at once — say that instead of picking one for me.
3. Reason audit
Test my reasons against Minto's rules. Are they the same kind of idea? Do any overlap? Together, do they answer the question my conclusion raises, with no gap? Is their order deductive, chronological, structural, or ranked — or did I just list them as they occurred to me? Flag any that is really evidence sitting one level too high, and tell me which ones collapse into each other.
4. So-what pass
Go through the prose line by line and ask "so what?" of each sentence — meaning: which reason or conclusion does this support? Cut every sentence that supports nothing. Leave the risks and next steps section alone. Show me what survives and roughly how much went, so I can check nothing load-bearing left with it.
5. Email version
Compress this into an email in the same structure: at most a line of context, then the answer, then the reasons, evidence only where it earns its place. Aim under 150 words, and go over only if a decision, owner, date or caveat would otherwise be lost. Keep my voice and the specifics, drop the throat-clearing. Nothing between the opening line and the conclusion.
Worked example
Narrative order, the way it usually arrives:
We reviewed four suppliers, ran the pricing, called the references — Kestrel came in 18% under the others, they can start in October where the rest are Q1, and both their references flagged the same strength. There were delays getting hold of one supplier. On balance we think Kestrel.
Pyramid order, same facts:
We should sign Kestrel. They're 18% cheaper, they can start in October rather than Q1, and both references named the same strength.
Nothing was added or removed. The decision moved to word four.
Common mistakes
| Mistake | Fix |
|---|---|
| Restructuring a draft the user only asked you to read | Gate question 2. Offer, wait |
| Padding to exactly three reasons | Use the number the logic requires; merge or split honestly |
| Reasons that are really evidence | If it supports another reason rather than the answer, demote it |
| Hedging until the claim dissolves ("we may want to consider") | State the claim at the strength the evidence supports — "likely", "on current data" — rather than dissolving it into a maybe |
| SCQA that outweighs the answer | Cut it to what raises the question, then answer |
| Recapping the reader's own request back at them | Delete; they were there |
| Reasons in whatever order they occurred to you | Order deductively, chronologically, structurally, or by importance |
| Deleting risks and next steps because they aren't reasons | Give them a closing section — and promote a decisive risk to the top |
| Sharpening a fact into something stronger than the source | Every number and claim survives the rewrite unchanged |
Red flags in a draft
- The point arrives in paragraph three or later
- The opening restates the request, apologises for the delay, or warms up
- It narrates the investigation instead of reporting the finding
- Nothing changes for the reader if they stop after the first paragraph — because the first paragraph says nothing
When not to use it
- Chronology is the content — incident write-ups, runbooks, procedures, implementation plans, project timelines. Time order is the logical order there.
- Storytelling, marketing hooks, anything built on suspense. Withholding is the point.
- Exploratory thinking. Don't force a conclusion you haven't reached — run operation 2 and let it tell you there isn't one yet.
- A reader who will reject the conclusion before hearing why (bad news, hostile audience). Lead with the shared problem and let the answer land one beat later — still in the first paragraph, never on page two.
Make it the default
If you want the shape without being asked each time, put it in project instructions, a CLAUDE.md, or a saved style: context only as far as it raises the question, then the conclusion, then reasons that are the same kind of idea and cover the case, evidence under each, risks and next steps at the close.