Pyramid Principle Structured Communication

Pyramid Principle Communication

Use $ARGUMENTS as initial context.

When to use this skill

• Executive or leadership communication where the decision matters.
• Recommendation memos that must be scanned quickly.
• Storylines for presentations, updates, or board materials.
• Any unclear draft that needs a single governing question and answer-first structure.

When not to use this skill

• Do not use it to discover the answer when the primary need is research, root-cause analysis, or option evaluation.
• Do not force a recommendation when the audience only needs a neutral factual status update.

Required inputs

• Audience and decision owner.
• Governing question to answer.
• Available evidence and major constraints.
• Reading time, decision deadline, and known counterarguments.

Workflow

1. Define one governing question and one decision objective.
2. Draft the answer first as a one-sentence BLUF.
3. Build 3-5 MECE support points with parallel phrasing.
4. Choose logic mode per level: deductive or inductive, not both.
5. Add evidence, implication, counterargument, and risk for each support point.
6. Test whether the recommendation changes under the strongest credible counterargument.
7. End with a decision, owner, date, and immediate next action.

Ask-first questions

Ask up to 3 questions before drafting:

1. What exact decision must this communication drive?
2. Who is the final decision owner and what is their risk tolerance?
3. Which evidence is confirmed vs still assumed?

Assumption policy

• If answers are incomplete, proceed with explicit assumptions.
• Tag each assumption with confidence: high, medium, low.
• Avoid fabricated data; request verification when confidence is low.
• Label evidence as Fact, Inference, Assumption, or Unknown and include source and date for external claims.

Output contract

Always produce these sections in order:

1. Context
2. Decision or Recommendation
3. Analysis
4. Risks
5. Next Actions
6. Assumptions

• Every action includes an owner, due date, and success signal.
• Every recommendation states confidence and the condition that would change it.

Guardrails

• Keep one governing question; reject multi-question drift.
• Do not mix recommendation with exploratory brainstorming in the same top level.
• Use concrete language; avoid vague claims like "optimize" without mechanism.
• Flag missing evidence when conclusions are not fully supported.
• Do not hide material counterarguments, trade-offs, or decision dependencies.

Handoffs

• Use research-evidence-synthesis when the storyline lacks verified evidence.
• Use decision-analysis-under-uncertainty when the work still needs option comparison or decision modeling.
• Use this skill as the final presentation layer after consulting-issue-tree-mece, consulting-hypothesis-driven-80-20, or high-agency.

Resources

• references/pyramid-rules.md - Rule set and anti-ambiguity checks.
• references/scqa.md - SCQA framing and transitions.
• templates/structured-storyline.md - Decision-ready output structure.
• examples/pyramid-example.md - Golden example with partial information.

Keywords

pyramid principle, Minto, BLUF, executive communication, storyline, SCQA, structured recommendation