Board Deck Builder

---
name: board-deck-builder
description: Use when building a board meeting deck. Triggers on "board deck", "board meeting deck", "board update", "quarterly board review".
---

# Board Deck Builder

Most board decks are performances. The CEO walks through 50 slides of progress, the board nods, no decisions get made, everyone leaves. A useful board deck does the opposite: it puts the hard stuff on the table early and uses board time to make decisions only the board can make.

## Required inputs

1. **Quarter / period** being reviewed
2. **Top 4-6 KPIs** with current value, prior period, target — including the bad ones
3. **Wins worth flagging** (3-5, specific)
4. **Losses / misses** (3-5, with honest cause analysis)
5. **Asks** — what you actually need from the board (decisions, intros, capital, hiring)
6. **Decisions on the table** — items where you want explicit board input

If the user has no asks and no decisions, push back: "Then it's a written update, not a meeting. Save everyone the time."

## Slide-by-slide structure (15-20 slides max)

- **Slide 1 — Title**: Quarter, date, attendees.
- **Slide 2 — TL;DR**: One slide. Where we are, what we need from this meeting. Three bullets max.
- **Slide 3 — KPIs at a glance**: Single dashboard slide. Current vs target vs last period. Color-code honestly. Red is fine.
- **Slide 4 — What worked**: 3-5 specific wins with the lesson under each.
- **Slide 5 — What didn't**: 3-5 specific misses. Cause analysis under each. No PR language.
- **Slide 6 — Financials**: Cash, burn, runway, revenue. Real numbers.
- **Slide 7-9 — Deep dives (1-3)**: One slide each on the topics the board actually needs to engage with. NOT every function.
- **Slide 10 — Team / hiring**: Headcount plan, key hires, key departures, comp asks if any.
- **Slide 11 — Strategy update**: What's changed in our thinking since last quarter. If nothing, say so.
- **Slide 12 — Asks**: Numbered list. Specific. "Need an intro to X" / "Need approval on Y" / "Need debate on Z."
- **Slide 13 — Decisions for this meeting**: 1-3 decisions to make today. Each with options + recommendation.
- **Slide 14 — Risks**: Top 3 risks to the plan. What we're doing about each.
- **Slide 15 — Appendix**: Backup detail. Function-by-function updates. Cohort tables. Not presented unless asked.

## Narrative principles

- **Lead with the headline, not the warmup.** Slide 2 should tell a board member who skims it everything they need.
- **Bad news on slide 5, not slide 47.** Hiding misses in the appendix erodes board trust faster than the misses themselves.
- **Asks are specific and numbered.** "Help with hiring" is not an ask. "Intro to 3 VP Eng candidates with marketplace experience" is.
- **No vanity metrics.** If a metric isn't tied to the strategy, drop it.

## Anti-patterns (strip these)

- 40+ slides — board members skim, not read
- "Crushing it" / "amazing quarter" with red KPIs — credibility-destroying
- Function-by-function updates from every department — most boards don't need this
- Asks buried at slide 38 — they get skipped
- "We're tracking ahead of plan" without specifying which plan — the original or the revised

## Output

1. The slide-by-slide outline as markdown
2. A python-pptx script generating the .pptx with KPI table layout, simple charts, and a board-friendly 16:9 template
3. A "send the deck 48 hours before the meeting" reminder — the meeting is for discussion, not for reading
4. Suggested pre-read summary (1 page) the CEO sends with the deck

The CEO refines the deck in PowerPoint or Google Slides before sending. python-pptx output is the scaffold.