The message below came in a few months back from a relatively new Management Consultant looking for advice on how to quality control his PowerPoint slides. This is a highly important issue for folks new to Consulting and I’m surprised that this is the first time that I’ve been asked about it. I tackled this issue quite often during my first few months at McKinsey and, as such, I was able to develop some tricks to ensure that I was producing quality output. For the purposes of this blog entry, I pulled those tricks together into a catchy, easy-to-remember framework that should help others in this situation. Unfortunately, I am probably too late to help this reader, but I wanted to get back to him anyway.

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JZR wrote:

Hi Marquis,

I am a young consultant who earned a bachelor degree in business and joined consulting upon graduation.

My major problem in current job is about quality check. As I am careless and fast in nature, I tend to miss the details and make some small mistakes while preparing my slides. My assignment manager asked me to make a plan about it. I would like to seek your advice on how to safeguard the quality of my work.

Thank you!

Cheers,

JZR

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My video response:

Reader seeking advice on quality control from Marquis Parker on Vimeo.

Key points:
- Quality control is a HUGE issue in Consulting and it is an especially important thing for newer Consultants to get right as soon as possible upon entry into the game

- I created a quick framework for quality checking of PowerPoint slides, which doesn’t necessary cover all of the bases, but touches on what I believe are the most important issues:
–> The FLAGS framework:

Fonts	Ensure that the fonts used in all text, including in charts and graphs, are in the same font family; Differences in sizing can be OK, but the actual font used should be consistent throughout a slide
Layout	Review the overall layout, including text, graphs, charts, and images, on a slide for proper placement and connection to the story that the slide is supposed to tell; Also, ensure that each individual component on the slide has proer internal layout (bulleting within text, legends and placement of data in graphs, etc.)
Alignment	Ensure proper alignment of text/graphs/charts on the slides (centering, left/right alignment, vertical orientation, etc.)
Grammar	Examine the content for grammatical mistakes and word/phrase errors
Spelling	Re-read your content with an eye toward identifying spelling errors and other typos