Turn a document into a talk, outline first

For a chat window.

The prompt

Here is a document. Do not write slides yet.

<document>
{{DOCUMENT}}
</document>

Audience: {{AUDIENCE}}
Time: {{MINUTES}} minutes
What I want them to do afterwards: {{ACTION}}

First, give me an outline only: the argument in 5 to 8 beats, in the order I should make
them. The order should serve the argument, not the document's structure — tell me where you
have deliberately departed from the document's order and why.

Wait for me to approve the outline before writing any slides.

What to fill in

Placeholder	What goes there
{{DOCUMENT}}	the report or memo
{{AUDIENCE}}	engineering leads who were not in the project
{{MINUTES}}	15
{{ACTION}}	approve the migration plan

Why it works

A model given a document and asked for slides will mirror the document’s structure, which is almost never the structure of a good talk. Asking for the outline first, and explicitly inviting it to reorder, is the whole trick.

“Wait for me to approve” works more often than you would expect, and the argument you have with the outline is where the talk actually gets made.

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