What is it?

A workshop designed around the insights from Barbara Minto’s Pyramid Principle to help team members structure their communication effectively for clarity, coherence, and impact.

Why is it useful?

This workshop allows teams to practise structured communication techniques that can be applied in everyday work, leading to faster decision-making, clearer updates, and more efficient collaboration.

Objectives

• Help your team learn how to structure communication for maximum clarity.
• Gain insight into common communication pitfalls and how to avoid them.
• Learn a powerful technique to organise complex ideas, making them easier to share, understand, and act upon.
• Foster greater alignment and efficiency within your team.

Resources Required

• Time: 2 hours.
• Number of People: 4-18.
• Handout on Pyramid Principle basics (main point, supporting arguments, MECE principle)
• PowerPoint slides or a whiteboard for the presentation.
• Flip charts or whiteboard for recording discussions.
• Marker pens.

Process

Step 1: Introduction to the Pyramid Principle (15 minutes)

1. Overview: Brief introduction to Barbara Minto's Pyramid Principle.
2. Key concepts:
   • Top-down structure
   • The MECE principle (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive)
   • Grouping and logical ordering
   • Importance of brevity and clarity in team communication

Step 2: Why Clear Communication Matters in Teams (10 minutes)

1. Discussion: Importance of clear communication in team development and achieving goals.
2. Emphasis: How structured communication can improve remote working, management style alignment, and overall team effectiveness.

Step 3: Formulating a Clear Pyramid Structure (30 minutes)

Objective: Practise constructing a pyramid structure on a real team issue.

1. Divide participants into small groups and assign each group a current team topic or challenge (e.g., project updates, process improvement ideas).
2. Have each group identify the main point or recommendation they want to communicate.
3. Using the pyramid structure, ask each group to define the supporting arguments and evidence under the main point.
4. Debrief: Each group presents its pyramid structure, while others provide clarity and structure feedback.

Step 4: Applying the MECE Principle (20 minutes)

Objective: Enhance logical ordering by ensuring all ideas are covered without overlap.

1. Ask participants to refine their group’s structure by ensuring each supporting argument follows the MECE principle — no overlap and complete coverage of the main idea.
2. Groups edit their structures accordingly.
3. Debrief: Discuss challenges with MECE and how it improved clarity.

Step 5: Distilling Messages with Brevity (20 minutes)

Objective: Practise concise language for better impact.

1. Each group refines their pyramid structure to reduce wordiness, focusing on simplicity and avoiding jargon.
2. Groups revise and prepare to present a 2-minute summary.
3. Debrief: Present each revised summary, discussing the clarity improvements from brevity.

Step 6: Testing with Key Questions (15 minutes)

Objective: Ensure the structure answers the audience's key questions.

1. Each group swaps with another group and identifies key questions after reviewing the structure.
2. Groups answer the questions and refine the pyramid based on feedback.
3. Debrief: Discuss how anticipating questions can guide effective structuring.

Step 7: Closing Reflection and Next Steps (10 minutes)

1. Summary: Recap the core principles learnt.
2. Next steps: Discuss how team members can integrate the Pyramid Principle into everyday communication for enhanced clarity in updates, proposals, and reports.