Project Deck Skill

Create beautiful presentation decks to communicate project status to your future self and collaborators.

Purpose

Based on Scott Cunningham's Part 7: "Making Beautiful Decks For My Future Self" - using decks not for public speaking but to efficiently communicate work status across time and to coauthors.

The Philosophy

"I use decks to help me keep track of the work I was doing so that I can communicate it to my coauthors and myself later in the week when we meet to go over our projects."

Claude has absorbed the "rhetoric of decks" - the tacit knowledge about what makes presentations effective:

One idea per slide
Titles are assertions, not labels
Lead with conclusions
Visual hierarchy signals importance
Repeat for retention
Transition explicitly

When to Use

Before a supervisor meeting
At the end of a research sprint
When handing off to a coauthor
When returning to a dormant project
Weekly project status updates

Workflow

Read project context - Progress logs, current focus, recent work
Design deck structure:
- Research question
- What's been done (with figures/tables)
- Key findings so far
- Current blockers
- Next steps
Create beautiful output - Clean design, good typography, optimal cognitive density
Include visuals - Figures, tables, diagrams that capture the work

Deck Rhetoric Principles

## Principles for Effective Decks

1. **One idea per slide** - Don't overload
2. **Titles are assertions** - "Distance increases abortion rates" not "Results"
3. **Lead with conclusions** - Don't bury the lede
4. **Visual hierarchy** - Most important things stand out
5. **Optimal cognitive density** - Smooth delivery, not overloaded
6. **Beautiful figures and tables** - Data visualisation matters
7. **Explicit transitions** - Guide the reader through the narrative

Extended Rhetoric Principles

For Research Decks

Motivation slides: Why should anyone care? What's the gap?
Methods slides: Identification strategy in plain English, visualize variation
Results slides: Lead with main coefficient, visualize where possible
Figures: Clear titles, labeled axes, no chartjunk

For "Decks as Thinking Tools"

When making decks for yourself/coauthors:

Document decisions — Why did we choose this approach?
Visualize data — Patterns you've discovered
Track progress — What's done, what's next
Summarize code — What scripts do what
Capture context — So future-you remembers

Beamer Tips

Custom themes > recognizable templates
Metropolis or Madrid themes as starting points
Sans-serif fonts for readability
Generous margins and whitespace
Compile without warnings (fix overfull hboxes)

Example Prompt

"Create a project deck for my Indifference Adjustments paper. Read my progress logs and the current state of the project, then make a 10-slide deck that I can use in my supervisor meeting next week. Include the key figures and a clear 'what's next' section."

project-deck