Communication

Everyone Needs to Communicate.

  • Provide technical details to your colleagues
  • Provide technical details to your manager
  • Provide project status to your executive

Different techniques work in different environments. Consider the following.

Last updated: Mon 28-Sep-2026 evening

SCQA Framework

SCQA stands for Situation, Complication, Question, Answer.

While the pyramid structure organizes your arguments logically from top to bottom, SCQA introduces your topic to the reader. Instead of dumping your conclusion right away without context—which can shock or confuse an audience—SCQA sets the stage so the conclusion feels natural, urgent, and inevitable.

The Four Components of SCQA

Component What It Is Example
Situation
(S)		 The undeniable, uncontroversial current reality or baseline fact.

It establishes common ground with your reader.		 “Our company currently relies on a manual data-entry process for customer onboarding.”
Complication
(C)		 The trigger, problem, or changing circumstance that disrupts the situation.

It creates tension and explains why you need to act now.		 “However, customer volume has tripled this quarter, causing massive backlogs, human errors, and a 40% increase in customer churn.”
Question
(Q)		 The natural question raised by the complication.

It frames the core problem your communication will solve.		 “How can we scale our onboarding process to handle triple the volume while eliminating errors and reducing churn?”
Answer
(A)		 Your governing thought.

The core thesis or recommendation of your Minto Pyramid that answers the question.		 “We must immediately implement an automated, API-driven self-service onboarding portal.”

The Four Narrative Archetypes (How to order them)

Barbara Minto noted that you don’t always have to present SCQA in a strict linear order. Depending on what your audience already knows, you can mix up the sequence to create different psychological effects:

Archetype Best Used When…
Standard

S > C > Q > A		 The reader doesn’t know the problem well;.
You need to walk them through the context step-by-step.
Stirring

C > S > Q > A		 You need to grab attention immediately with a crisis or shocking change before explaining the baseline.
Beating Around the Bush

Q > S > C > A		 The reader already knows the situation and complication, but you want to remind them of the core question first.
Direct

A > S > C > Q		 Executives are in a massive rush.
You give the answer first, then provide the narrative backstory to prove why you’re right.

MECE Framework

MECE (pronounced me-see) stands for Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive.

  • It is the gold-standard framework created by McKinsey & Company (and heavily utilized in the Minto Pyramid Principle) for breaking down a complex problem or topic into clean, logical categories without overlapping or leaving gaps.
  • When you build the middle tier of your Minto Pyramid (your key arguments or pillars), those pillars must be MECE.

The Two Rules of MECE

Rule What It Is Example Violation
01 Mutually Exclusive
(No Overlaps)		 Each category is completely distinct from the others.

There is no double-counting, repetition, or fuzzy boundaries.

If you sort a piece of data, it should fit into only one category.		 Categorizing expenses into “Marketing,” “Advertising,” and “Operations” fails because advertising is a subset of marketing.
Collectively Exhaustive
(No Gaps)		 When you put all the categories together, they cover the entire universe of the problem.

Nothing important is left out.		 Categorizing global sales into “North America” and “Europe” fails because it leaves out Asia, South America, and other regions.

A Quick Example: Evaluating a Business Drop

Imagine you want to figure out why your company’s profits dropped this quarter.

Non-MECE (Messy & Overlapping):

  • High employee costs
  • Marketing issues
  • Spending too much money
  • Supply chain problems

(Why it fails: “Spending too much money” overlaps with employee costs and marketing; it’s a messy breakdown.)

MECE (Clean & Complete):

  • 1. Revenue Decreased (All factors affecting top-line income)
  • 2. Costs Increased (All factors affecting bottom-line expenses)

(Why it succeeds: Every financial dollar in a business either falls under revenue or costs—mutually exclusive. Together, they cover 100% of financial performance—collectively exhaustive.)

Common MECE Frameworks to Keep in Hand

You don’t always have to invent MECE categories from scratch. Consultants often rely on classic mental models that are inherently MECE:

  • The 3Cs: Customer, Company, Competition (for market analysis)
  • The 4Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion (for marketing strategy)
  • Value Chain: Inputs $\rightarrow$ Processing $\rightarrow$ Outputs (for operational analysis)
  • Internal vs. External: (for risk or SWOT analysis)

The Minto Pyramid Principle

See

	flowchart TD
    %% Levels of the Minto Pyramid
    A["Governing Thought<br><i>(The Main Answer / Recommendation)</i>"] 

    %% Key Lines of Argument
    B1["Key Argument 1"]
    B2["Key Argument 2"]
    B3["Key Argument 3"]

    %% Supporting Evidence / Data
    C1["Data /<br> Fact 1.1"]
    C2["Data /<br> Fact 1.2"]
    
    C3["Data /<br> Fact 2.1"]
    C4["Data /<br> Fact 2.2"]
    
    C5["Data /<br> Fact 3.1"]
    C6["Data /<br> Fact 3.2"]

    %% Connections
    A --> B1
    A --> B2
    A --> B3

    B1 --> C1
    B1 --> C2

    B2 --> C3
    B2 --> C4

    B3 --> C5
    B3 --> C6

    %% Styling for visual hierarchy
    classDef topBox fill:#f9f,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px;
    classDef middleBox fill:#bbf,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px;
    classDef bottomBox fill:#dfd,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px;

    class A topBox;
    class B1,B2,B3 middleBox;
    class C1,C2,C3,C4,C5,C6 bottomBox;

Governing Thought (The Main Answer / Recommendation)

  • This is the main point that you are trying to communicate.
  • The conclusions or recommendations.
  • The SCQA Framework can be used to develop the Governing Thought.

Key Argument

  • The key arguments or points that support the Governing Thought.
  • The MECE Framework should be used to create the various Key Arguments.

Data / Fact

  • The information that supports the Key Argument.
    • The MECE Framework should be used to create the various Data / Facts.

AI Prompt

If you have something written down and you want AI to clean it up to follow the above consider this prompt

Act as a master executive communications expert trained in the Minto Pyramid Principle and MECE frameworks.

Please take the text/notes provided below and rewrite them following this exact structure:

1. THE SCQA HOOK:

  • Situation: The uncontroversial baseline context.
  • Complication: The problem or changing dynamic driving urgency.
  • Question: The core problem to be solved.
  • Answer: Your Governing Thought / primary conclusion immediately.

2. THE MINTO PYRAMID (SUPPORTING PILLARS):

  • Break down the core arguments into 2 to 4 Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive (MECE) pillars. Ensure there are no overlaps and they cover the entire scope.
  • Under each pillar, organize supporting evidence, facts, and context cleanly.

3. EDITORIAL REVIEW:

  • Strip away fluff, redundancies, and non-essential filler.
  • Provide a brief bulleted list pointing out any critical data, facts, or logical context missing from my original text that would weaken the argument.

Here is the text to rewrite: INSERT YOUR TEXT OR NOTES HERE

The Words

Words matter

  • Choose them wisely

Avoid pronouns

  • “you”, “me”, “she” will cause people to be defensive
  • Focus on the problem / discussion not on the people
  • Not “your problem” instead “the problem”

Keep cool

  • Communication is only ~9% the words that you use
  • The rest is your tone and body language

Active Listening

  • Listen to understand
  • Do not listen to respond
  • Offer your opinion last – first listen to others

Communicate to avoid being misunderstood

  • Don’t communicate to be understood
  • Communication to not be misunderstood
  • An example: you could say “they are happy”.
    • Maybe in context it is relatively easy to understand who “they” are.
    • But if instead you said “Bob is happy” then
      • No one has to spend mental energy to map “they” to “Bob”.
      • The listener then has more time / energy to focus on the message and is not distracted trying to follow the conversation before you get to the critical part.

The Artefacts

Find your lists.

Find your buckets.

Find your tables.

Find your diagrams.

Find your medium:

  • The medium of your message can be as important as the message itself.
  • If no one can understand your medium, no one is listening to your message.

Search for many sources on how to draft a good diagram, dashboard, power point, etc.

Appendix

Old Version

go here

Version History

  Date Notes
01 Mon 1-Mar-2021 Initial version
02 Mon 10-Aug-2026 Converted to markdown
03 Mon 28-Sep-2026 Added the call out to the SCQA, MECE and Minto Pyramid Principle
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