structure-consulting-storyline

Structure Consulting Storyline

Turn an approved answer into a sequence that changes what the reader understands, believes, or can do. The central case lead retains approval.

Confirm the handoff

Require the management question/use, approved answer v1 or message spine, hypothesis results, approved content-spine payloads with grain/entitlement/qualifiers, communication job and real ask, Audience/Onboarding Contract locator, and storyline_entry: ready.

Return upstream if a material claim is unresolved, a user-obtainable gap remains unoffered in the decision window, or a narrative step needs new evidence. Preserve an approved bounded answer and continuation gate rather than implying certainty.

Build one belief journey

1. Write the qualified governing thought.
2. Build an answer pyramid or another architecture suited to the answer—not a template.
3. Define the reader's starting belief, the new belief each section earns, the turning point, and the landing: understanding, warning, learning, instruction, escalation, or decision.
4. Make each section's landing the next section's premise.
5. Read titles alone; each must answer the prior implicit question or create the next one, and together they must form one argument.

Use because / therefore / but at section boundaries only as a diagnostic. If no honest bridge exists without inventing a claim, reorder, merge, or return the gap; never add the bridge as a page field. Use story-archetypes.md only when pattern choice is genuinely uncertain.

Pass the canonical page brief

For every page provide exactly:

page job | message/title | proof | source locator

• page job is the page's distinct cognitive function: orient, correct, compare, pressure-test, sequence, or land. In a short storyline, reuse a job label only when the repeated function is intentional and advances different proof; never use an output-class label as a page job. If briefs are tabular, render four real columns; otherwise use one explicit four-field line.
• message/title matches approved claim state; functional titles are valid for operating, appendix, reference, definition, and divider pages.
• proof is the eligible content shown: exact fact, number, worked example, observed mechanism, bounded comparison, or explicit gap. An exhibit name such as capability matrix, risk framework, RACI, or control map is not proof.
• source locator recovers the content-spine row, evidence chain, or analysis note.