pitch unfairly

Monsters, Inc. Retold as a Quarterly Business Review (QBR) Deck

Screams: below plan. Laughs: ten times better. Quarterly business review, 2001, rebuilt as a live deck you can play and steal. More in Templates, board and investor updates.

Monsters, Inc. deck, first slide Play the deck
Play full screen Make yours
  • 10 slides
  • Scare Floor F
  • 1 toddler on the floor
  • Laughs = 10× screams

Steal the quarterly business review structure

10 slides, one job each, in this order. Swap in your story and keep the order.

  1. 01
    CoverThe company, the period, and the quarter's one-line answer. Sent as a pre-read.
  2. 02
    TL;DR and the asksThe quarter in three lines, then the decisions you need, before any detail.
  3. 03
    Last quarter's prioritiesEach priority you committed to last time, scored red, yellow or green against its target.
  4. 04
    ScorecardKey metrics against plan and against trend, with the change shown as a pill. Never a number alone.
  5. 05
    LowlightsWhat went wrong, plainly, before anything that went right. The board finds it anyway.
  6. 06
    HighlightsWhat went right, with the measure behind it. Shorter than the lowlights.
  7. 07
    Customer insightWhat customers are telling you, in their words, and the one signal that changes the plan.
  8. 08
    The strategic shiftThe evidence for the change in the simplest comparison you can show, and the new strategy in one sentence.
  9. 09
    Next quarter's planThree priorities, one owner each, with a target you can score at the next meeting.
  10. 10
    Decisions neededThe asks again as motions, each with a recommendation, and the date of the next review.
What good board and investor updates do, and where they fail
  • Open with a TL;DR and the asks; investors and boards read the top first.
  • Score last period's priorities red, yellow, or green before anything new.
  • Every metric against plan and against trend, never alone.
  • Lowlights before highlights; the board finds them anyway.
  • Close on the decisions you need from the board, then next period's priorities with one owner each. Detail goes in the appendix.
  • A product demo instead of a review
  • Numbers without plan or trend
  • Misses hidden at the end
  • No decision asked of the board

The deck, slide by slide

Each one opens the live deck at that slide.

  1. Monsters, Inc. deck, slide 1: Kids stopped screaming. We found a better fuel. 01Kids stopped screaming. We found a better fuel.
  2. Monsters, Inc. deck, slide 2: A bad quarter taught us laughter is the fuel. 02A bad quarter taught us laughter is the fuel.
  3. Monsters, Inc. deck, slide 3: Five priorities: two red, two yellow, one green. 03Five priorities: two red, two yellow, one green.
  4. Monsters, Inc. deck, slide 4: Scream energy finished well below plan and trend. 04Scream energy finished well below plan and trend.
  5. Monsters, Inc. deck, slide 5: Four lowlights. The worst one was in the corner office. 05Four lowlights. The worst one was in the corner office.
  6. Monsters, Inc. deck, slide 6: Sulley led on screams all quarter. On laughs, Mike beats him. 06Sulley led on screams all quarter. On laughs, Mike beats him.
  7. Monsters, Inc. deck, slide 7: Kids aren't scared of us anymore. They think we're funny. 07Kids aren't scared of us anymore. They think we're funny.
  8. Monsters, Inc. deck, slide 8: One laugh carries ten times the energy of a scream. 08One laugh carries ten times the energy of a scream.
  9. Monsters, Inc. deck, slide 9: Three priorities next quarter, one owner each. 09Three priorities next quarter, one owner each.
  10. Monsters, Inc. deck, slide 10: Three motions for the board, all recommended yes. 10Three motions for the board, all recommended yes.
What really happened, and what the 2026 rebuild changes

What really happened, 2001

  1. Monstropolis runs on children's screams, collected in canisters on the scare floor
  2. Kids are getting harder to scare, so the city is short of energy
  3. Sulley is the top scarer, with Mike as his assistant and Randall on his heels
  4. A scarer comes back with a child's sock on him: a 2319, and the CDA shaves him
  5. A door left live after hours lets a toddler, Boo, into the factory
  6. The CEO and Randall turn out to be building a Scream Extractor for kidnapped children
  7. The CDA arrests the CEO; Roz turns out to be an undercover agent
  8. Boo's laughter blows the lights: laughter is ten times more powerful than screams
  9. The scare floor becomes a laugh floor, with Sulley running the company and Mike its top comedian

Read the real story the 2001 Pixar film, via Wikipedia

What the rebuild changes

  • The priorities light up. Last quarter's five priorities sit on a factory status board, and the lamps light one row at a time: two red, two yellow, one green.
  • Scrub plan versus actual. Drag across thirteen weeks of scream energy against plan and last quarter, and the delta pills recalculate for whichever week you land on.
  • Re-sort the leaderboard. The scare floor leaderboard ranks on screams, with Sulley on top. Sort by laughs and Mike, who was never scored, takes first.
  • Fill the canisters. Collect a scream and the canister gets a tenth full. Collect a laugh and it fills. Keep pressing; the ratio holds.

Make yours in ChatGPT

Type your site. We'll write the prompt with Monsters, Inc.'s structure and your brand.