What is the Taxi Test? It’s a test you apply to the headlines on your slide deck before you send it out.

The question you are asking yourself: If someone only reads the headlines on your slides, will they still understand what you are proposing and why?

Imagine that the decision-maker (the person who green-lights your project or not — in this example, let’s say the CEO, and let’s say the CEO is a she) is riding in the back of a taxi on the way to the airport. She is on the phone with her spouse, deciding who will pick up the kid from football practice. As soon as she hangs up, she needs to call one of the board members back, because she was on the other line when he called. A stack of papers about other stuff she needs to make decisions on sits next to her. The taxi goes careening around a corner, and half of the papers fall to the floor.

In other words, it’s chaos.

This is the environment where your project will get green-lighted or not. This is the environment where you need to shine.

We all like to think that everyone thinks as carefully and as deeply about things as we do. And they probably do, but about other stuff. They hire you because they want YOU to think about your things carefully and deeply, so they can do their other stuff.

The reality is that your life’s work is going to get green-lighted, or not, in the space of about 40 seconds. The Taxi Test is reading your headlines to make sure that if they, and only they, are the things that get read when the decision is being made, the decision-maker will still know what the point of the presentation was about.

Here’s an example:

Original:
Welcome – Sales History – Potential Problems – Suggested Solutions

Edited:
Sales are down – Lead processing is the problem – Reorg the Sales Department

See the difference? You don’t even need to see the slides now, to know what is being recommended and why.

Pro tip: Don’t just read the slide headlines out loud to yourself. Actually write them down, on a separate piece of paper, give that piece of paper to a friend or colleague, and ask them to repeat back to you what you are proposing and why.