Aurora Aged Care rostering vendors
Callout comparison table slide with a verdict and the evidence
A callout comparison table slide puts the decision first and the evidence beside it, so nobody has to infer the recommendation from a grid of cells. This one belongs to Aurora Aged Care, a fictional provider choosing a rostering system for three homes.
What is on the slide
- The callout card
- Headed The Decision: Shiftwell From July. Six short paragraphs give the term, why it wins, what it costs, why not Carepoint, why not Rosterline, and the risk being accepted.
- Why it wins
- The Aged Care Award is interpreted inside the product, so the 410 rosters no longer need the fortnightly manual check that costs the payroll team 19 hours a month.
- The table
- Headed Three Vendors, Five Criteria. Columns are Criteria, Shiftwell, Rosterline and Carepoint. Rows are licence a year ($62,400, $78,000, $54,600), award rules, mobile clock in, setup weeks (9, 14, 6) and support hours.
- The risk stated on the slide
- Geofenced clock in needs a phone on every shift. Eleven staff have none, and the home issues a shared handset.
When this is the right slide
A verdict card beside a scored table suits a procurement decision where the recommendation is already made and the audience needs to see both the reasoning and the numbers behind it in one view.
What to swap it for
Comparison: 5 Tight Rows. Swap to the five tight rows when there is no verdict yet and the slide only has to lay two options against each other line by line without arguing for either.
What this slide shows
The title reads Aurora Aged Care, Rostering Vendors, with a framing line saying three vendors were scored against five criteria for 410 staff across three homes. The left half is a callout card under a filled heading bar reading The Decision: Shiftwell From July. Its body runs six short paragraphs: the term, Shiftwell from 1 July 2027 on three years; why it wins, the Aged Care Award interpreted inside the product so the rosters no longer need a fortnightly manual check costing the payroll team 19 hours a month; what it costs, $62,400 a year plus $18,000 to implement over nine weeks against $54,600 a year for Carepoint; why not Carepoint, cheaper but manual where two homes run split shifts; why not Rosterline, a $9,600 add on, 14 weeks to implement and support ending at 7pm; and the risk being accepted. The right half holds a table headed Three Vendors, Five Criteria with four columns and five rows: licence a year, award rules, mobile clock in, setup in weeks and support hours.
When this is the right slide
Use it when a recommendation has already been made and the job of the slide is to get it approved. Vendor selection, tooling choices, a build or buy call and site selection all fit, because each has one preferred answer and a set of criteria that produced it. The split works because the two halves answer different questions: the card answers why, the table answers on what basis. It is the wrong slide when the decision is genuinely open, since a verdict card printed before the discussion tells the room the meeting is theatre. It is also wrong when the criteria are so many that the table needs ten rows, because the type shrinks until the back of the room cannot read it. Where the comparison is between two things rather than three, a paired row layout gives each line more space and reads faster.
How to adapt it
First, write the callout as a set of labelled paragraphs rather than prose. The reader scans for why it wins, what it costs and what could go wrong, so those three labels should be visible without reading the sentences around them. Second, keep every table cell short enough to sit on one line. Setup, weeks with a plain 9, 14 and 6 reads instantly, while nine weeks and eighteen thousand dollars in one cell wraps to two lines, pushes the last row off the bottom and hides the support row. Put the costs in the callout, where there is room for a sentence. Third, name the losing options in the card and state one thing each did better than the winner. Carepoint being cheaper is the first thing anyone will notice, so the slide should get there first. A version that only lists the winner's strengths reads as advocacy and invites the room to go looking for what was left out.
What makes this slide work
The decision is the first thing read
The callout heading says The Decision: Shiftwell From July, so the audience knows the answer before it reaches the table. Everything to the right is then read as support rather than as a puzzle. A comparison table on its own asks the room to work out the recommendation from the cells, and different people arrive at different answers, which is how a decision meeting turns into a scoring argument.
Both losing options are answered by name
Carepoint is $7,800 a year cheaper and leaves award interpretation manual, which matters because two of the three homes run split shifts. Rosterline charges $9,600 for award interpretation, takes 14 weeks and stops support at 7pm, which is when night shift calls. Naming why each rival lost stops the obvious question from the floor and shows the cheapest bid was considered.
The accepted risk is on the slide, not in the appendix
Geofenced clock in needs a phone on every shift, eleven staff have none, and the home issues a shared handset. Putting the weakness of the winning option on the same card as the recommendation is what makes the rest credible, and it gives the board something specific to accept rather than a general assurance that risks were considered.
Questions people ask
How many rows should a comparison table on a slide carry?
Five or six is the practical limit, and this one takes five. The layout allows more, but each extra row shrinks the type and the audience is reading while someone talks. If ten criteria genuinely matter, score them in the written paper and bring the five that separated the vendors onto the slide, then say plainly that the full matrix is in the pack.
Should the recommendation appear before the evidence?
On a decision slide, yes. The audience is being asked to approve something, so telling them what is being recommended first lets them read the table as a test of that claim. Leaving the verdict to the end works in a teaching session where the reasoning is the lesson, but in a board or procurement setting it usually just produces a scoring debate.
How do you compare three options without the table getting wide?
Keep the first column narrow by naming criteria in two or three words, and keep the option columns to values rather than sentences. Built in, Paid add on and Manual carry the same meaning as a full clause. Anything that needs explaining belongs in the callout, which is why this layout pairs the two rather than making the table do all the work.
When should this be split into two slides?
Split when the criteria fall into two groups that different people care about, such as cost and implementation against clinical and rostering rules. Give each group its own table and repeat the same verdict card, so the recommendation stays stable while the evidence changes. Splitting is also right when one criterion needs its own chart, which cannot sit in a cell.
What should the callout say about the option that lost on price?
Say how much cheaper it was and what that saving costs. Carepoint is $7,800 a year cheaper and leaves award interpretation manual, which matters because two homes run split shifts. That framing treats the cheaper bid seriously and answers the question before it is asked, which is more persuasive than leaving price out of the card altogether.
How should this slide be presented out loud?
Read the decision line, then give the one sentence reason, then go to the table only for the two rows that decided it. Finish on the accepted risk and what is being done about it. The table is there so the room can check the claim, not so the presenter can narrate fifteen cells, and reading it out loud is the quickest way to lose the meeting.
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