What's a Complication?

The Complication of the introduction is not a complication in the "problem" sense of the word, although it may frequently be a problem. It is the Complication in the story you are telling, and thus creates the tension that triggers the Question.

Using the previously established truth about the subject as its starting point, the Complication goes on to tell what happened next in the story that inevitably leads to a Question. "What happened next" is usually a variation on one of the possibilities shown in Exhibit 10.

Exhibit 11 shows an example of each type of structure, all drawn from Henry Strage's Milestones in Management, an anthology of literature that has helped to shape management thinking over the last 30 years.¹ As you read them, you might want to note the many variations there can be in style as one tries to bring to life the story reflected in the bare bones of the S-C-Q structure.

¹Strage, Henry A., McKinsey & Company, Milestones in Management, An Essential Reader. (Blackwell Publishers: London) 1992