how much time to spend on framework/brainstorming questions?

Hey there,

Answering from a McK perspective:

At the core, McKinsey wants to see creative ideas communicated in a structured manner, the more exhaustive the better.

Your goal should be to come up with a tailored and creative answer that fits the question. The framework should - broadly speaking - follow these three characteristics:

• Broad
• Deep
• Insightful

To get to a good answer can take your time to think  (2 minutes +) and can take up to 6-8 minutes to present your structure (in extreme cases), your qualification, and hypotheses. This is due to the interviewer-led format that McK employs. The interviewer will only ask 'what else' if you 

• haven't gone broad or deep enough
• did not explain your ideas well enough for them to stand out (again, you have time here)

The firm wants to see exhaustive and creative approaches to specific problems, which more often than not do not fit into the classic case interview frameworks that were en vogue 10 years ago...

Again, this only applies if everything you say

• adds value to the problem analysis
• is MECE
• is well qualified
• includes a detailed discussion of your hypotheses at the end

The difference in format and way of answering a question is the reason why I recommend preparing very differently for McK interviews vs. other consultancies.

Cheers,

 Florian

From my perspective, taking time to think and organize a response is essential in many situations. However, you can't always expect 2 min. Hence, this is what I would suggest:

• Ask for time: If you're being asked a question and you can't answer it well from the top of your head, ask politely for time
• Be structured: Embrace the MECE mindset for every question, from initial structure ("how would you help this client?") to brainstorming ("what could be possible reasons for x to happen?"). This is your biggest time saver!
• Adopt the 80/20 mindset:
  • Focus on using the time to build a strong structure/buckets that you can later fill up more (80% of the answer taking 20% of the time). Candidates that take “too much” time are often spending it on detail.
  • Talk interviewer through your structure and fill the buckets up as you speak (20% of the answer requiring 80% of the time, which you have now made conversational as opposed to silent). If you have a good structure and have mastered top-down communication, you can do this intellectual work while you're talking.
• Read the room: You will know quite soon what kind of interviewer you have. Adapt to his/her style and don't insist on taking time for each question when they don't like to give it to you. In that case, verbalize your thought process. Good top-down communication will be your best asset here.
• Pitch to the CEO: This deserves a special mention because quite often the CEO suddenly "walks in” and wants to have a recommendation NOW i.e. no time given. In this case, work the case backwards and give a top down response on the spot (very simplified):
  • Recommendation
  • Criteria
  • Supporting facts (optional)

Hope this helps!

You are going to get various ranges from different coaches and rightly so. From my experience:

• Framework: 1- 3mins
• Brainstorming: 30sec-90sec

Have these ranges in mind, but dont create too much pressure on yourself. Needless to say, dont make the process too quick (30 second or under) or too slow (5mins +).  With practice, you will settle into a nice rhythm and have your own personal style & timing of solving the case. 

Hi there,

The real answer: As long as it takes to give a strong, structured, objective-driven answer and not a second longer.

If you're going to give a bad answer, why would you cut your time short?

Ultimately, you're aiming for 1.5-2.5 minutes for the framework and 0 seconds (or 30-45 seconds) for brainstorming.

Hi there,

It depends on the question, but in general I would keep the following as a benchmark to write down a structure / brainstorm:

• Initial structure: 1-2 minutes
• Brainstorming during the case: 30 seconds - 1 minute

After that, you will have additional time to present.

This is not a strict rule. If you spend more time, you won’t lose any points. However, the interviewer may put pressure and ask if you are ready to start.

Best,

Francesco

For a McKinsey case, I have seen successful candidates take 4+ mins as well because the expectation is that you will have a clear and detailed framework to answer. In general 2-4 mins is totally fine, and nobody actually cares about it as an interviewer. Where it becomes an issue is that you can run out of time to answer other questions on the case, or you spend a lot of time but the structure is not really clear or detailed.

Best,

Udayan