Clarifying questions

Hey there,

It could be helpful if you clarified with whoever provided your feedback on why you should have asked clarifying questions.

In the absence of more detail, I'll share 2 cents from some common pitfalls that I observe, where candidates have made unfounded assumptions without clarifying the situation. This affects their structure, but also affects other parts of their answer also.

Here are 2 "verbal tricks" that I suggest to help you ask clarifying questions.

1. Ask broad, open-ended questions, especially at the start - I see a lot of candidates delve into too much detail from the outset because they have memorized frameworks - and make unfounded assumptions of the direction of the case. A few open ended questions at the start is a good way to set the scene. Some good dimensions are:

• Goals: 
  • Do we know what success looks like for the client? 
  • Do we know what goals or metrics are the client aiming towards?
• Products + Customers:
  • ​Can you help me understand what kind of products / services our client sells? How does it work?
  • Who are our customers? Why do they need our product / services?
• Business model:
  • ​How do we make money?

2. Keep questions simple and short, follow up with more questions

• If you are not sure whether you are asking the right question. Just confidently ask the question, but keep it simple and short - this can have the effect of putting the onus of more explanations on the interviewer, who will then elaborate on the case.
• You should use some judgment when doing this though as the interviewer could turn the question back on you if the question is very basic.
• However, from the POV of an interviewer, I much more willing to  explain some basic concepts to a candidate (after all, no one expects you to be a business expert) compared to seeing a candidate ask an elaborate and detailed question - but which shows the candidate making an illogical assumption about the situation.

Hope that helps!

Jack

Hi,

1) Clarify the business model. Ask how the company actually makes the money. For several reasons:

1. Even if you think you understand the business model, you need to make sure that you understand it correctly. 
2. Some cases have pitfalls related to a business model (re profitability cases with several revenue streams
3. You need to understand the revenue streams to make a proper structure. E.g. if the case is about oil&gas company which revenues are declining, ask if it is Up / mid / down-stream problem. In this case, defining a revenue stream is critical to setting up the right structure. (At the end of the day it may be the decline of snack sales at the gas stations:). In case of telecom company it may be the problem of the core business (wireless) or non-core (landlines, internet)

2) Clarify the objective. Here make sure that your goal is:

• Measurable
• Has a time-framed
• Has / has no limitations

e.g. Should I invest 100k in this business for 1 year if I want to get 15% return?

3) Ask the questions that will help you build a relevant structure and remove ambiguity. 

E.g. in the market entry case ask whether we are entering the country organically or non-organically

!!! Finally - do the recap after asking the clarifying questions. Although most of the case books suggest to do it immediately at the beginning of the interview, it makes much more sense to clarify the situation first and then to make sure that you understand everything correctly.

Best!

Hi,

Here are some ideas regarding your question:

Pre-structure questions

1) Clarify the business model. Even if you think you understand it, try to repeat it to make sure that you understand in correctly.

2) Clarify the objective. Here make sure that your goal is:

• Measurable
• Has a time-framed
• Has / has no limitations

e.g. Should I invest 100k in this business for 1 year if I want to get 15% return?

3) Ask the questions that will help you build a relevant structure and remove ambiguity. 

e.g. if the case is about oil&gas company which revenues are declining, ask if it is Up / mid / down-stream problem. In this case defining a revenue stream is critical to setting up the right structure.

Post-structure questions:

It's kind of hard to generalize all the cases. I will try to provide a general algorithm here: 

1. Ask for a piece of data / info you've defined in a structure
2. Compare the data with historical trend / benchmarks
3. If you find something interesting ask for the root / cause or state the hypothesis
4. If no root/cause at this point available - ask for segmentation to drill down further
5. Once you are done with analysis in one branch of your framework (found the root-cause / found nothing interesting) - summarize what you've learnt so far and move to the next one 

Again, the last one is super high-level and the devil is in details:)

Best!

Hi Jiesheng,

I guess you mean questions to the interviewer after he/she presented the case setting.

In general, these questions should be very focused on defining the scope of the case. As a rule-of-thumb, I would not recommend asking more than 2-3 questions / 1-2 minutes.

In my experience, the most common mistakes that candidates make during this phase are

1. Not being focused on the case setting just described
2. Going into detail at this stage already
3. Not asking (the right) questions

Hope that helps!

Dear A,

Here is some tips on the basic information you should have. If you don't have it then go for clarifying questions:

Here the basic things you have to know about the case objective:

• What is the measurable metric of success?

• What is the time frame?

• What are potential restrictions or limitations?

Information about the company:

• Business model: How does the company make money? Do they sell directly to customers or do they sell through retailers or partners? 

• Products and services: What products and services does the company sell? What benefits do these products and services provide?

• Geographic location: Does the company have one location or are they a national chain? Does the company operate in just one country or do they have an international presence?

You understand all the terms

Best,

André

Hi,

You should ask the following questions:

1) Clarify the business model. Ask how the company actually makes the money. For several reasons:

1. Even if you think you understand the business model, you need to make sure that you understand it correctly. 
2. Some cases have pitfalls related to a business model (re profitability cases with several revenue streams
3. You need to understand the revenue streams to make a proper structure. E.g. if the case is about oil&gas company which revenues are declining, ask if it is Up / mid / down-stream problem. In this case, defining a revenue stream is critical to setting up the right structure. (At the end of the day it may be the decline of snack sales at the gas stations:). In case of telecom company it may be the problem of the core business (wireless) or non-core (landlines, internet)

2) Clarify the objective. Here make sure that your goal is:

• Measurable
• Has a time-framed
• Has / has no limitations

e.g. Should I invest 100k in this business for 1 year if I want to get 15% return?

3) Ask the questions that will help you build a relevant structure and remove ambiguity. 

E.g. in the market entry case ask whether we are entering the country organically or non-organically

!!! Finally - do the recap after asking the clarifying questions. Although most of the case books suggest to do it immediately at the beginning of the interview, it makes much more sense to clarify the situation first and then to make sure that you understand everything correctly.

Best!

The intent of the person giving you feedback to ask more clarifying questions probably means they felt you didn't fully grasp the question. 

In this situation, I'd recommend trying to understand the case question more deeply. If there's small niggling doubts in your head about things you don't understand, those should be your clarifying questions. 

Don't try to answer questions in a formulaic way. Rather, try to answer cases with a mindset of trying to crack the problem. 

However, I'm happy to answer your original question. Here are some clarifying questions that work in most cases:

• What is the company's business model? What is their product mix / what are their different revenue streams?
• What constitutes success for the client?
• What is the timeline to hit their objective?

I have a few tips here. You should at least know:

• The main objective of the client is: what is the ultimate objective we are trying to achieve?
• The business model or sector (at a high level): do I understand how the business makes money, the products it sells and what the sector is?

You should ask any other questions that could make your structuring easier and surface any hidden assumptions you may have.

Told by whom? Be careful, many are out there with half knowledge. Depends on company you are interviewing with and case context. Cannot be generalized. Warm regards and trust feedback only from real coaches, Frederic 

Hi,

You should ask the following questions:

1) Clarify the business model. Ask how the company actually makes the money. For several reasons:

1. Even if you think you understand the business model, you need to make sure that you understand it correctly. 
2. Some cases have pitfalls related to a business model (re profitability cases with several revenue streams
3. You need to understand the revenue streams to make a proper structure. E.g. if the case is about oil&gas company which revenues are declining, ask if it is Up / mid / down-stream problem. In this case, defining a revenue stream is critical to setting up the right structure. (At the end of the day it may be the decline of snack sales at the gas stations:). In case of telecom company it may be the problem of the core business (wireless) or non-core (landlines, internet)

2) Clarify the objective. Here make sure that your goal is:

• Measurable
• Has a time-framed
• Has / has no limitations

e.g. Should I invest 100k in this business for 1 year if I want to get 15% return?

3) Ask the questions that will help you build a relevant structure and remove ambiguity. 

E.g. in the market entry case ask whether we are entering the country organically or non-organically

!!! Finally - do the recap after asking the clarifying questions. Although most of the case books suggest to do it immediately at the beginning of the interview, it makes much more sense to clarify the situation first and then to make sure that you understand everything correctly.

Best!

Vlad's list has a good summary of typical questions you may want to ask.

Generally, the way you should think about clarifying questions is: "Does the answer to this question impact the way I would structure/think about this problem?" If the answer to this question is yes, then you should ask it as part of the clarifying questions!

Hi Khaled,

Cases statements can differs a lot from each other. In some situation you will receive a very detailed description of the company and issue, while in others you'll only receive one or two sentence.
So consider the clarification question as a help for you to build the right structure and really focus on the key topics. Sometimes the initial issue is very open, and if you don't clarify you end up with a very wide and general structure to cover the resolution.

-on one hand the clarification question are mostly here to reduce the scope by specifying what is the issue exactly

- on the other hand, you don't want to start solving the whole with the clarification question, so once you get what you need to work, you sould take time to build your structure.

Hope this helps

Best
Benjamin

no bro

Hey Jerry.

Sorry that I am not answering your questions, I just wonder what type of BCG cases you had?could you share it with me?erkelicious777@gmail.com

Hey anonymous,

Vlad's post is super comprehensive about what to ask before getting your proper framework. But let me build on what not to ask - I felt the need to clarify this point as I've seen so many candidates failing on it: you shouldn't ask by any mean problem solving questions, i.e., questions that you just ask in order to understand what are the solution rather than the context (e.g., how much are revenues declining over the last years? what's the client market share?, etc).

Best

Bruno

You need to clarify the question, make sure you understand it: what is the customer's objective, both time and $/revenue wise? Anything else you should be concerned about?

If this is a brand new industry for you, make sure also to understand the terminology. One of my cases talks about "widget" for example, asking about it is fair game.

Things you probably don't want to ask however, are things relating to the state of the competition, current growth trends, customer satisfaction... all of these are best left to the body of the case, after you have laid out your structure.

Hope this helps -

I would say your clarifying questions are essential for narrowing down the scope of your issue tree, and without asking them you risk approaching the question from too broad a view, or an entirely inaccurate one.

My advice would be to make sure you clarify these two points prior to starting on your issue tree:

1. What is the business model? Ensure you understand the product and company's revenue streams and scope (e.g. do they manufacture only, or also do R&D and distribution?). 

2. What exactly is the objective? Make sure you've clarified this - quite often there is a catch/additional piece of information that the interviewer doesn't immediately volunteer e.g. a target timescale for ROI or target profit figure.

Best of luck!

Kay