Hypothesis driven approach was a buzzword sometime back. However, the approach is a bit dated - especially for the new style of cases these days that don't perfectly fit into traditional frameworks.

Once you ask the client's objective, and the client's success KPI - then the structure and hypothesis should generally flow very organically.

Happy to look through some of your examples that you have gone through with case partners and help you in resolving your doubts - feel free to shoot me a message.

Hello,

I know that different structures and frameworks can be confusing while doing cases, but honestly as long as your approach is clear and logical, it doesn't really matter whether you frame it as a hypothesis or not. In your example of the profitability case, the common approach you outlined involves an implicit hypothesis (i.e. the revenue drop might be due to internal or external factors, etc.), so the two approaches you give there aren't really that different. 

I tend not to recommend candidates to use the hypothesis-driven approach from the get-go, and rather opt for what you term the “framework-bucket” approach. I find that it can be awkward to assume some hypotheses (i.e. what the answer will be) from the onset of the case when you really have no way of knowing how it is going to go. That being said, the approach you should use depends on what you prefer and find more comfortable to follow stylistically. As long as you are clear, logical, and structured, it doesn't matter too much.

Hi there,

It's always preferrable to use an hypothesis (plural) based approach.

In the example you give, on the internal/external, the “issue” is that it is being phrased as “buckets” and not as hypothesis.

One thing is “looking” internally and externally… another is to understand whether it is a market issue (market going down), a competitive issue (your client doing worse than the competition) or even a internal efficiency issue. So the underlying “buckets” may be similar (first two hypothesis are external, the third one is internal) - but the communication of those “buckets” is completely different.

This is a simple example, at it is very obvious what you are trying to do when looking internally vs. externally. But in many instances, candidates put a lot of “buckets” out there which are not necessarily wrong, but it is not clear at all which questions will they try to answer when looking into those buckets…

Hope this helps!

(edited)

It's a good idea to state a hypothesis (or hypotheses) IF you have one in mind. But please don't force one out for the sake of making a hypothesis.

When you have a hypothesis, the top part of the issue tree (i.e., the first layer of questions or topics) should directly help validate/ reject the hypothesis. 

Let me know if you need help with hypothesis formulation and drawing robust issue trees to test hypotheses. I specialize in this