Hi there,
Whenever you get a question on creativity or brainstorming in the case, I would recommend the following:
- Ask for one minute of time to structure your thoughts
- Present a first level of the structure with MECE buckets
- You can do that even if you have never seen that question before. If you have no idea on how to structure a first level, you can use a structure as X vs Non-X.
- Potential examples include: Long term vs short term; Current vs New; Financial vs Non-financial.
- The more you practice cases in the right way, the more you will be able to derive appropriate MECE buckets fitting a case.
- Brainstorm options in each bucket
- Your creativity in this area is directly correlated with the number of cases you have done.
- If you are weak in creativity for one specific industry, the most effective strategy is to go through cases of a good consulting MBA casebook for that industry.
- There are many casebooks available for free online – although not all are good. Screen the list for the industries interesting for you and work on them. MBA casebooks are not good in terms of the structure of the case but can help to develop creativity.
Below you can find an example of how to brainstorm in a structured way.
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Interviewer. So, generally speaking, how would you decrease the cost of raw materials?
► STEP 1: ASK FOR ONE MINUTE OF TIME
Interviewee. That’s an interesting question. Do you mind if I take 1 minute to think about it?
Interviewer. Please take your time.
► STEP 2: IDENTIFY MECE BUCKETS
Interviewee. Thanks; I believe there are two key areas to decrease the cost of raw material; we may decrease the cost of each unit, or we may decrease the number of units we buy. I would like now to go a bit deeper into these two components.
(Note that even if you are brainstorming, you are first presenting a list of the MECE areas. This is fundamental to brainstorm correctly)
► STEP 3: BRAINSTORM OPTIONS IN EACH BUCKET
Interviewee. Well, in order to decrease the cost per unit we may do a couple of things, keeping in mind we want to maintain revenues at the same level:
- We may negotiate a lower price;
- We may look for other suppliers.
In order to decrease the number of units, we may do the following:
- We may start to use a more efficient technology for our raw material, so that we have less waste;
- We may use a new kind of raw material for which there is less waste.
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If you want to learn how to brainstorm and structure all the common questions, please feel free PM – I do a session exactly on that.
Best,
Francesco