Hi there,

Knowing and applying frameworks can definitely help in the structuring process, but by no means should you just rely on them. 

What's much more important is that as a candidate, you understand the fundamentals of how to methodically break down any problem / question into its component parts (in a MECE manner) to analyze, synthesize and solve. If you'd like to know how to Consultants actually do that, feel free to reach out to me or any of the other coaches - it's the single most critical skill that you will get evaluated against, so make sure your structuring ability it up to paar. 

If you understood the latter, you can then leverage & overlay some standard frames 

• to speed up your structuring process up, 
• to recycle suitable common elements from those for your customized structure; and also
• to have fall-back structuring choices, if you're struggling to come up with a tailored solution / when nothing else works. 

Also, keep in mind, that the days where 50-60% of the cases were standard, cookie cutter profit decline & market entry questions are long gone - there are too many unusual case prompts, where standard stuff isn't applicable. 

So again, relying solely on frameworks, will not get you offers with the top firms.

Hope this helps.

Regards, Andi

Hi there,

Yes and no.

To start you want to understand some of the classic case types.

But remember, you can't just generically say market entry. MArket entry could be:

1. Which market do we enter?
2. Should we enter x market?
3. How should we enter x market?
4. Which product should we launch?
5. Should we enter x market with online or physical stores?
6. Should we aquire x company in order to enter x market
7. X market is attractive, should we enter?
8. We entered x market 5 years ago, it's not doing well, should we leave?
9. X competitors exist in x market, which should we aquire in order to enter?
10. We've decide to enter x market. What should our pricing strategy be?
11. We've decided to enter x market. What should our marketing strategy be?

And the list goes on.

See my point?

Then, remember you can get questions like:

1. How do we increase female representation in the exeutive levels of x company?
2. How do we increase output of x product without affecting quality?
3. Our client runs a delivery service. How should they think about their fleet of trucks?
4. How should x government setup their covid vaccinations campaign?
5. We are running a bank teller training program for a multinational bank. What questions should we ask and how should we setup the project?

Do you see how memorizing generic frameworks just doesn't work?

This really depends on how you plan to use them.

I strongly advise against reading books like “case in point” early on, as they try to get you to memorize memorize frameworks that you will then “spit out” when you get a case interview question. It does a disservice to candidates as it “teaches” to avoid thinking about the specific problem and developing a tailor-made approach to the problem at hand.

I don't have anything against a candidate reading “case in point” once they understood that they need to develop tailored approaches, and use the book content (but not the approach) in order to enrich their understanding or business problems and potential tools.

In short, I see a lot of value on reading frameworks and using them to increase your business understanding. I advise strongly against the whole “framework” and “buckets” approach.

Hi there, 

If you're right at the beginning of the process, I would advise you to read through a few frameworks so you know what they are and how they work. 

But please don't stop there. 

Frameworks are a bit like the helper wheels on bikes. It's good to get started with them, but really dangerous to keep going with them. Both because they create dependency, but also because as you gain speed, you rather risk getting stuck and flying over your bike when you come across a more difficult situation. 

Work either individually or with a coach to develop the thinking skills of a consultant. Take it almost as an introductory training into the industry that you're doing with somebody who has already mastered it and which has the added benefit of also winning you a job along the way. 

You can read more about the different techniques of structuring in the following article:

• Maximising your chances of getting a consulting job during an economic downturn

Best,
Cristian

Hello,

I always advise candidates to familiarize themselves with standard frameworks, but only to use them as a mental template you can reference during the interview. You should never just regurgitate standard frameworks, but always adapt them and make them specific and applicable to each case. This might sound a bit abstract, and it's much easier to understand in practice.

Learning a framework is not the objective.

Learning to solve a business case, using a framework is the objective.

It is not correct to associate frameworks with cases since each case will require a slightly different approach to solve it.

A framework is only a series of hypotheses that can help solve the case, but laid out in a structured manner that looks like all facets of analysis have been covered (MECE).

Often, most case frameworks can be distilled down into 2-3 simple approaches - one for diagnostic cases, one for decision cases, one for brainstorming cases and so on. That is a better way to think of your frameworks.

• Find out why profit is going down (diagnostic)
• Decide whether to enter a new market or now (decision)
• Identify new ways to increase revenue (brainstorming)
• …and so on