How to improve problem solving / structuring on the job?

Question

I've been in my role as a consultant for 3 months (joined as experienced hire without previous strategy consulting experience). I still have 3 more months left for my probation period, and my boss told me that I need to accelerate ‘’problem solving / structuring skills'' to pass the probation.

To be specific, he mentioned that I tend to solve problems in an “academic approach” - boiling the ocean and not being 80-20. The feedback is I tend to analyse “everything” and was not able to tackle with core issues / form my view fast.

Although I have practiced these skills during case interview, I feel that in real life when facing a vague client question, it becomes challenging to identify key question, break it down in an MECE way, and form a practical hypothesis that sheds commercial implications. In a nut shell, I feel that I wasn't able to identify the ‘’core'' issues in an effective manner.

I'm wondering what is the most effective way to specificly improve the points that I've mentioned? Would practiving structuring (just as what people practice during case preps) work? What did you do to ramp up these core skill sets?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Hi there,

Learning how to structure your thoughts and findings is important for consultants and you'll get better with time for sure.

For now, I recommend:

1- Covering the theory

Read about logic trees to understand how to break down problems and read about the pyramid principle to understand how to communicate your findings top down.

2- Practicing

Case studies are a great way to practice in addition to any real life example o the job.

3- Ask for concrete feedback

Ask your manager for concrete examples in which you were not structured and let them explain how ideally you should have handled it.

I'm happy to chat about concrete cases and to to help you strengthen that muscle.

Answer 2

Hi there,

I've seen a few posts like this so I can only assume it's the same person!

Hire a coach

You are earning a salary (and received a sign-on bonus). Invest the $ now in order to ensure that you continue to earn money.

You seem to have multiple issues, none of which are easily fixable. Ultimately, they are not fixable just from a Q&A (though hopefully we are helping).

Just like you would hire someone to manage your taxes/wealth because they'll do it best, or just like you would hire a personal trainer/nutritionist because they will get you fit best, you should hire a professional/career trainer to get you “fit” at work.

Answer 3

My first suggestion is to hire a coach.

Beyond that, and just to be 80/20, let me give you just one suggestion: train yourself to identify the objective of the case, then identify 3-5 key drivers, and then focus on just 1 or 2 that you think are the most important ones.

Happy to help you with this, since I honestly think it is my core skill.

Answer 4

This is actually quite typical for new joiners in consulting. I received this feedback when I started and years later gave it to new team members as well - it'll definitely get better with practice and experience.

Come up with an approach first and double-check with your team members (or manager) before you deep-dive into analyses. It's especially worth doing that if you feel like your analysis is going to take a very long time (which is often indicative of planning to take an “academic approach”).

Generally start top-down before you attempt bottom-up. While the latter might be required ultimately (e.g. for modeling purposes), it has a higher requirement for details which is more time consuming. Check first if a higher-level top-down approach can yield a quicker result that is still good enough for what you need.

Lastly, it helped me in the beginning to look at examples from previous projects (i.e. how other project teams have done things). For instance, a commercial due diligence report always has the same key components and analyses, irrespective of the market or industry it features. Look at a few of those documentations, which slide designs they used for which purpose and generally how they worded things → add it to your repertoire to draw from in the future.