McKinsey Common Case Question

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MBB McKinsey

New answer on Feb 24, 2021

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Anonymous A asked on Feb 23, 2021

Hello

A common question I faced in 2 of my interviews as I am going through the process and I have not seen covered in any case book or any case on prep lounge is : "what could have happened ..."

Example : Your colleague called you and said we estimated the production capacity at 2000 units per day and we just calculated 2500 units per day, what could have happened and caused this discrepancy ?"

How would you answer this question in a "structured" format ?

P.S.: You do not need the full case for this question.

Best,

(edited)

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Answer 1

Best answer

Ian

Expert

Content Creator

replied on Feb 23, 2021

MBB | 100% personal interview success rate (8/8) and 95% candidate success rate | Personalized interview prep

Hi there,

This is a great question that really tests your ability to react quickly and think in a structure way!

First tip: If you're struggling to come up with something on the spot, don't hesitate to ask for 10-20 seconds to think about it!

Personally, I can think of the following things:

Estimation Error - i.e. our calculation of 2,000 is wrong

Output measurement error - i.e. their measurement of 2,500 is wrong

Production "glitch" - i.e. some sort of bottleneck built up at the end of a day at the end of the line and was quickly resolved/pushed through the following day

Average vs. distribution/variation - i.e. 2,000 is the average production but production is inconsistent across days (just look at current vaccine production rates by Moderna + Pfizer, or Tesla production rates)

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21

Answer 2

Clara

Expert

Content Creator

replied on Feb 24, 2021

McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

Hello!

It´s a great question indeed.

however, I don´t think we can give a good generic answer, without knowing the intrinsics of each case. I believe good answers are the ones rooted in the problem itself and the info about it that has been previously shared (e.g., your colleague called you and said we estimated the production capacity at 2000 units per day and we just calculated 2500 units per day. This signals how plants have been underutilized so far, due to 3 key factors that we have seen in the problem so far, X, Y and Z.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

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Anonymous A on Feb 25, 2021

Actually it was the very first question after structuring, the interviewer caught me off guard with this one. the following question was to estimate the demand increase.

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