All questions tagged brainstorming questions - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

HI,

The main objective is to have a good conversation and highlight your intellectual capacity and curiosity. Thus:

It is ok to ask:

• Questions that cause positive emotions and highlight consulting pros (e.g. Mck people)
• Questions on the topics you are excited about (e.g. data science)
• Non-business questions (e.g. team retreats)

It's not ok to ask:

• Questions that can cause negative emotions (e.g. work hours)
• Information you should learn before the interview (e.g. typical career path)
• Questions that may show that you are unfamiliar with consulting work (Like are you specialized in strategy or operations?)

Be prepared and good luck!

I would use the population although it will be very sensitive to many assumptions.
It looks very difficult to make meaningful assumptions in terms of land size.

Cheers
Serhat

Hi,

Always take:

• 1-2 min for initial structure. But the faster the better. 1.5 looks fine
• 30 sec to analyze the graph / table. Very often you can come up with more than one conclusion from the graph / table(e.g. main conclusion, outliers, correlations)
• 30 sec - 1 min for questions on creativity. It's really hard to be creative "On-the-go". Spend this time creating the buckets of ideas and then the ideas within the buckets.
• Up to 1 minute for the conclusion. Again, the faster the better. But always take the time! Your conclusion should be very well structured and your arguments should include supporting numbers and you need time to collect them. Spend 1 minute on collecting the numbers for the arguments. Remember that 70% of your arguments should have numbers

It's a bit more tricky with taking time during the case:

• It's not OK to take 30 seconds and then come up with just 1 or 2 ideas. And then if the ideas are not correct to keep the science again. This is called "Guessing"
• It's OK to take 30 seconds, draw a new structure (or continuation of your previous structure) and come up with a structured way to approach the problem further.

Best,

Vlad

Hi Anonymous,

if you understand you forgot to clarify a point when presenting the structure, I would recommend to ask the question at that stage, ideally connecting with some parts of the structure itself, in order to make less evident you forgot the point before (communication is always key in a case and part of your assessment as well).

Assuming the structure presented is the one you described and you just completed its presentation, the following would be a possible way to formulate the question:

“(…). Now, we can start with the first point related to the possible markets to select. In order to understand that, I think it would be useful to know in which markets the company is currently active. Do we have information on that?”

Best,

Francesco

Hello,I would start by clarifying what performance exactly means, as this has a huge impact on your approach.

One way of looking at it could be to measure performance as the output of good product per hour. In that case you can follow the OEE definition to structure your analysis at the highest level:

Potential production time (calendar year)
Minus availability losses (breakdowns, waiting time, etc.)
Minus performance losses (minor stops, lower speed, etc.)
Minus quality losses (scrap or re-work product)
Equals the output of good product

You can use this structure as the first level, after which you can easily add a second layer with drivers for each of the losses.

Hope this helps!

Hi Anonymous,

I would always recommend to take an instant to identify all the possible elements of an answer to a specific question. Coming up with immature thinking is far worse than being a bit slow! Speed is usually NOT a very important metric on which candidates are evaluated. However, rigor and in thinking and clearness in articulation DEFINITELY are! So the tradeoff is very clear from my perspective.

Cheers, Sidi

Hi,

Usually, you have brainstorming questions in the middle / end of the case when you should already know a lot about the objective / business industry. Thus you should be asking the right clarifying questions at the beginning of the case:

You should ask the following questions:

1) Clarify the business model. Ask how the company actually makes the money. For several reasons:

1. Even if you think you understand the business model, you need to make sure that you understand it correctly.
2. Some cases have pitfalls related to a business model (re profitability cases with several revenue streams
3. You need to understand the revenue streams to make a proper structure. E.g. if the case is about oil&gas company which revenues are declining, ask if it is Up / mid / down-stream problem. In this case, defining a revenue stream is critical to setting up the right structure. (At the end of the day it may be the decline of snack sales at the gas stations:). In case of telecom company it may be the problem of the core business (wireless) or non-core (landlines, internet)

2) Clarify the objective. Here make sure that your goal is:

• Measurable
• Has a time-framed
• Has / has no limitations

e.g. Should I invest 100k in this business for 1 year if I want to get 15% return?

3) Ask the questions that will help you build a relevant structure and remove ambiguity.

E.g. in the market entry case ask whether we are entering the country organically or non-organically

!!! Finally - do the recap after asking the clarifying questions. Although most of the case books suggest to do it immediately at the beginning of the interview, it makes much more sense to clarify the situation first and then to make sure that you understand everything correctly.

Best!

Hi, a couple tips:

• Always ask if you can take ~30 seconds to structure your thoughts. Just because it's a brainstorm, doesn't mean it shouldn't be nicely structured. Worst case, they say you shouldn't take a break, and you are in the same position if you had not aksed.
• First think in terms of buckets, then specific ideas. For example, if you are asked to brainstorm ways to increase revenue, before you start suggesting ideas like marketing campaign, pricing promotion, etc. - break down the revenue - you can do it in a number of ways depending on the specific case
  • P*Q, then Q--> number of customers x purchases per customer, etc.)
  • Business units - e.g. By division, by geography, etc.
• Read through a lot of cases with brainstorm elements. Also, when you find a brainstorm and want to find more ideas, just do some googling /searches on old preplounge questions to get ideas
• Keep a log of brainstorm ideas from typical brainstorm questions (e.g. ways to increase revenue, ways to cut costs, risks faced, etc.). This is important to actually absorb information you learn and find in different cases.

Hope this helps!

Alessandro

Hi Kay,

hope this finds you well.

There is indeed no one size fits all approach, but certain frameworks may be good as a first starting point:

1. Internal / external = used for
   • market entry (internal - capabilities and costs; external - customers and competitors)
   • growth strategy (internal - what am I good at, where do I want to go, what ressources do I possess; external - what are competitors doing, what are my key customers, what other factors do I need to consider)
   • M&A (internal - what ressources do I possess, what is my objective; external - how does the target look like, how does the target's industry look like)
   • competitive response (internal - what do I want to do; external - what has changed in terms of customers, competitors, substitutes etc.)
2. revenue / cost = used for
   • profitability (what are my (expected) revenues and costs)
3. direct / indirect = often very similar to revenue / cost
4. Porters Five Forces = used whenever you want to examine the market in more detail, e.g. most often in market entry cases

For other case types I recommend:

1. market sizing = this can never be a single approach as you will need to tailor your approach to the task at hand individually, but think about whether you would like to determine
   • total revenue (this will come down to volume * price)
   • total number (think about the broadest structure you can think of)
2. pricing = in most cases try to think about (1) the company - what does the company stand for? low budget, quality, "cool" label; (2) the product at hand - what kind of product is it? Is it unique, does it make a great difference which company I buy it from, what are substitutes; (3) pricing strategy chosen - defer from step (1) and (2)
3. valuation = use the discounted cash flow method or the industry multiple

Always adapt those frameworks to the question at hand, e.g. leave out certain aspects if not needed or focus on selected aspects only. An interviewer wants to see that you are able to flexibly adjust the frameworks you have prepared, but there is nothing wrong to start with one of the basic frameworks mentioned above.

Good luck!

Hi there, rather than thinking of a list of creative ideas to have in advance, you should try structure your response by breaking down the question. For example, when you are asked a question like "how could we increase revenue" before bursting out ideas, I would always break it out. For example:

"To increase revenue, I can either increase quantity sold or increase the "average" price"

Quantity

• Number of customers
  • Acquire new customers in existing market/segment
  • Acquire new customers in new markets/segments
• Sales per customer
  • Increase number of purchases
  • Increase average purchase size

"Average" Price

• Increase prices of existing products
• Change sales distribution towards more expensive products (e.g. Upsell)
  • etc.

Once you get to this level, I would start structuring ideas around these buckets. This will make you seem very structured, and will also help you come up with more specific ideas, as it will focus the question into very specific buckets.

Hope this helps!

Alessandro

1. Improved workshops due to Better talent. You’ll be able to charge a premium, which follows that you can improve your workforce. This will also improve your current workshops.

2. New workshops. Due to improved financials, potentially sponsorship from the corporates.

3. Work diversification. New workshops mean your current and new employees will have more possibilities to work.

Hi Anonymous,

I would recommend the following steps to improve your creativity:

1. Recap the situation until that moment
2. Ask for one minute of time to structure your thoughts
3. Identify some key MECE areas. Potential division includes: Number of units - Price per unit (eg to identify the components to reduce costs); Current-New (eg to structure product, customers, distribution channels); Financial-Non financial (eg to compare ways to enter a market)
4. Brainstorm inside each of the areas. Your creativity in this area is directly correlated with the number of cases you have done. If you feel weak in one specific industry, the most efficient strategy is to go though consulting MBA handbooks (there are many available for free online) and screen the list for the industries interesting for you.

I provided an example below.

---

Interviewer: So, generally speaking, how would you decrease the cost of raw materials?

Step 1: Recap the situation

Interviewee: So, if I understood correctly, you would like now to move to the elements that could decrease this cost. If it is fine for you, I would like to do a small recap and then move through the key elements that can help to do so. At the beginning you asked me what brought a decline in profits. We have identified the problem lays in Product A, and in particular in the cost area. We then found out that the main increase in cost was related to raw material.

Interviewer: That’s right.

(Notice you may have gained 30 seconds of additional time summing up information)

Step 2: Ask for one minute of time to structure your thoughts

Interviewee: Do you mind if I take 1 minute to think about it?

Interviewer: Please take your time.

Step 3: Identify some key MECE areas

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 in these two components.

(Notice that even if you are brainstorming, you are first presenting a list of the MECE areas. This is fundamental to brainstorm correctly)

Step 4: Brainstorm inside each of the areas

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:

1. we may use lower quality material;
2. we may negotiate with the supplier;
3. we may look for someone else as supplier.

In order to decrease the number of units, we may do two things:

1. we may start to use a more efficient technology for our raw material, so that we have to buy fewer units;
2. we may also substitute some of the units with other type of materials, ideally cheaper.

---

Hope this helps,

Francesco

Pre-structure questions

1) Clarify the business model. Even if you think you understand it, try to repeat it to make sure that you understand in correctly.

2) Clarify the objective. Here make sure that your goal is:

• Measurable
• Has a time-framed
• Has / has no limitations

e.g. Should I invest 100k in this business for 1 year if I want to get 15% return?

3) Ask the questions that will help you build a relevant structure and remove ambiguity.

e.g. if the case is about oil&gas company which revenues are decling, ask if it is Up / mid / down-stream problem. In this case defining a revenue stream is critical to seting up the right structure.

Post-structure questions:

It's kind of hard to generalize all the cases. I will try to provide a general algorythm here:

1. Ask for a piece of data / info you've defined in a structure
2. Compare the data with historical trend / becnhmarks
3. If you find something interesting ask for the root / cause or state the hypothesis
4. If no root/cause at this point available - ask for segmentation to drill down further
5. Once you are done with analysis in one branch of your framework (found the root-cause / found nothing interesting) - summarize what you've learnt so far and move to the next one

Again, the last one is super high-level and the devil is in details:)

Hi,

Here is some inspiration for answering your question. Think of the following buckets:

1. Type of customer: B2B, B2C, B2G, etc. (E.g. Female magazine may sell magazines to customers and advertising services to business)
2. Product mix - you may have multiple products and variation of products. Think of breadth (e.g. collection size in fashion) and depth (e.g. sizes and colors of dress) of your product line
3. Croselling opportunities - e.g. selling accessories
4. Revenue models (one-time payment, subscription, etc)
5. Online / offline

Here is the general approach how to answer such questions on creativity:

1) Ask an interview for a minute to think

2) Think of several buckets of ideas. Remember to think as big as possible

3) Narrow down to each bucket and generate as many ideas as possible

4) Present the structure (buckets) and then your ideas

Creativity is in direct correlation with your business judgment that can be trained by solving more various cases with partner / studying various frameworks/reading industry reports / reading HBS cases (google them)

Good luck!

Vlad

Hi Franziska,

I'd try the following:

1. The population served by a particular airport (if there are several airports in an area, also assume an airport's share)

2. Based on personal experience, estimate the number of people flying for business and leisure (tough)

3. Estimate how many times a year they fly (easier)

As always with these cases, there are many ways to do it and this is just one. Also this top-down approach will be less accurate than what you came up with.

Hope it was helpful!

Best,

Michal

Brainstorming creatively in a structured/MECE way when under pressure is one of the hardest things to do.

Let's have a look at a basic example: "how can client X gain market share?". A great start to answering the question would be; "Let's look at ways that X can do this in the long-term vs the short-term", OR "Let's see, in general, to grow a business you can change WHAT you sell (e.g., new product vs. old product) or change WHO you sell to (existing customer segment vs. new customer segment).". This way the interviewer can see that you have a structured mind and that you can also prioritise what really is important. Next, you would create yourself a table with Existing Product & New Product ( on the horizontal axis) VS Existing segment & New segment (on the vertical axis). Then, you start brainstorming ideas into each of the 4 boxes. This way, you will be able to come up with loads of things and the interviewer will be very happy with your structured mindset.

Other examples of dimensions that can be used to encourage structured brainstorming are:

• Existing VS New (applies to customer segments, products, distribution channels)
• Organic VS Inorganic (e.g. when thinking about growth)
• Short-term VS Long-term (e.g. when making a decision that required direct implementation)
• Internal VS External (e.g. when talking about operations)
• Customer-focused vs Non-customer focused
• Revenue-based vs Cost-based

Once you have gone through a few ideas and have structured them into sections/buckets it is good practice to select the best ones according to some parameter. For instance, select ideas which have high impact and high implementability. It is important to note that every case is different and so you must always put a lot effort into customising the answer and prioritising what is most relevant.

Brainstorming creatively in a structured/MECE way when under pressure is one of the hardest things to do.

Let's have a look at a basic example: "how can client X gain market share?". A great start to answering the question would be; "Let's look at ways that X can do this in the long-term vs the short-term", OR "Let's see, in general, to grow a business you can change WHAT you sell (e.g., new product vs. old product) or change WHO you sell to (existing customer segment vs. new customer segment).". This way the interviewer can see that you have a structured mind and that you can also prioritise what really is important. Next, you would create yourself a table with Existing Product & New Product ( on the horizontal axis) VS Existing segment & New segment (on the vertical axis). Then, you start brainstorming ideas into each of the 4 boxes. This way, you will be able to come up with loads of things and the interviewer will be very happy with your structured mindset.

Other examples of dimensions that can be used to encourage structured brainstorming are:

• Existing VS New (applies to customer segments, products, distribution channels)
• Organic VS Inorganic (e.g. when thinking about growth)
• Short-term VS Long-term (e.g. when making a decision that required direct implementation)
• Internal VS External (e.g. when talking about operations)
• Customer-focused vs Non-customer focused
• Revenue-based vs Cost-based

Once you have gone through a few ideas and have structured them into sections/buckets it is good practice to select the best ones according to some parameter. For instance, select ideas which have high impact and high implementability. It is important to note that every case is different and so you must always put a lot effort into customising the answer and prioritising what is most relevant.

I would say you first start by listing of the CATEGORIES or GROUPS for the exercise - then lost out specific examples. For instance, brainstorm list of capital cities in the world. You can just name then from memory... OR show structured thinking by listing out all the continents first, then start with one continent, then last cities in that and then move on to next continent.

Hope that helps.