The McKinsey Mind - Understanding and Implementing the Problem-Solving Tools and Management Techniques of the World's Top Strategic Consulting Firm

I have myself some background in the area of problem solving, which I have researched and taught at my former university as well as applied the knowledge in case competitions and in my day-to-day work. While problem solving is ultimately a fuzzy process where logic, intuition and creativity is combined, in order to be effective with time constraints and in team settings it is essential to have a formal problem solving process. McKinsey Mind teaches that a so-called hypothesis driven approach is the most effective problem solving process and I totally agree with that assessment based on my own experiences. Students that learn to apply proper hypothesis-driven problem solving approaches in business case exercises (where time is limited) produce much better results than students who "just solve it".

The book has a broad view on the problem solving process and includes also chapters on presentation and managing stakeholders: team, client and yourself. The actual problem solving process is divided into framing the problem (understanding it and identifying a hypothesis), designing the analysis, gathering the data, and interpreting the results. In the end of the book are some helpful appendices, including a list of potential data sources on the internet and summaries of the book's main points.

The McKinsey Mind expands on The McKinsey Way chiefly by presenting a survey on McKinsey alumnus' experiences and a number of subsequent interviews. This material provides insights and stories on how the McKinsey skills have been applied in post-McKinsey carriers. Each chapter is divided into a general overview, a description of the "McKinsey way", lessons learned and illustrations (based on the survey), implementation guidance, exercises and a conclusion.

This could have been a five star book, but unfortunately McKinsey Mind is not particularly well written (though I have seen much worse written books as well). I got the impression that the authors have applied their own 80/20-rule: doing the most important 20% of the tasks to get 80% of the result. There is some repetition in the text within the same chapter, the authors' example on Acme Widgets isn't well thought in my opinion, and so forth. The book is also a quick read with its 186 pages (excluding appendices) and quite little text on a single page. A 95/50-effort would have been appreciated.

Yet, the topic is an important one and the content contains best practices from one of the world's foremost practitioner. But one has to remember that it is not enough to read a book to learn how to solve problems effectively: only experience can eventually teach you that. This book is just a good map for the journey.


Introduction into McKinsey's problem-solving process   April 29, 2005
Gerard Kroese (The Netherlands)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

Ethan M. Rasiel was a consultant with McKinsey & Company. Paul N. Friga is Professor at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business where he teaches strategy and management consulting. Paul worked in McKinsey's Pittsburgh-office.

In 1999 Ethan Rasiel published "The McKinsey Way", which I did see as an introduction into McKinsey and management consulting in general. That book touched on the problem-solving tools and techniques used by McKinsey. However, this book takes a much more prescriptive approach and discusses the problem-solving model in much more detail. This problem-solving model consists of six discrete elements: 1. business need; 2. analyzing; 3. presenting; 4. managing; 5. implementation; 6. leadership. "There is one other piece of the model: the tension between intuition and data." Each element is discussed within this book, apart from client/business needs, implementation and leadership.

Chapters 1-to-4 discusses McKinsey's fact-based, hypothesis-driven problem-solving process and how you can use this process to tackle problems in your own organisation. Chapter 5 discusses strategies for presentation to your boss, clients, the board, or your entire company. Chapter 6-to-8 discuss the management of the problem-solving processes, with a particular focus on managing the team, the client and yourself. Each chapter is divided into an introduction, a summary of the lessons from "The McKinsey Way", lessons from McKinsey alumni,and advice for implementation. There are also some exercises at the end of each chapter. The three appendices provide useful links to data-gathering resources, a summary list of lessons from "The McKinsey Way", and a summary lis of the implementation lessons from this book.

Yes, I do like this book better than "The McKinsey Way". "The McKinsey Way" should be seen as an introduction into McKinsey, their tools and techniques, this book focuses on putting those tools and techniques into practice. I believe that this book can help you become a better problem solver and decision maker, using the approach discussed in the book. If you have little time, try to read at least Chapter 1 which is possibly the best chapter in the book since its sets up/frames the problem solving method. Highly recommended for people looking to problem-solving tools and techniques. However, the hard work is still up to you!


Interesting..   June 19, 2002
15 out of 16 found this review helpful

As you would expect from McKinsey-ites, the book proposes good principles & methods for structured problem solving, but let down by the arrogant and condescending way it was written. The section on interpersonal skills is obviously not the authors strong point.
The best part was infact the last section -Managing yourself - which concludes that justice, truth and harmony is the end result of the techinques illustrated in the book.
I would have liked to see more content on creativity in the problem solving process but appart from that a jolly good read.