Succeeding as a Management Consultant ^{2nd Ed.}

You need to learn to manage a study like a McKinsey or BCG consultant, without having to work at the firm, and develop deep insights. Now in its 10^th year of publication, in its 2^nd edition and having been used in over 150 countries, this book summarizes the teaching of the author and the eminent ex-McKinsey, BCG, et al. partners who produce all our content on StrategyTraining.com. This is the companion guide to our popular book, The Strategy Journal.

Follow an engagement team as they assist a large company in diagnosing and fixing deep and persistent organizational issues over an 8-week assignment. Learn how they successfully navigate a challenging client environment, frame the problem and limit the scope, develop hypotheses, build the analyses and provide the final recommendations.

You will learn how to:

• Define the problem statement.
• Build a unique framework for the problem.
• Prioritize the framework for analyses.
• Develop hypotheses.
• Prepare tests for the hypotheses.
• Collect data for the tests.
• Build a storyboard.

Yet, studies are about managing teams of consultants. This book shows you how to use the tools, and the soft skills, to manage the study and team:

• Project charters
• Project logic
• Timelines
• Opportunity charts
• Benefits charts
• Top-down vs Bottom-up analyses
• Focus interviews
• Internal / Client project update meetings
• Pre-Presents
• Implementation Planning
• Quick win development
• Managing a client workshop

Written as a story running week by week, the book takes you into a study, as seen through the eyes of the business case leader. You can follow step-by-step as the team prepares for the study, all the way to the final report. You will be able to see the analyses produced and slides developed.

• Introducing the Engagement
• Ethics as a Competitive Advantage
• Business Judgement
• Prologue
• Week 0: Week Before the Engagement
• Week 1 — Day 1 & 2: First week at the Client
• Week 1 — Day 2: Top-Down Analyses
• Week 1 — Day 2: Engagement Charter
• Week 1 — Day 2: Work Plan
• Week 1 — Day 3: Thinking about the Value Tree
• Week 1 — Day 3: Operations Strategy & Productivity
• Week 1 — Day 3: Developing a Value Tree
• Week 1 — Day 3: Developing the model Architecture
• Week 1 — Day 4: Drafts of Week One Planning Documents
• Week 1 — Day 4 & 5: Wrapping Up Week One
• Week 2 — Day 1: Mine Site Visit
• Week 2 — Day 2: Context After the Site Visit
• Week 2 — Day 2: Debating Metrics with the CFO
• Week 2 — Day 4: All the Planning Is Done
• Week 2 — Day 4 & 5: Designing and Conducting Focus Interviews
• Week 2 — Day 5: Feedback from the Focus Interviews
• Week 3 — Day 1: Preparing the Draft Storyboard
• Week 3 — Day 2: Building the Model
• Week 3 — Day 5: Output from the Financial Analyses
• Week 4 — Day 1: Presenting Feedback from Focus Interviews
• Week 4 — Day 1: Pre-presenting
• Week 4 — Day 2: Identifying Quick Wins
• Week 4 — Day 5: Steering Committee Meeting
• Week 5 — Day 1: Mid-Engagement Reviews
• Week 5 — Day 4: Services Workshop
• Week 6 — Day 1: What Is Big-Picture Thinking?
• Week 6 — Day 3: Managing a Crisis
• Week 6 — Day 5: Operations Improvement & Services Feedback
• Week 7 — Day 2: Aggregating the Business Case
• Week 7 — Day 3: Business Case Sign-Off
• Week 7 — Day 4: Final Storyboard
• Week 8 — Day 4: Consulting Values
• Week 8 — Day 5: Did the Engagement Team Succeed?
• Epilogue

Well, this is the third edition, and when I started reading it, it started with two new chapter for this edition. After reading these, I nearly quit the book, as they were pretty bad. But as I continued reading, I discovered a very good book that outlined a fictive Management Consulting Engagement in a very good (even if a bit simplified) manner. I even got some new ideas from reading it, which not usual. I am impressed, even if they are heavy with the Slide Decks (as normal in the industry, but a bit tedious in a book).

I would recommend that you read this book if you are either interested in a career in Management Consulting or just curious of the normal work they do.