Rules of Engagement Framing the Question Based on Paul Friga’s “The McKinsey Engagement”

Rule 1: Identify the key question This is the most important step in the consulting process Most team members usually want to speed through this step to start collecting data – this is how consulting projects fail The starting point is the client (or case study) and what it says the problem is You need to FRAME the question

Framing the question Strategy Marketing Operations Human resources Finance

Strategy What is our position in the market? What are our organizations priorities (plus, what should we not do?) What are our organization’s payments (and are they focused on priorities) What is our organization’s performance? (compared to the competition)

Marketing What is our unique selling proposition (and do our customers want it?) How much should we charge for our products? How do we best communicate our offerings? How should we spend our media budget?

Operations How do we deliver on our business model? How do we reduce manufacturing costs? How do we increase throughput? How do we add capacity?

Human resources How much do we pay our employees? Do we have the right stuff? How do we increase employee satisfaction? How do we ensure compliance with all regulations?

Finance How do we value our company? How do we obtain funds for expansion? How are we performing?

Take-away Your framing with the client makes or breaks the success of the project Your framing helps you to identify the expertise you need to draw from to help the client Your business school education goes a long way to help shape how you think about framing a problem You need to be a strategic expert and have exceptional functional expertise in at least one of these areas