Management Consulting

This is the #5 course in the specialization on management consulting. In the previous 4 courses, we’ve learned how consultants break down problems with tools and logical thinking. Now, it’s time to bring all the parts together into consulting-quality presentations and deliverables. Every consulting project is different, and yet, the final presentation will have many of the same elements: • Clear alignment among the stakeholders on the project goals • Understanding on the consulting approach, assumptions, and decisions • Thoughtful progression of ideas that “brings the audience along” • Well-constructed PowerPoint slides (or excel model) which tell a clear story • Impactful use of graphs, tables, data visualization • Persuasive and authoritative delivery style

This is the #4 course in the specialization on management consulting. Management consultants are quick learners. When you first join a generalist consulting firm, you are expected to learn core consulting skills and will likely be staffed on projects across industry and functions. You might be on a chemicals pricing project, then a retail cost-reduction project. It’s critical that you learn “how to get smart quickly” and ask smart questions. At the same time, you should develop an armory of tools to create data through client interviews, surveys, benchmarking, and observations.

This is the #2 course in the specialization on management consulting. In this course, we will learn how consulting firms work and how they make money. This can help you network with recruiters and prepare for the case interviews. Some of the topics covered: • What drive project profitability? • What competencies do I need at each stage in my career? • How are consulting interviews different? • How to do well on case interviews? • How much do I need to practice cases?

This is the #3 course in the specialization on management consulting. Management consultants excel at solving difficult and complex business problems. How do they do this? Shouldn’t clients know more about their situation than external consultants? Consultants are trained to systematically break down problems into logical pieces, then aggressively pursue answers with data: • Think about the problem broadly; strategy, operations, people, technology • Define the problem clearly; articulate “what does success look like?” • Break the problem into “buckets” so it is easy to understand • Use hypotheses to “guess” your way to the potential answer(s) • Find and clean up messy data; convert the data into useful recommendations