What It Means to be "Down In the Weeds" at McKinsey

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If you've worked in the food service industry - or watched Top Chef - you're probably familiar with the term "in the weeds".  But that means something very different than the term "down in the weeds" which not a McKinsey-specific term, but one I heard used frequently at the Firm.  In this post I'll explain the difference and what you should do if your McKinsey boss asks you to not be so down in the weeds...

It's also worth nothing that McKinsey interviewers also view being down in the weeds negatively, so aspiring consultants should also be mindful of not getting down in the weeds during interviews, especially when breaking down the case.

"In the Weeds"...

This is a term restaurant workers both in the front of the house (e.g., hosts/hostesses, servers) and back of the house (e.g., cooks, chefs) use when they get overwhelmed and are in danger of falling hopelessly behind.  While I have heard McKinsey consultants - likely those with food industry backgrounds - use this phrase in this context.  However, it's not as universal across the Firm as the slightly different phrase that I've heard multiple engagement teams, consultants, and Principals use...

...vs. "Down In the Weeds"

This phrase is used to describe someone who is being way too nitpicky and focused on minute details, especially relative to their role, phase of the project, or workstream goals.  It might also be phrased as being too tactical instead of sufficiently strategic.  McKinsey bosses can get down in the weeds by taking on tasks their teams should be handling and consultants can get down in the weeds by having too narrowly focused on details of their workstream(s).  Here are some examples:

• Role:  Sometimes a Partner or Director will fixate on something very specific like fine-tuning an Excel model or tweaking the formatting of a PowerPoint (PPT) exhibit.  It could be because they have a passion for the task or they're not good at delegating, but regardless, there are more important things to the engagement team that they can be focusing on.
• Timing:  Early in an engagement or workstream, teams and consultants should be applying T-shaped problem solving and looking broadly for potential topics to investigate before deep diving into the few with the most potential impact.  Sometimes, people will go too deep too soon at the risk of wasting time the wrong lever or missing other, more important sources of impact.
• Goals:  It's not uncommon to lose sight of the overarching purpose of an engagement or workstream by getting sucked into a particular task that's part of the broader effort.  For example, one might spend too much time working on a single PPT page or exhibit and not get enough done on the overall deck or storyline.  While preparing an industry overview, one might become fascinated with a particular competitor or industry dynamic at the expense of understanding the big picture.

How to Get Up Out of the Weeds...

...or Avoid Getting Down There In the First Place

Fortunately, there are some basic principles you can apply to get yourself up out of the weeds.  These include identifying and focusing on the critical or vital few by applying the 80/20 rule and using the previously mentioned T-shaped problem solving approach.  Remind yourself to apply top-down thinking whenever possible and going bottom-up only when appropriate.

Unfortunately, getting McKinsey leaders to get up out of the weeds and out of your hair is significantly more challenging.  But, you can leverage the Firm's culture of 360 / upward feedback and obligation to dissent to speak up, but be tactful and think of positive ways to deliver the message that feel like you're offering solutions rather than just pointing out problems.  For example, "I appreciate you showing me how I can improve my model - why don't I take it from here so I can learn first-hand and free you up to help the client(s) and the rest of the team?"

Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Problem Solving Approaches at McKinsey

There are typically two primary ways to approach problem-solving - "top-down" and "bottom-up".  In this post I'll explain the differences as well as why the top-down approach is preferred by McKinsey bosses and interviewers...

McKinsey takes a structured approach to solving problems that includes breaking down larger issues into smaller pieces.  Those components of the problem are arranged into an "issue tree" with the biggest, overarching issues at the top.  Those are then supported by additional, increasingly specific, tactical, broader levels of supporting details.  I will devote a future post to these issue trees.

Top-Down Approach

This means the problem solving begins at the "top" or with the highest-level, overarching question or theme, also known as the governing thought.  From there, the problem is broken down, identifying and developing the elements the next level down, with special focus on the critical or vital few drivers of impact.  Only after those key elements have been determined does the focus shift to tactical details.  The process is repeated, adding additional levels down the tree the tree is exhaustive.

Bottom-Up Approach

This is the opposite of the top-down approach and, as the name implies, begins with the tactical, granular, specific details.  In this case, the work focuses on starting with a laundry list of issues, then organizing them into like groups, or "buckets".  Those buckets can often be grouped further, building levels up the tree, until, finally, the key drivers and governing thought are reached.

Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Thinking

The simplest way to summarize the difference is this:  working at the top is considered strategic, while working at the bottom is tactical.  McKinsey consultants are encouraged to think strategically vs. tactically.  Here are some reasons why...

Why the Top-Down Approach is Preferred

There is a strong bias toward top-down thinking at McKinsey because it a) is logical, with a structured approach and b) starts by defining the most important questions and issues first.  The assumption is that if enough smart, experienced, hard-working consultants and clients align on the governing thought, the rest of the work that follows will be directionally correct.

Working top-down helps ensure that the questions asked and issues raised are completely exhaustive.  Less relevant ones might eventually get trimmed, but they will at least have been considered.  Top-down thinking also limits wasted work because only those topics deemed relevant and important to the governing thought need to be developed in detail.

Why the Bottom-Up Approach is Not Preferred

Starting at the bottom introduces several challenges.  First, it's not immediately clear - and might never be - if important details or areas have been missed or under-represented.  Second, items can be bucketed in a variety of ways that might all seem correct, but could be sub-optimal and/or lead to very different governing thoughts.  Finally, there's just a lot more work to be done at the bottom of the tree where there are countless details that can be considered and developed.

A Common Exception - Excel Modeling

One noteworthy exception when the bottom-up approach is often seen as superior to the top-down approach is in Excel modeling.  While a top-down approach to quantitative questions is helpful at the beginning of an engagement or workstream to get a directional sense of what the final answer will be, using that approach with clients and/or a final answer runs the risk of coming across as naive or just plain wrong.  Instead, a bottom-up model is required to confirm and support the final answer.

What Is the "Obligation to Dissent" at McKinsey?

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If your McKinsey boss knows that you disagree with something, you will be reminded of your "obligation to dissent".  In this post, I'll explain what that means...


"Dissent" is a strong word, but in this context it simply means speaking up you disagree with something being done or discussed.

The "obligation" comes from the fact that at McKinsey, voicing your dissent is not optional, it is required.

The Firm believes that every consultant - even the least-tenured, greenest Business Analysts (BAs) and Associates - is intelligent and has valuable insights to offer.  On McKinsey engagement teams and in collaborative problem solving sessions, everyone is supposed to have an equal voice and is expected to contribute to discussions - that includes exercising the obligation to dissent.

This is so engrained in the problem-solving culture at McKinsey that even if you work for a former McKinsey consultant, it's likely that your McKinsey boss still wants to know if you disagree with something.

It can be over minor things like how to word a phrase or apply an Excel function.  But it also applies to the biggest questions on a client engagement like the overall answer or the storyline for a critical deck.  Even if your dissent is not acted upon, any good McKinsey teams and leaders will hear you out, consider your opinion, and appreciate your contribution to the discussion. 

At least, that's how it's supposed to work!  In a later post I will discuss a couple of caveats to the obligation to dissent.

Top 5 Internal McKinsey Resources for Consultants

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McKinsey consultants are focused on delivering impact to clients.  The Firm doesn't want things like research, making PowerPoint pages, and debugging Excel models distracting from that goal.  So, McKinsey provides many valuable resources to its consultants.  These are also among the top things former McKinsey consultants miss most about the Firm.  In this post I'll cover the Top 5 McKinsey resources...

McKinsey consultants are notoriously overworked, spread thin, and stressed out.  Fortunately, the Firm provides many resources to help consultants and engagement teams.  In particular order, here are the Top 5.

Research and Information ("R&I") / Know Portal

Impact requires insights that are found using good data.  McKinsey has an entire organization - R&I - dedicated to helping consultants find useful, relevant information from a wide range of sources.  They go far beyond "let me Google that for you" and have access to subscription, obscure, and/or proprietary data beyond what engagement teams and clients can access themselves.  R&I's work can only be as good as the R&I request submitted, so it helps to be clear and thoughtful when asking for information

The Know Portal ("Know") can be thought of as the self-service version of R&I.  Know provides access to third-party sources like Hoovers and Factiva as well as the Firm's library of Practice Documents ("PDs"), McKinsey PowerPoint (PPT) decks on a wide range of industry, function, and client topics.

R&I allows access to more information than Know and does not require knowledge on where to look for data.  However, Know provides real-time access to information, while R&I lead times can be long.

Experts

McKinsey has incredibly knowledgeable experts on nearly every industry and function an engagement team would need.  Some are consultants who happen to have worked deeply on a particular topic and have built hands-on, client experience.  Others are hired specifically for their expertise and work in the McKinsey Practice aligned with their field.

Experts can be leveraged in many ways.  The most common are:

• Email - ideal for quick questions that can be asked and answered easily
• Phone interview - usually 30 or 60 minutes long, better for more complicated topics and/or issues requiring many follow-up questions
• Engagement - in some cases, an Expert might join the team for a time.  An example would be an Expert on Market Research designing, launching, and analyzing the results of a survey for a couple of weeks

Production (e.g., VGI)

Although McKinsey consultants communicate via PPT decks, the Firm doesn't want them wasting a lot of time actually creating and editing them.  That's where "Production" resources like Visual Graphics India ("VGI") and Visual Graphics Americas ("VGI") come in.  You can send them (usually via fax or scan/email) information on what you want and they send back brand new PPT pages.  Top uses of VGI / VGA include:

• Cleaned-up pages:  production can add a valuable "extra set of eyes" to go through a deck and look for and correct mistakes including typos, grammatical errors, and formatting issues
• Revised pages:  consultant will often repurpose existing PPT pages, templates, and frameworks.  And old page with new data written on it will be turned into a new page
• Brand new pages:  if no existing reference material can be found, sketches of the pages and/or exhibits, along with descriptions and notes on the desired output are enough for production to create your page
• High-end pages:  even if the content is spot-on, a deck might need some polishing and visual interest.  High-end production can make it client-ready, especially for high stakes meetings with senior clients or workshops with many clients, but the lead times are longer as fewer production folks have these capabilities

McKinsey provides teams with 24-hour production support, although holidays and peak demand can cause lead times to increase.  I'll post other articles on a) how to optimize time using production and b) tips on working with production.

Excel Advanced Analytics ("AA")

If PPT is how consultants communicate, Excel is how consultants think.  Excel "models" are critical components of most McKinsey engagements and they can often be incredibly complex.  The Firm has a team of Excel wizards available to assist McKinsey teams.  The most common reasons teams reach out to Advanced Analytics, in increasing order of difficulty are:

• Setting up an Excel function:  Excel has many powerful tools, but they can be complicated to use.  Even experienced modelers will have difficulty with the more obscure, unfamiliar functions
• Debugging an Excel model:  Nothing is more frustrating than combing through a spreadsheet trying to figure out why it's not working.  Although it will take time - primarily while AA deciphers your approach and design - they can find errors and fix your model
• Design and build an Excel model:  Often, a McKinsey consultant or team will know what their model needs to do, but not how to build that functionality - especially if the needs are complex.  As long as someone can clearly articulate to AA what the model needs to do and what the data sources look like, they can build the model.

Executive Assistants ("EAs")

They are the underappreciated stars of McKinsey and keep the Firm up and running.  Without them, engagement teams would get stranded, Partners wouldn't know where to go, and client meetings wouldn't happen.  The list of how EAs help the Firm, engagement teams, and consultants is endless, but here are some of the more visible ones:

• Access to McKinsey leadership:  EAs are the gatekeepers to important people at the Firm and can help you get on their calendars.  Several EAs working together are vital to scheduling meetings requiring multiple Directors or Principals
• Working with client EAs:  If you think trying to schedule a meeting with multiple McKinsey partners is difficult, trying throwing some senior clients into the mix.  McKinsey EAs can work with client EAs to resolve the most challenging scheduling conflicts and make critical client meetings happen
• Expense reports:  This might seem like a trivial thing, but when you consider how much a typical McKinsey consultant travels, help with expenses can free up many hours each month.

4 Ways to "Streamline" a PowerPoint Page or Deck at McKinsey

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Your McKinsey boss might give you feedback that your work needs to be "streamlined".  In this post I'll explain what that means and provide four common ways to accomplish it...

What does it mean to "Streamline" a document?

Feedback that your work needs "streamlining" usually means that your PowerPoint page or document (aka "deck") is too busy or complicated.  In consulting, it is often true that less is more, so your McKinsey boss is asking you to make your document more effective by making it leaner and/or clearer.

How do I streamline my document?

The overall approach should be to make sure that the focus or point of your document "pops".  Here are four common ways to accomplish that:

1.  Edit down

Make sure your work is focused on the critical or vital few.  Apply the 80/20 rule to make sure you're highlighting the most important things and not wasting PowerPoint real estate on lower priority topics.  Extra information doesn't always add to your presentation - often, it will distract from the key takeaways.

2.  De-word

Even if the "so what?" of your document is clear and the storyline is effective, your point can get lost if it's buried under too many words.  This is especially true of the page titles and headlines - they should be concise yet informative. The body of your page can also be streamlined, especially if verbal clutter is causing you to drop the font size to 10 or lower.

Make sure every word you're using is critical to conveying the key takaway(s) and/or advancing the storyline.  Find ways to say the same things with half as many words - adjectives, adverbs, and articles are often unnecessary and can be cut without consequence.  Consider using punchy, bullet point lists instead of lengthy explanations

3.  Simplify

Consider your storyline and frameworks.  Are all of the complexity and details necessary?  If your storyline has 10 parts, can you get your audience from Point A to Point B with fewer steps or chapters?  If you've applied a complicated, multi-dimensional framework, can you still make the point with a simpler, more elegant approach?

4.  Get visual

The adage that a picture is worth a thousand words also applies to PowerPoint decks.  Graphs, maps, and other exhibits can replace words while making the same point - often more clearly - than a page full of text or dense, complex data tables.  They also add visual interest to pages, helping you keep your audience engaged.

One caveat - although a good graph will allow the data to speak for itself, remember that you might need some text to put the information into context and/or highlight the key takeaway(s) from that data.

"Laundry Lists" at McKinsey and 3 Ways to Fix Them

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Your McKinsey boss might give you feedback that your work reads too much like a "laundry list".  This is also a common error during consulting case interviews.  In this post I'll explain what "laundry lists" are and how you can fix them in 3 easy steps...

What is a "laundry list"?

A laundry list is simply a long, disorganized list of items.  At McKinsey and other consulting firms, the term is used pejoratively.  Some common topics that end up as laundry lists include: a) recommended initiatives, b) possible root causes / sources of impact, or c) next steps.

What's wrong with a comprehensive laundry list?

The major downside of a laundry lists is that they tend to overwhelm and/or bore your audience, causing their eyes to glaze over.  There's simply too much random information for it to be compelling and/or actionable.

In addition, putting a list together isn't that difficult - laundry lists don't show a lot of thought or added value beyond simply collecting information and ideas.  Putting a laundry list in front of your client or McKinsey boss might make you look naive, lazy, and/or incompetent.

How do I fix a laundry list?

Laundry lists are often the result of too much focus on being comprehensive and not enough thought given to organization and efficiency.  There are three ways to take the contents of a laundry list and turn them into something more useful.

1.  Edit

In consulting, it is often the case that less is more.  Trimming a laundry list will make it more manageable and the next two steps easier.  It's likely that you have included a lot of unimportant items in your effort to be comprehensive.  By applying the 80/20 rule and focusing on the critical or vital few items, you can streamline your list and make it easier to organize and digest.

2.  Bucket

If you look at your list, you will find that you have similar items that you can group together.  Each group goes into its own "bucket".  These buckets are then used to organize clusters of related items rather than having to organize many more individual items. 

3.  Prioritize

No two items will have the same priority.  Each will be different in terms of the factors that often define priority, like:

• Potential impact
• Ease of implementation
• Importance to the project
• Urgency to get it done

As a result, you can organize buckets - and items within buckets - by priority, with the most critical ones listed first.  This will help your team and the client optimize the investment of time, effort, and resources to maximize impact.

"Levers" and What It Means to "Pull" Them at McKinsey

Your McKinsey boss might ask you what "levers" you're pursuing or seem most promising on a project or workstream.  In this post, I'll explain what "levers" are at McKinsey...

What is a "lever"?

In consulting terms, "levers" are initiatives that a McKinsey team or client can undertake in order to drive the desired impact.  There is usually a limitless number of things a company can consider trying in order to improve their business.  The options should be narrowed down to include only the levers most relevant to the client and their situation and goals.

From where does the lever terminology come?

If you think of a McKinsey or client team as a machine that generates a desired type of impact, then the levers are the switches that turn on (or off) specific parts of that machine. 

What does it mean to "pull" a lever?

"Pulling" a lever (or levers) means to actually pursue a specific initiative (or set of initiatives).  If each switch represents an initiative in the impact-generating machine, then "to pull a lever" means to activate or pursue that specific initiative.

Why not pull all the levers?

If each lever generates more impact, you might wonder why the team doesn't just pull all the levers.  To take the machine analogy further, assume that it takes a certain amount of fuel (i.e., people, time, effort, and resources) to run each part of the machine once the lever is pulled.  As discussed in previous posts, the "critical" or "vital" few levers will generate the most impact, based on the 80/20 rule.  Therefore, it's most efficient for the McKinsey team and/or client to only pull the most impactful levers and optimize the investment of effort.  Some levers might also be out of the team's control or cause negative side effects that would offset the targeted benefits.

What it means to "get smart" on topics at McKinsey and 5 Key Things to Learn

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Has your McKinsey boss asked you to "get smart" on a topic?  In this post I'll explain what that means and highlight five subjects to focus on...

What does it mean to "get smart" at McKinsey?

To "get smart" means to quickly learn the most important aspects of a new topic.  You can apply a t-shaped approach and learn a little about a lot, then go deep on your specific workstream, but it's not enough to just pick up the basics that you can find on Wikipedia.

What are the critical areas for getting smart?

You can make the most of your time and effort by applying the 80/20 rule and focusing on the vital or critical few subjects when getting smart.  There are a handful of things you can learn that will give you the biggest bang for your buck...

1.  Lingo and acronyms

Every industry has a language that all of the participants use.  Each client also has client-specific terminology that you'll have to learn.  Think about the places you've worked before and all the obscure terms and TLAs (three-letter acronyms) that you used without even thinking about them.  It's not enough to know what these terms mean - you'll also have to add them to your working vocabulary and be able to "talk the talk" of your clients.

2.  Organizational ("Org") Structure

Each client is organized differently and their organizational (aka "org") structure colors the way they see the world and conduct business.  Even if your workstream is focused on a single business unit ("BU"), you'll need to understand how your client's BU fits into the bigger picture.  There might also be differences in how people are organized - no two companies org charts look the same.  For example, in many companies, "Directors" are the layer between Managers and Vice Presidents.  But at McKinsey, Directors are Senior Principals and the most influential people at the Firm.

3.  Company Culture & News

Company cultures are not just unique - they are often sources of tremendous pride for clients.  As a result, missteps in this area can damage credibility and/or the relationship with the client.  It's important to understand what's important to the company, your clients, and other employees.  It can be any number of things including company history, reputation for excellence in something, how they treat customers, or how they treat each other.

Especially if a company is currently in the headlines, current events are going to be top-of-mind for many clients.  Even if there hasn't been big news, you should familiarize yourself with whatever the company has been going through - good and bad.

4.  Competitive landscape

It's important to understand both a) who the major competitors are and b) the company's position in the industry.  Your work should always take competitors and relative position into account.  Otherwise, your recommendations could come across as naive or just plain wrong.  For example, your recommendations will be very different if your client is in a monopoly position, competing in an oligopoly, or one of many players in a highly fragmented industry.

5.  Competitive Dynamics & Industry Trends

It's also critical to understand where the company and the broader industry are headed.  Your recommendations will differ if your client rising fast, lagging behind peers, or the entire industry is in a boom or bust cycle.  Competitor incentives will vary, too.  Consider how strategies would need to vary when competing against hungry upstarts who are willing to be aggressive or complacent industry leaders who want to maintain the status quo.

Why is it important to "get smart"?

Clients are paying a lot of money for McKinsey engagements, so they have high expectations for the team and the work performed.  Clients don't want teams who don't know anything about their companies and situations.  So, in order to build and maintain credibility with clients, it's important that McKinsey consultants be able to get up to speed and "get smart" on topics quickly.

Focus on the "Critical Few" or "Vital Few" - Application of the 80/20 Rule

Your McKinsey boss might give you feedback to focus more of your effort on the "critical few" or "vital few". This is so you can achieve maximum impact for a given amount of work - it's another way of saying that your McKinsey boss wants you to apply the 80/20 rule to your work.  In this post I'll explain those terms...


First, it's helpful to understand the source of the concept of the critical or vital few.

What is the 80/20 rule?

The 80/20 rule is a rule of thumb that 20% of anything drive 80% outcomes.  I've covered this concept, examples, and what it means if you're asked to be more 80/20 in a previous post.

A common business example is that roughly 20% of any company's SKUs will drive over 80% of their sales.  A personal example might be that fewer than 20% of your acquaintances cause more than 80% of your headaches.  Now that you know about it, you'll probably start seeing it everywhere.

What are the Vital or Critical Few?

The terms "vital few" and "critical few" are just other names for that important 20%.  They are called that because to be successful in any endeavor, it is vital / critical to address those few sources of the greatest potential impact.  Effective McKinsey teams and consultants are able to identify the critical or vital few and focus their efforts and finite resources on them.

Why is it important to focus on the Vital or Critical Few?

Your McKinsey boss will expect you accomplish a lot at a high level of quality.  Unless you want to spend every waking hour working, it's important to learn how to focus your efforts on the most promising, impactful aspects of a workstream.  Your McKinsey boss is also counting on you for leverage - the more you can get done, the less your McKinsey boss has to do or worry about on your workstream(s).

What it means to "Boil the Ocean" and why it's important to avoid doing it

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The term "boiling the ocean" is used to describe any task that's impossible because it has been incorrectly scoped.  In this post I'll explain what that might look like on a McKinsey engagement - or a project for a McKinsey boss - and what to do about it...

What does "boiling the ocean" look like?

Literally boiling the ocean is impossible because there's just too much water to ever complete the task.  The same applies for figuratively boiling the ocean on a consulting project.  Unless scope is carefully managed, it's easy for a consultant or team to take on more than they can handle in a workstream or project.

The most common example is trying to analyze too much data.  In a world of big data, the ability for clients to collect mountains of data has outstripped their ability to manage, clean, and analyze it to uncover meaningful insights.  There are important answers buried in there somewhere, but the more data you have to dig through, the harder it is to find those impactful insights.

The other common cause of boiling the ocean is taking on too many workstreams.  This is often a result of not trimming enough issues from the "issue tree".  For example, your team might be charged with "finding cost savings" for the client.  In most companies, there are countless places to look for cost savings - if you try to address them all, you might not make significant progress against any. 

Why it's important to avoid boiling the ocean

As you can see in the examples above, boiling the ocean can limit your impact because you have to spread your finite resources thin across too much work or too many worktreams.  You might be able to touch some of the important levers and insights, but you won't be able to go deep on any of them, limiting the impact you can make.

Boiling the ocean also wears down your team.  Inefficiency requires more time and effort be expended to achieve the same amount of impact.  Not only will the team be tired and worn out, but morale will suffer as the results don't match up to the effort.

How to avoid boiling the ocean

Application of the 80/20 rule is the easiest way to avoid boiling the ocean.  By focusing your effort on the "critical few" or "vital few" areas, you can maximize your impact while protecting your team from wasted effort and declining morale.

For data analysis, this means focusing on the most meaningful data sets and cuts of the data.  Are there chunks of data - e.g., business units, geographies, product categories - that can be considered out-of-scope?  For trimming the issue tree and reducing the number of workstreams, can you identify the most promising sources of impact and focus your scope and effort on those?

Delegating some of the work can also help avoid boiling the ocean.  Can you ask the sources of the data (e.g., a client's Finance team) for help on filtering and cleaning some of the raw data?  Do they have reporting tools and/or automated means for reducing the mountain of data without losing sources of insight and impact?  Are there other people who own the sources of impact who can also own the work to maximize the impact captured?

What it means to "Sanitize" a document at McKinsey

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You might hear your McKinsey boss or colleague refer to a document as "sanitized".  Or, you might be asked to "sanitize" a document.  This has nothing to do with hygiene or disinfectant.  It has everything to do with confidentiality.  In this post I'll explain what it means for a document to be sanitized....

What is a "santized" document?

A "sanitized" document has had any sensitive information - data, exhibits, images, names, etc. - removed and/or replaced with place-holder, fake, "dummy" data.  Most often, this is a McKinsey PowerPoint (PPT) presentation or "deck", although occasionally Excel models are sanitized to remove client data but retain functionality.

What does a sanitized document look like?

If the sanitization is done well, the document should, at first glance, look indistinguishable from the original.  Only upon closer inspection will an audience see that some critical and/or confidential information has been redacted.  Some common signs that a document has been sanitized:

• Numbers and data that might not add up or make sense
• Information has been replaced by "XXXXX"s or other "placeholder" text
• Names might be non-specific - e.g., "Division A", "Competitor #1", or "Employee X"
• Images or exhibits might have been removed, blurred, or replaced with placeholders (e.g., a "sticker" or text box that says "logo of Competitor A", a generic graph with no labels or real data)

What's the point of a sanitized document?

Sanitizing a document allows sharing of the relevant content - e.g., frameworks, analyses, approaches - without disseminating sensitive or confidential information.

It can also allow people to focus on the high-level, overall approach or storyline without derailing the discussion with details.  A sanitized example can help a team align on an approach and agree upon what work needs to identify next steps required to fill in the sanitized sections with real data.

McKinsey Presentations - Anatomy of a McKiney PowerPoint Deck Page

McKinsey consultants use PowerPoint pages and presentations (aka "decks") to communicate with clients and each other.  In this post, I'll explain the three elements of a typical McKinsey page so you can put together your own McKinsey-style deck.  This should be helpful for new McKinsey consultants and anyone working for a former McKinsey consultant...

While every McKinsey deck should be unique, there are common elements that McKinsey decks and pages share.  By including these components and following the advice in the post on client-ready McKinsey decks, you can make pages and presentations in the McKinsey style.

Two Options for Page Titles (aka "leads", "headlines")

A good title or "lead" will concisely and effectively a) capture the audience's attention, b) explain why the page is important, and c) show how the page contributes to the storyline.











Typically, the lead is no more than two lines of relatively larger font.  An alternative format is to separate the title (in larger font) and headline (in smaller font).  The format should be consistent throughout the deck and, ideally, for the entire engagement.

Content and Exhibits that support the leads

The bulk of the page should be allocated to content and exhibits that support the leads / headlines.  Typically, these take the form of graphs, tables, text, maps, or other exhibits that reflect what the team has learned.  The focus should be highlighting value-adding insights and/or synthesizing information, not just repackaging data from the client or other sources.  McKinsey teams spend a lot of time selecting the right frameworks and making sure these exhibits are error-free.

 

Key takeaways or the "So What" of the page

McKinsey decks and pages are often quite dense so it can be helpful to remind the audience of the key point you want them to take away from each page.  These key takeaways often referred to as the "So What?", meaning, "why should I care about these exhibits / data?"

If you can't come up with a compelling "So What" for your page, you might want to consider moving it to the Appendix as a back-up page.