"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.