Bullets from “The McKinsey Mind”
This was in my bucket list since long, a book which was suggested by one of my mentors, during the structural thinking workshop I had in my internship period.
When I’m writing this I’ve been only half way through the book.
The book focuses on problem solving and decision making process based on McKinsey’s own practices that they follow to solve problems in structural way, starting from stating the problem to gathering data and finally solving the problem using different technics.
Below are the few bullet points I want to mention which might help in problem solving processes.
Defining the boundaries of a problem and then breaking it down into its component elements.
The line is self explanatory, but often we miss out on the point and go outside the problem and end up spending lot of time solving the problem which are not really in the scope and won’t help solving the real problem.
Breaking down the problem is I think applies to all aspect of life not only to a particular business need, any problem that we face, or not really a problem but maybe an event to organise how do we plan them? break them into smaller parts and solve the smaller problems.
Don’t reinvent the wheel
As a programmer I relate to it very much, there are problems and situations which are already faced by many people or might be multiple times by you yourself, and one should take advantages of them, every problem is an opportunity to learn and we should use the learnings if the similar problem comes in future.
Every client is unique
To the above point don’t reinvent the wheel which is true for a reason, but one should not directly the same solution without looking at their own problem, the solution might need some tweaks, and in all the scenarios it’s not really possible to just apply the solution at once.
Without structure, your ideas won’t stand up
Most of us are not blessed from birth with the ability to think in a rigorous, structured manner; we have to learn how.
No matter how good is your idea, if you can’t present it well it won’t make impact. A structural approach to solve a problem will help to present it well and will also help in implementation part which is not so common and people often take ad-hoc approaches to solve problem which sometime works and often not. The book says often the big companies won’t focus on the structure much which leads to problems later.
Use structure to strengthen your thinking
As the above point explains without structure it’s hard to create impact, on the other hand if you have structured thinking skills and you applies structure to the way to solves a problem it can help a lot. The books talks about something called an issue tree which one might want give a try.
Framing the problem
It includes defining the boundaries of the problem and then breaking it down. It’s important in the problem solving skills reason being when you know your problem well solving it becomes easy.
Structure is only the beginning
Giving structure to a problem is really important and one should take time to do it, but remember it’s just a good starting point, after this comes the part of data gathering and more. You still need to develop a strong hypothesis, devise and perform the right analyses to draw your conclusions, and communicate those conclusions effectively
Brainstorming is about generating new ideas
As the book suggest in any brainstorming meeting everyone in the meeting must be able to speak his mind and share his knowledge. For your brainstorming sessions to succeed, you should follow these 4 rules:
- There are no bad ideas.
- Second, there are no dumb questions.
- Be prepared to “kill your babies” (i.e., to see your ideas get shot down, and to pull the trigger yourself if necessary).
- Know when to say when; don’t let brainstorming drag on past the point of diminishing returns. Last and most important, get it down on paper.
The problem is not always the problem.
I’ve written a complete article for the same which you might want to checkout. One example which I’ve mentioned over there also fits here to explain the point
Consider and example which I’ve came across during my internship time:
A building owner was asked to change the lift in the building by the resident of the building because, they were feeling the lift is really slow and they are spending their valuable time waiting for the lift. At the same time, the owner did not have enough money so that he can replace or repair the lift. Residents of the building continued complaining about the lift and now he has to do something about it.
Now he comes to a question of what he should do now?
Guess what he did …..?
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He placed a mirror in front of the waiting area!
The owner looked the problem in different way and came up with different problem statement which he solved.
Or there might be some cases where client thinks that they have a problem but in real they just miss on some understanding points
An initial hypothesis will save you time
Most people, when faced with a complex problem, will start at the beginning and wade through all the data until they come to the end — the solution. This is sometimes referred to as the deductive approach: : if A, then B; if B, then C; . . . if Y, then Z.
It more around the fact that once we see the end going back from there is easy, One simple example of this is a pen and paper labyrinth or maze, the kind you sometimes see in the Sunday comics or in puzzle books. Anyone who plays with these can tell you that it is easier to solve the maze by tracing the route from the finish to the start rather than starting at the beginning.
Find the key drivers
The success of any idea depends on number of factors, but it’s sometime harder to focus on all the facts, so it’s better to choose on facts which you think are most important and then dig deeper on those, those will be the key drivers.
Look at the big picture
Sometimes it’s hard to focus on the big picture as there are lot which comes in process, but whenever something comes to you take a step back and analyse if that can help you achieve the bigger goal that you have or it’s just an add-on and you’ll find the answer.
Don’t boil the ocean
In general and as the book also says work smarter not harder, in today’s data driven world there’s a lot which is already available see if you can use it. It’s easy to get on each point and fight but see if that’s worth and adding values to your goal if not just eliminate it, something like that is waste of your time unless it’s adding value to your problem solving process.
Figure out which analyses you need in order to prove (or disprove) your point. Do them, then move on. Chances are you don’t have the luxury to do more than just enough.
Don’t accept “I have no idea.”
People always have an idea if you probe a bit. Ask a few pointed questions, and you’ll be amazed at what people know. If you ask someone a question and the person responds, “I have no idea,” treat it as a challenge.
In most of the cases it’s just about time, the mindset or maybe just the laziness, your challenge is to figure out what’s missing and adjust accordingly.
Remember, too, that just as you shouldn’t accept “I have no idea” from others, so you shouldn’t accept it from yourself. With a bit of thinking and searching, you’ll usually find that you do know something, or at least can find it out.
Above points are just few from the halfway of book and there’s a lot more in the book, I hope to complete to it soon.
If you haven’t already read it I’ll highly recommend reading this, if you have already read it please do mention your takeaway from it.
