Introducing the Case Interview Process Model© - Part 2: Hypothesis & Structure

This post follows the first part of the Case Interview Process Model, where we discussed the goal of the maps and how to open a case.

First of all, my sincere apologies to post the second part this late. The combination of interviews, quitting a job and devoting time to charity has been has been overwhelming. Yet, this is not an excuse, because as we shall learn when working in consulting, great performance is a function of discipline, and discipline only. I obviously lacked it during those three months :) On that note, let's get started!

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In today's post, we will focus on the first two steps of the Analyze Case sub-process: Define Initial Hypothesis and Structure Hypothesis. Those tasks are the bulk of a case study so they need to be discussed at length. You can quickly observe that the map describing Analyze Case is substantially larger than the one used in Open Case. This is obviously explained by the fact that actual work to solve the problem is done in Analyze Case.

Introducing the Case Interview Process Model© - Part 1

This post is the first part of describing the Case Interview Process Model©. The second part will come shortly after, and I'll promise it'll be even better.

If you have read some of my previous posts, you know that I take a lot of my case interview philosophy from Victor Cheng, they guy behind the wildly successful site caseinterview.com. One of Victor's core principles is that successful consultants follow a logic, linear thinking which ultimately lead them to a solution of the problem. Similarly, candidates in case interview are expected to display the same consistency of though, so that interviewers are confident that the candidate does possess the skills to success, and didn't just get lucky.

A Process Perspective

As it turns out, the thought pattern promulgated by Victor Cheng is so systematic, so linear, that a very good way to describe it is using process modeling. Despite its rather dreadful name (it was originally invented by IT folks), process modeling is very simple at its core: it visually lays out a sequence of activities triggered by a specific event. No more, no less.

Since a process is a well-defined collection of discreet activities, it is just perfect to describe a logical and linear set of tasks. Yes, just like the case interview ;-)

I therefore here suggest a possible process-centric view on business case interviews, as taught by Victor Cheng. The process is modeled using the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), which has become the industry's standard. The BPMN model presented here follows the Method and Style convention of BPMN's guru Bruce Silver. No worries, you won't need to buy the book to understand the model, we are going to walk along it together.

I haven't came across any modeling of this sort on the web so I believe this is a rather original view to bring to the case interview methodology. The process is far from being perfect and I actually love to hear your suggestions about how to make it better.

So let's all buckle up and put our nose into the wonderful world of the Case Interview Process Model©. It's going to be fun.

SCC Case Workshop #2: Methodology

After a first workshop where we “dissected a case” and ran through a live example, the second SCC workshop will now let the members practice! in order to receive the most educational value –and also to accommodate time– we will use the “mini-case” approach.

Mini-cases = cases with only one part to solve

As explained in the first workshop, a case can be segregated into its different part (be assured that the decomposition is MECE). The result of this decomposition is what is commonly described as the problem solving loop.

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A mini-case is simply a case where the candidate is asked to perform only some parts of the loop. The first round at McKinsey is famous for its “interviewer-led” cases where the consultant already provides pieces of the problem solving to the candidate.

Since we are methodical and logical folks, we are going to go through the decomposed loop in a chronological order, i.e. Workshop #2 will focus on opening, workshop #3 will tackle analysis and workshop #4 will handle closing. Please bear in mind that all parts are equally important for a successful case resolution.

What you need to prepare before the workshop

Since we are going to concentrate on the opening section , we will get the most benefits if you can prepare one or two cases (that you get from casebooks, internet, your own practice, etc.) and specifically isolate;

• What is the problem at hand?
• What is the optimal structure to solve the problem?
• What are the issues tackled first and why?

It will obviously be much easier if you have the textbook solution for the cases you choose and I highly recommend this solution, so that your fellow SCC members will benefit from accurate answers.

The mini-cases would ideally last about 15 minutes each.

The dynamic of the session

How the session will be conducted will definitely depend a lot on the number of people attending. If the number is limited, I would like to have a “watch and learn” model where every one will perform in front of the others, both as interviewer and interviewee. Receiving feedback from your peers about your strengths and weaknesses tend to increase awareness and hence improve the learning experience. “Performing in front of others” might also increase the stress level which is also a good practice, in order to know how to handle it when you are solving a case for real.

If on the other hand, we are lucky to gather many people (the threshold being probably 6), we will then rotate pairs so everyone will practice as interviewer and interviewee with all the other members( I hope you understand the last sentence) :)

Hoping to see many  of you on Sunday 29 April at 2pm at the NLB, have a good preparation!

Case 2: Megabank

After the Norwegian Telecom case, we present a new one, directly taken from the Fuqua School of Business case book. Due to evident copyright issue, we can’t attach the case here but if you have the casebook, then just look for the Megabank case.
We won’t go in as much details as we did with the Norwegian Telecom case, mainly because the case is way more simpler than the elaborated version that we cooked up. So what we did is that we provide a glimpse about the notes we took while doing the case, especially the MECE trees. We believe this is what really matters in this kind of case. As usual with business cases, there is no right or wrong answers, only structure or unstructured ones ;-) The issue trees are not the “typical correction” and only reflects our solution. Should you have any comments, you are more than welcome to voice it out :)

Quick compilation of preparation resources

One of the first questions I receive when I present the SCC to anyone is "can you give me some resources to prepare?". And true enough, this is a very legitimate question.

So here is a quick compilation about the different resources I have used so far to sharpen my interview skills.

Consulting firms in Singapore

As silly as it may sound, becoming a consultant in Singapore starts with finding a consulting firm in the city state. Although there are a lot of consulting firms in Singapore, we can still have legitimate concerns towards their expertise, their prestige, etc.

Worry no more! The SCC just compiled the list of the best consulting firms in Sin City, based on the latest 2012 Vault ranking for consulting firms. And this is just for you ;)