Case Interviews
What do 'how' and 'why' add to a strong case framework?
In a McKinsey interview I gave a fairly standard profitability structure, but the interviewer kept asking 'what else?' and pushed me to explain how I would validate each area. Was the problem that I listed the WHAT without explaining the HOW and WHY behind each part of the framework?
Ian’s Answer
The short answer here is you forgot the HOW and WHY in your framework. Pretty much everyone I get as a coachee does the same - i.e. they just list a laundry list of ideas without any real direction or goal.
This concept is hard to really teach in writing (requires multiple sessions), but, in general, your framework is so much more than just a bunch of buckets with a list of items underneath (i.e. the WHAT). You have to actually articulate what you mean by Market (i.e. we want to determine that it's attractive) or Product (i.e. is our product better than the competition's product, in the areas that customers care about).