Frameworks, insights, and strategies from the consulting world
93 articles
Industry & History · Consulting Firms
The main types of consulting firms, from McKinsey to Accenture to Korn Ferry: what each one does and who hires it, with figures from filings and real cases.
Presentations · Slide Design
How consultants write action titles: a full-sentence takeaway the slide proves, titles that read as a story on their own, and before-and-after examples.
Presentations · Slide Design
What a ghost deck is, how to build one from an issue tree, and why consultants write slide titles as expected answers before the data comes in.
Frameworks · Competitive Strategy
How BCG's experience curve links cumulative volume to falling costs, with Black & Decker, Texas Instruments, real solar data, and where it breaks down.
Frameworks · Growth Strategy
Where McKinsey's three horizons framework came from, what its time axis means, and how Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple moved businesses between horizons.
Frameworks · Competitive Strategy
Where Osterwalder's business model canvas came from, what its nine blocks ask, and what Airbnb, Netflix, and Zara look like when you fill one in.
Presentations · Slide Design
A before-and-after walkthrough of one cluttered PowerPoint slide, rebuilt step by step around a single finding, an action title, and one chart.
Career · Consulting Firms
A former McKinsey and BCG consultant on what consultants actually do: what fills the day, where the time goes, what they deliver, and how AI changes it.
Presentations · Storytelling
You know what you mean, so you assume your reader does too. Why phrases like "we believe" get read as anything from 5% to 100%, and what to write instead.
Frameworks · Competitive Strategy
How to use PESTEL analysis to find the outside forces that move an industry's profits, with EU car emissions rules, Dieselgate, and GDPR as cases.
Presentations · Slide Design
A fast way to check whether a slide works: show it to someone without the context for ten seconds, then ask them to repeat back the takeaway.
Book Reviews
Part 4 of the Pyramid Principle book review covers headings, transitions, text and exhibit slides, storyboarding, and writing prose from images.
Career · Breaking In
What the firms actually teach new consultants, why that apprenticeship is shrinking, and an honest comparison of the courses that claim to replace it.
Industry & History · Consulting Firms
Revenue, headcount, and pay at McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and the Big Four, plus what the 2025 headcount correction means for a consulting career.
Industry & History · Consulting Firms
A 2026 comparison of McKinsey, BCG, and Bain using revenue, headcount, growth, LinkedIn roles, and compensation across tracks
Presentations · Slide Design
Pretty slide syndrome is when polished formatting stands in for actual thinking. How to spot it in your own decks, and why AI is making it worse.
AI
AI will get you a B+ version of almost any knowledge work. Don't mistake shipped for done. The real goal is to iterate more and develop a stronger sense of judgement.
McKinsey · Case Interviews
What the McKinsey Solve game tests in 2026: Redrock, Sea Wolf, and Sustainable Futures Lab, plus a practical plan and tips to pass it.
AI
OpenAI and Anthropic just launched enterprise AI deployment firms. It looks a lot like consulting, and it makes consultative skills matter more, not less.
Presentations · Slide Design
Open-source libraries for building PowerPoint slides programmatically: python-pptx, PptxGenJS, Apache POI, Pandoc, Quarto, and more.
Presentations · Storytelling
A quick look at why Stripe's 2026 Sessions keynote slides can break presentation rules like vertical flow and still work in a live spoken format.
Industry & History · Organization & Change
Tracing the most-cited statistic in change management back to its source. The number has no empirical origin, but the real data tells a more interesting story.
Frameworks · Organization & Change
A guide to Jeanie Daniel Duck's change curve from BCG, the five stages of organizational transformation, and why most change efforts die in stage four.
Frameworks · Competitive Strategy
How Blue Ocean Strategy works, with the strategy canvas and four actions framework explained through Cirque du Soleil, yellow tail wine, and Southwest Airlines.
Frameworks · Competitive Strategy
How Porter's value chain disaggregates a company into activities that create value, with real examples from IKEA, Walmart, and the PC industry.
Frameworks · Organization & Change
A practical guide to the McKinsey 7S framework: its origin at McKinsey, real examples of organizational alignment, and where the model breaks down.
Career · Breaking In
The paths into strategy consulting with or without an MBA, what the work actually involves, and how to tell whether you want the job or the prestige.
Industry & History · History & People
In 2013, Clayton Christensen predicted consulting would be disrupted like steel and publishing. More than a decade later, McKinsey, BCG, and Bain are bigger than ever. Here's what his framework missed.
Frameworks · Growth Strategy
The growth strategy frameworks consultants actually use: Ansoff matrix, BCG growth-share matrix, experience curve, three horizons, and how they connect.
Frameworks · Competitive Strategy
The industry analysis frameworks consultants actually use on engagements: Porter's Five Forces, PESTEL, value chain analysis, and strategic group mapping.
Frameworks · Growth Strategy
How strategy consultants at McKinsey, BCG, and Bain actually evaluate whether a company should enter a new market. Covers market attractiveness, competitive position, entry mode, and the common mistakes.
Frameworks · Hypotheses & Issue Trees
Every case interview framework worth knowing, from profitability trees to Porter's Five Forces. How to actually use frameworks in consulting interviews instead of just memorizing them.
Industry & History · Consulting Firms
Real compensation data from 795 strategy consultants across McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and 10 other firms, from entry-level analyst to partner.
Frameworks · Competitive Strategy
SWOT analysis is the most widely used strategy framework in the world. Most people use it badly. Here's how to make it produce real strategic insight.
Frameworks · Decision Making
How John Boyd's OODA Loop actually works, where it came from, and how companies like Zara and Amazon apply its principles to make faster, better decisions.
Frameworks · Growth Strategy
How to use the Ansoff matrix to evaluate growth strategies by risk, with real examples from Amazon, Quaker-Snapple, and Starbucks.
Frameworks · Growth Strategy
The real origin story of the BCG matrix, from a Monday morning conversation to the million-dollar slide, with practical guidance and real examples.
Industry & History · History & People
How a Cleveland lawyer turned a small accounting firm into the world's most powerful consultancy. Bower's career, principles, and contradictions.
Industry & History · History & People
The career of Michael Porter, from aerospace engineering to five forces to healthcare reform, and what his work actually changed about strategy.
Frameworks · Competitive Strategy
How to use Porter's Five Forces to analyze any industry, with real examples from airlines, heavy trucks, and cement, plus data on why industry structure drives profitability.
Book Reviews
Part 3 of the Pyramid Principle book review covers how to define problems clearly, structure your analysis, and use logic trees and diagnostic frameworks.
Presentations · Slide Design
Every consulting slide you've ever seen is a variation of one of these fourteen layouts. Learn the anatomy of each one so you can build decks faster and communicate more clearly.
Presentations · Slide Design
A practical guide to choosing the right data visualization — and why the chart you pick changes the story your data tells.
Problem Solving
High-performing consulting firms don't just follow a process, they obsess over the meta-process. Three elements that separate great firms from the rest.
Presentations · Slide Design
A five-step process for building consulting-style presentations using SCQA, the Pyramid Principle, ghost decks, and action titles. Includes examples.
Pyramid Principle
A practical walkthrough of the Pyramid Principle with examples showing how to structure ideas bottom-up and communicate them top-down like a CEO.
MECE
A practical introduction to MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) with clear examples showing how consultants use it to simplify complex ideas.
Problem Solving
The seven traits that separate great consulting problem solvers from the rest, from curiosity and systems thinking to a bias for action.
Team Culture
Excellence in consulting isn't declared, it's built. Three principles from McKinsey and top firms: top-management mindset, process obsession, and standards.
McKinsey
A 5-step feedback process from McKinsey that replaces the tired feedback sandwich with timely, specific coaching that actually drives improvement.
Frameworks · Competitive Strategy
A practical breakdown of five consulting frameworks used on the job: MECE, McKinsey 7S, Porter's Five Forces, BCG Matrix, and Ansoff Matrix.
MECE · Hypotheses & Issue Trees
MECE examples from marketing, finance, product, and everyday life, each showing a broken list and the fix, plus a short quiz to test yourself.
Problem Solving · Hypotheses & Issue Trees
An insider breakdown of how McKinsey, BCG, and Bain actually solve problems -- why it is not linear, and how the top-down/bottom-up process really works.
Career · Case Interviews
Case interviews don't predict consulting job performance, according to research. A former McKinsey consultant on what's wrong with the process and what would work better.
Industry & History · Consulting Firms
Breaking down common consulting stereotypes, from layoffs and scapegoating to the stealing-your-watch cliche, and what actually happens on engagements.
Freelancing
A 25-step playbook for becoming a freelance strategy consultant, covering mindset shifts, business setup, finding clients, and pricing your work.
Industry & History · Consulting Firms
Eight patterns that hold back boutique consulting firms, from founder dependency to weak training culture. Based on working with 10+ small firms.
Problem Solving · Hypotheses & Issue Trees
How consultants scope projects by finding the real problem, writing it down, managing scope creep, and keeping the client aligned throughout.
Problem Solving · Defining Problems
Why asking so what is the most important habit in consulting and knowledge work, and how it turns raw analysis into actionable client insights.
Presentations · Storytelling
Why most business presentations bury the lead. A former McKinsey consultant explains how to start with the answer and avoid book report thinking.
McKinsey
An insider look at McKinsey's AI tool Lilli and why its decades-long investment in knowledge management gives it a massive edge over smaller consulting firms.
AI
Practical ways consultants can use AI tools like ChatGPT to generate ideas, simplify writing, and role-play client scenarios for better meeting prep.
Book Reviews
Part 2 of the Pyramid Principle book review covers logical ordering, avoiding intellectually blank assertions, and completing your thinking.
Book Reviews
An in-depth review of Barbara Minto's Pyramid Principle covering logic in writing, SCQA, deductive vs. inductive reasoning, and practical tips.
Frameworks · Storytelling
Bruce Henderson's Rule of Three and Four explained with modern examples from beer, digital ads, and laptops, plus how to use consulting frameworks.
Career · Consulting Firms
Side-by-side comparison of every consulting role, title, salary, and promotion timeline at MBB firms, from entry-level analyst to senior partner.
Frameworks
Three ways consultants use frameworks to simplify analysis, share takeaways, and tell compelling stories -- plus how to build your own from scratch.
Frameworks · Competitive Strategy
A four-step process to develop your own strategic perspective at work, with a real Pepsi strategy example showing how CEOs think about corporate strategy.
Freelancing
Five hard-won freelance consulting lessons on commitment, naming, pricing models, client materials, and deliverables from a former McKinsey consultant.
MECE · Hypotheses & Issue Trees
How to build an issue tree that breaks complex business problems into MECE components, with profitability examples and templates you can apply at your company.
Problem Solving · Decision Making
What critical thinking actually means and how to practice it. Includes examples from consulting, investing, and real-world decision-making frameworks.
McKinsey · History & People
What John Legend, Indra Nooyi, Pete Buttigieg, and other famous alumni of McKinsey, BCG, and Bain say they took away from strategy consulting.
Presentations · Charts & Data
Five ways the same Fortune 500 CEO dataset can be charted to tell completely different stories -- and how to spot data manipulation in presentations.
Industry & History · History & People
The history of strategy consulting in 11 chapters, from Frederick Taylor's scientific management to the rise of McKinsey, BCG, and Bain.
Problem Solving
The five skills that separate elite strategy consultants from average ones: epistemic humility, comfort with uncertainty, synthesis, writing, and creativity.
Presentations · Slide Design
A slide-by-slide redesign of Softbank's infamous WeWork deck, applying consulting presentation principles like clear titles and honest messaging.
Team Culture
Psychological safety, non-hierarchical attitudes, and iterative feedback -- the three elements that make consulting teams at McKinsey so effective.
Pyramid Principle · Hypotheses & Issue Trees
A step-by-step walkthrough of the five-stage consulting process showing when to use SCQA for problem definition and the Pyramid Principle for communication.
Presentations · Storytelling
Why consultants organize everything into groups of three. How the rule of three simplifies complex thinking and makes business communication memorable.
McKinsey · Consulting Firms
An honest comparison of McKinsey vs BCG from someone who worked at both -- covering culture, values, knowledge networks, analytical focus, and alumni treatment.
MECE
MECE (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) is how McKinsey consultants structure every problem. Learn the framework with clear examples you can apply to your own work.
Frameworks · Hypotheses & Issue Trees
How to use SCQA (situation, complication, question, answer) to define a problem and form hypotheses, with a worked example from a university budget gap.
McKinsey · Breaking In
A UConn grad who landed a McKinsey offer shares what non-target school students actually need to do to break into top consulting firms.
Presentations · Storytelling
20 presentation tips from a former McKinsey consultant, combining strategy consulting techniques with persuasion science to make your slides memorable.
Problem Solving · Hypotheses & Issue Trees
How the consulting problem-solving process works in practice: iterating between bottom-up research and top-down hypothesis testing to find the answer.
Pyramid Principle
How to use the Pyramid Principle to communicate top-down, with a memo-writing method and guidance on when to use direct vs. indirect storytelling.
Pyramid Principle
A step-by-step guide to bottom-up synthesis using the Pyramid Principle and MECE, with a business example of grouping data into structured insights.
Presentations · Storytelling
The three flow principles McKinsey uses for PowerPoint storytelling: vertical flow within slides, horizontal flow across titles, and overall story structure.
Team Culture
“Why the consulting mindset requires both a relentless drive to improve and the discipline to avoid copying best practices blindly -- and how to build both.”
Problem Solving · Decision Making
The biggest mindset shift for new consultants: stop waiting for instructions and start mastering the structured problem-solving process instead.
McKinsey · Hypotheses & Issue Trees
Six steps from McKinsey's structured problem-solving process -- from defining the real problem to building MECE arguments and persuasive consulting slides.
McKinsey
What makes McKinsey's culture work, from a former insider. Three pillars that drive high-performance: people development, values, and long-term focus.
McKinsey · Breaking In
After 100+ consulting rejections from a non-target school, one candidate landed a McKinsey offer. Six lessons from the experience that shaped his career.
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