McKinsey Final Round Feedback: Over-Structuring

Question:

Thank you so much for all the help that you gave us. I am going to sign up with a boutique consulting firm, and wondering can you add me into the loop of FFY?

I also would love to hear your thoughts on my McKinsey final round feedback. I got the feedback that I was over-structuring, and it was the first time I ever heard of that term.  Do you mind share your opinion with me on:

1. What approach will look like over-structuring to you?

2. Will over-structuring kill the creativity?

3. What I can do to avoid that?

Again, really appreciate your time and effort.

My Reply:

For over-structured, it's a little hard for me to tell without hearing what you specifically said. In general, over-structured means structured, but in the wrong way.

The structure can be wrong in any number of ways, all of which would be described as over-structured.

A few ways include:

1) Using a framework that really doesn't fit the case very well (a.k.a. forcing the wrong structure)

2) Not recognizing that the specific case requires modifying a framework to accomodate the unusual aspects of that particular case

3) Having structure, but no hypothesis. All structure should extend from a hypothesis. When structure exists without a hypothesis, it can sometimes be perceived as over-structured… because it is structure without a point of focus. The focus of the structure should be to prove/disprove the hypothesis.

For the FFY newsletter (my email newsletter on how to succeed as a New Consultant), you can sign up here:

http://www.caseinterview.com/new-consultant

It's nice to hear from you.