Management Consulting

Book: The McKinsey Mind

Problem Solving
g Framework
 Chapter
p 5
Presenting Your Ideas
Presenting
g Your Ideas

• Good hypotheses and analyses do not help you if you are

not able to communicate it
• Structure of presentation is important
• Buy in your audience, convince audience
• McKinsey way
• Be structure
• Elevator
El t test
t t (if you can say it in
i 30 sec, you kknow what
h t you
are doing)
• Keep it simple (one message one chart, the more complex a
chart becomes, the less effective)
• Black and white, not colors, it’s not art but advice
Presenting
g Your Ideas

• Successful presentation is a “bridge” between you and the

audience
• Two main approaches of presentation
• Picture says more than words
• Keep it simple and short, put more in appendix as “backup”
• Always document your sources
Presenting
g Your Ideas

• Two main approaches of presentation

Inductive Deductive

Conclusion Facts & Reasoning

Facts & Reasoning Conclusion

“We
We believe X because of A
A,B,C
B C” “A
A and B is true
true, we therefore believe X”
X

+ how far you go into detail + smooth, guide

+ pass elevator test - Not pass elevator test
- Might be provoking
Guidelines

Planning Preparation Practice Performance Questions

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Planning
• Who are you talking to?
• Why are you talking to them?
• How long have you got?
• What story are you going to tell?
• Ti i
Timing, eachh slide
lid ttakes
k att lleastt 1
1-2
2 minutes
i t if nott more. So
S if
you plan a 15 minutes presentation, do not have more than 15
slides, better would be 10 or less (including titles etc., )

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Structure your Presentation
Organize your material into:
• Introduction
• Body
• Summary or conclusion

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Introduction
• Introduce yourself
• Describe (briefly!) what you are going to talk about and its
context
• Briefly outline the structure of the talk
• No more than 2 minutes

What I gonna tell you

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Body
Cover what the audience….
• Needs to know
• Wants to know
• Provide a logical sequence
• Use
U examples l and d visual
i l aids
id

What I tell you

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Summary
• What message do you want the audience to take away?
• Summarize main points
• Ask for and deal with questions
• Conclude on a high note
• L t the
Let th audience
di know
k you have
h finished
fi i h d

What I told you

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Preparation
• Outline and sketch slides
• Prepare slides
• Proof read
• Prepare notes - brief keywords and phrases, except maybe first
couple of paragraphs
• Check technical equipment, room, PC
• Have backup files, PC. In general, have a back-up plan

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Preparation Timing
• 1 - 2 minutes per slide
• Generic 15 min Conference Presentation

• Title Slide (1) Title, author, affiliation, acknowledgements

• R ti
Rationalel (1
(1-2)
2) Wh
Why thi
this iis iinteresting
t ti
• Methods (1-2) What you did
• Results (2-4) What did you find and what does it mean
• Summary (1) One thing you want them to remember

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Preparation Slides
• Minimize text and number
• Avoid distracting background
• Reduce redundant, repetitive information
• Consistency of slides (color, font)
• U llarge ffontt
Use
• Helvetica or Arial rather than serif fonts like Times,
pt is minimum,, 24
20 p pt,
p or even 30 pt
p is better
• Use lower-case font
• ALL CAPITALS IS HARDER TO READ, ALTHOUGH IT MIGHT BE
OK FOR THE ODD TITLE
• Use bold or color to emphasize point, but NOT to much…
• Keep figures simple

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Figures keep simple

80

60
Y axxis (units)

40

20

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Condition
Practice

• Practice, practice,
Practice practice practice
• Get feedback, and use it
• Delete unnecessary information

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Performance

• Speak loudly & clearly

• Use short simple sentences
• Avoid jargon & abbreviations
• V
Vary pitch,
it h ttone, volume,
l speed
d and
d pauses
• Avoid distracting mannerisms
• Relax, be enthusiastic
• Make eye contact!
• Keep an eye on the time remaining
• No notes!

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Performance
• Explain figures, and point to important aspects
• Give a clear and concise summary
summary, then stop
• Give examples, provide multimedia
• Involve the audience to help learn and remember
• Use analogies
analogies, examples
• Get them to do something like game, exercise
• Ask questions
• If you can’t
’t fi
fix ttechnical
h i l problems
bl quickly,
i kl revertt tto your
contingency plan
• Posture, control your gesture, body language, facial expression
which
hi h supportt whath t you are saying
i
• Don’t go overtime. Ever.

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Performance
Dos and Don’t’s
• Look at the audience,
audience scanning rather than focusing on one
person
• Talk to the audience, not to the floor, ceiling, flip-chart,
whiteboard or your notes
• Use your hands to emphasize a point, but don’t wave them
around
• Don
Don’tt put your hands in pockets or grip the podium

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

Questions
• Anticipate likely questions and prepare extra slides with the
answers
• Paraphrase questions
• 1. So that other people hear the question
• 2. To check you understand the questions
• 3. To stall while you think about an answer
• If you don’t know the answer, say so.
• Offer to find out
• Ask the audience

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

How to “buy-in”
y people
p p

• Pre-wire everything
• Walk
W lk to d
decision
i i makers
k iin your organization
i i
• Build a consensus of favorable solution
• Give feeling of being part (less resistance)
• Chance to adapt your solution
• Avoid pushback and surprises
• Tailor presentation to audience
• Allow them to put “their own mark” on your solution, makes
them more comfortable with it

Rollins College: Prof. M. Fetscherin

 Chapter
p 6
Managing Your Team
Manage
g Your Team

• Team work important

• Can’t have a team without team members
• Interview at McKinsey
• At least 8 interviews during
g hiring
gpprocess ((eight
g different
consultants) to assess analytical and interpersonal abilities
• Academic achievements and performance on case interviews
weight heavily in selection process
• Search for the best, intellectual power
• Hiring smart people than with experience (p. 132)
• Diversity
Di it ((nott only
l bbusiness
i people)
l )bbrings
i perspectives
ti
Manage
g Your Team

• Communication is one of the most important element of effective

team management
• Messages, meetings, and “walking around”
• Over-communication
Over communication better then under-communication
under communication
• Over-communication: costs less
• Under-communication: lack of information and mistakes
• It’s not jjust
st what
hat you
o sa
say b
butt also how
ho you
o sa
say it
• 16 different personality types (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator)
• Conduct the Myers-Briggs test on yourself at www.cpp-db.com
• Team bonding
• Stay in touch with team to maintain motivation & enthusiasm
• Treat everybody with respect
• Involve as many people in the planning of the event as possible
Manage
g Your Team

• High expectations leads to high results

• Setting a “stretch” target that appears, at first, not reachable
• Team evaluation and performance assessment
• Quantityy and type
yp (g
(good/bad)) feedback
• It should meet 3 criteria
• Should be objectives
p
• Bases on expectations set in advance
• Account on events person has control over
• Frequency of feedback
• Negative comments = weaknesses
• Positive comments = strengths
• Best a few negatives to influence performance then more positives
t encourage and
to d motivate
ti t = balanced
b l d ffeedback
db k