Strategy. Part 1: Learn the skills used by the leading management consulting firms, such as McKinsey, BCG, et al.

by Kris Safarova

Do you want to develop a counterintuitive strategy insight and/or lead a team to develop a counterintuitive strategy insight?

You have enough experience to know that frameworks, decision trees, applying MECE and 80/20 principles, hypotheses, and structured problem solving are important, but they are not enough. You know a brilliant insight often looks like a mediocre insight. A great strategy often looks like a bad strategy. Analysis is messy. Data is flawed and misleading. Best practices routinely fail. Hypotheses change. Data changes. Linear thinking often does not work.

This book helps solve this problem. We present the background to a client. You get to follow the design of the strategy study and watch how the solution is developed. Over the past 10 years on StrategyTraining.com and FIRMSconsulting.com, you have seen us help numerous clients solve complex business developing a big data strategy, a corporate strategy, a digital & IT strategy, a pandemic & disaster strategy, a luxury brands strategy, a turnaround & transformation strategy, and more—all based on the combined best practices of the author and the ex-McKinsey, BCG et al., partners who produce all the strategy training programs on StrategyTraining.com.


This book shows you the daily steps, actions, processes, and considerations that go into developing a unique insight for a major company under tight timelines and intense scrutiny. You will get to see which data is used, why it was used, which data was discarded and why it was discarded.


On a daily and weekly basis, you will see us use strategy considerations, engagement update reports, storyboards, analyses tools, strategy maps, client management tools and more, summarizing the best practices from ex-McKinsey, BCG et al., partners and our most successful clients, to help you solve mankind’s most pressing problems. The book helps you learn the process to solve strategy and business problems like a strategy partner. You will get to see the numerous contradictions, nuances, and trade-offs that the highest-performing strategy thinkers face. You will learn how to make ethical and balanced decisions based on who is the client and who is not the client. The core of this book revolves around the daily guides to show you how the study is designed, planned, staffed, structured, and run, all the way from focus interviews to day-in-the-life-of studies to financial analysis, financial modeling, and case studies. The book is divided into weeks. Each week is split into days. Days are split into key activities and observations from the study.


While we can’t guarantee the results of each reader, clients who have used the book and FIRMSconsulting Insiders who have used the accompanying online training program consisting of 270+ videos on which the book is based


Deeper insights

Greater recognition

Rapid promotions

Deeper understanding of executives

Happier teams

Greater productivity

Project success

Superior assignments


The book takes you step by step, week by week and day by day through the process to receive a problem, frame the problem, structure the analysis, assemble the team, manage the team, and manage the client toward the solution. You get to go inside the mind of a strategy partner. That is the greatest benefit of this book. At times you will see references to additional resources that our most loyal members, FIRMSconsulting Insiders and SLIDES members, have access should they need to dive deeper into a specific topic (e.g., competitive strategy, digital & IT strategy, implementation, problem-solving, etc.).


Due to the page number restrictions for print books, this book is split into two parts. You can follow the rest of the engagement in Part 2.

492 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 14, 2021

Reviews

[Todd Cheng]

I am struggling to rate the book. In the positives the structure helps provide insight in a well organized way to an American 21st century trade craft. The tradecraft has changed much since the late 19th century inception. It now has all the alchemy now of a Special Forces Boot Camp blended with a franchise for shaping agents of critical thinking and change management. It has cycled through Structure, Strategy, and now staff development with parity to a religion.

But, there are two key details that I need the author to aid in clarifying. A couple of parables don’t appear to harmonize with my understanding outside of the written work.

[Sydi Vine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed going through this book that sums up my personal experience as a management consultant. Whilst what the book accounts for is somewhat familiar, it also offers a succinct and structured read into how it works and where it succeeds and where it can go wrong. It was refreshing reading about my own profession.

[A T · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helps you think and develop insights like a strategy partner. It is an immersion into the thinking process to develop insights. It was written in real time and thus takes you through the iterations, the evolving thoughts, the analysis, the entire nitty-gritty of an engagement.

[Beckett Thomsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is part one of a two-part series of books. They take a much different approach to other strategy books that I have read. For example, instead of outlining key principles, findings, or theories based on historical examples and research, this walks you through the actual process of conducting a strategy project using a detailed example, with step-by-step considerations, best-practices, and other guidance on how to actually do the work. It helps you to apply the art of strategy. It is well-written, easy-to-follow, and is complementary to both their other publications and general literature on strategy. I purchased the soft-copy books and they are high-quality, with the right size to hold in your hand and flip through, with a good font size that is very readable.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Firms Consulting always comes out with the most comprehensive, readable guides that walk you through the thought process of strategy. I like how each of the section comes with some future steps and questions to consider - it helps me apply the lessons to my own situation, and forces me to be think actively instead of just passively reading.
The text is organized in bite-sized but substantive sections to read on the go or work through and reflect on over a period of time. And as always, diagrams and flowcharts illustrating the processes described are included. I'm still working through it, but this is an invaluable resource to think about strategy and how to run an engagement (or something like it) in new and deeper ways. Highly recommend.

[TJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strategy, Book 1 and 2 do a remarkable job of helping the reflective practitioner up their game. These books reveal the ‘messy side’ of strategy engagements and how to think like a top consultant as you iterate your way through the noise and dead ends of real-world business problems, equipping you with the skills to generate deep insights and an implementable plan your clients can rely on to gain advantage.

Filled with nuggets of wisdom and practical strategies, each easy-to-read chapter delivers key questions and encouraging prompts to think better and more deeply about your clients’ problems. The structured and highly detailed process is 1st class.

[jeeves · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This is not any other book, it's one of the closest companion you could have when combatting toughest challenges of mankind!"

I always say, "If you find firmsconsulting content through a recommendation, you must have done something exceptional or rare to earn it...and if you find it by accident, you are lucky and privileged!" This work once again confirms my belief.

I think what's unique and special about this particular work is that it gives you the closest and most real flight simulation kind of experience/thrill of a strategy engagement without any consequences if you crash which makes it more useful and fun!

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great book by FIRMSconsulting. If you are keen to learn and deploy the techniques in leading consulting firms in your engagements, this is the book to get. With this book can be treated as a one-stop-shop for what you need to know and do in managing your projects, which gives affords the time to focus on your project.

[Terry Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a consulting engagement - strategy study for a state-owned bank client from emerging market, detailed by a former McKinsey partner on a daily / weekly basis. Now you can access top firm partner's thought process and how he leads and manages a project and interacts with client's executives. Equip yourself at the level of consulting partner. This is the best investment you won't regret.

[Amar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Live thru a strategy engagement. This book lays out an engagement in a week/step wise manner and also articulates various experiences and emotions - for example conversations with team members and with one self. A must read to understand the process on the one hand, and also to imbibe the mid set and value of an elite consultant/ firm

[A T · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helps you think and develop insights like a strategy partner. It is an immersion into the thinking process to develop insights. It was written in real time and thus takes you through the iterations, the evolving thoughts, the analysis, the entire nitty-gritty of an engagement.

[Miljana Jovanovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend Strategy Part I to anyone interested in strategic planning. It offers a step-by-step, easy-to-follow framework that takes you through the planning process. I have read other books by the author and appreciate that this story links to the themes in her other publications.

[S B · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is an excellent read on the mechanics of how to develop a strategy framework. Through a particular strategy engagement, the author has performed an excellent job in distilling key principles that can be applied universally across any strategy engagement.

[Ravi Iyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book ..its a manual for life. One should read it , imbibe the essence and try and approach situations adopting the approach advised. Though there are prescribed steps, yet one finds small areas to modulate the theme as per the situation.