Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
One of the first things you learn early on as a consultant is that it is impossible to have a precise answer to every question. There simply is not enough time in your busy schedule, and rarely is there good enough data, to get at the precision and accuracy that is needed for a “perfect [...]
Fro-yo
My current manager loves Fro-yo (frozen yogurt) to an almost absurd degree. Having had some type of frozen yogurt for four years in college, my enthusiasm, while still there (as it still tastes good), is not quite as strong as his. The result? I get a lot of amusement out of some of our case [...]
Layers upon layers
… upon layers… upon layers… of bureaucracy (HT: Dilbert) It’d be even funnier if it weren’t such an accurate depiction of many companies today. (Dilbert cartoon strip)
Consultant syndrome
It could happen to you too (HT: Megan McArdle). Symptoms include excessive desire to represent every decision and factoid in life in simple chart form, especially in PowerPoint slide form. Treatment: long vacation with deep exposure to how people actually talk and relate to other humans.
Surviving a consultant’s axe
Gawker, who seems to really hate McKinsey and other management consulting firms, recently put out a “Complete McKinsey Survival Guide” in response to McKinsey recently being retained by magazine publisher Conde Nast where they lay out a couple of interesting thoughts on how to survive a consultant’s downsizing tendencies including: “Suck Up—Kiss ass, Kiss ass, [...]
My Hobby
It’s not just Dilbert who makes fun of forecasting, XKCD is into it as well: I wouldn’t call it a hobby, though. More like a day job that involves doing what is effectively described above, but making slightly more reasonable assumptions .
18 months
My consulting experience has been pretty atypical so far. Most consultants rotate between cases and roles every couple of months. Me? Up until about a few weeks ago, I had been doing corporate strategy work for the same technology client for 18 months (which is a long time – hence the picture of the old [...]
Farewell to the interviewer
One of my colleagues is leaving my firm today, as he’ll be attending business school at Stanford GSB this coming fall. As is custom, he left a fairly touching email, but the most amusing anecdote is something I will share: And last but not least, to my first round interviewer, who made this all possible, [...]
Stuck between a big company and a startup place
I sometimes feel like I’m caught between two worlds. On the one hand, I feel a strong tug towards the “Silicon Valley dream” of entrepreneurship. Friends of mine like Charles Ju, Founder and CEO of PlayMesh, the maker of one of the top iPhone games out there (iMafia) are living that dream – driven by [...]
Forecasting
As I’ve mentioned before, a good businessperson makes contingency plans. But to make those plans, its necessary to have some insight into what the future will bring – which explains why agencies like Gartner, IDC, and Forrester make millions of dollars selling market research reports to companies who are seeking either: insight into the future [...]
