How issue tree

For a more comprehensive guide on the rules of MECE — including its potential drawbacks — check out this comprehensive guide on the MECE principle right here. Adherence to this rule ensures that there will be no duplicated efforts , leading to maximum efficiency in problem-solving. It also allows the consultant to isolate the root cause more easily otherwise, one root cause may manifest in multiple branches, making it harder to pinpoint. For example, a car manufacturer trying to find out the cause of its decreasing unit sales may use the cleanly-separated product segments: high-end, mid-range, and entry-level.

The branches and sub-branches in an issue tree must cover all possible factors — in other words, there must be no gap in the tree. This second rule ensures that all root causes can be identified so that the problem will be solved with maximum effectiveness. On a side note, if one factor is not related to the problem, it is not included.

If the aforementioned car manufacturer omits any of the three product segments in its analysis, it may also ignore one or a few root causes, leading to ineffective problem-solving. On the other hand, even if it produces race cars to compete in motorsports, these race cars should not be included in the issue tree because they do not contribute to unit sales.

In a MECE segmentation, every item must be parallel, i. A MECE segmentation should arrange the items in a logical order. The ideal number of branches on any level of the issue tree is three — the most intuitive number to the human mind. Three items are often enough to yield significant insights, while still being easy to analyze and follow; segmentations into 2 or 4 items are also common. The manufacturer in the example may have 12 product lines distributed across the segments; however, having 12 branches in the issue tree is counter-intuitive and counter-productive, so we use the much more manageable 3 segments.

There should be minimal to no connections between the branches of the issue tree. If the branches are interlinked, one root-cause may manifest itself in multiple symptoms across the tree, creating unnecessary confusion in the problem-solving process.

In management consulting and case interview context, frameworks are convenient templates you can use to break down business problems, i. Convenient as they are, however, consulting frameworks should only be treated as general guidelines to be used flexibly, and never as hard-and-fast rules. In actual consulting projects as well as case interviews, frameworks usually require a lot of customizations to become useful.

You should check out this article on Case Interview Frameworks , where I analyzed much deeper about the use as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each common framework. These are the five most common frameworks in business cases:. Which factors would you look at in tackling this problem? The issue tree for this case cannot be drawn using ready-made frameworks.

Remember the rules: be MECE, top-down, and structured. Deep-dive into the secrets of case interviews at top consulting firms, with extensive materials on business intuition, tips and techniques, as well as consulting math! Issue trees can help you answer two types of questions in case interviews: framework questions and creativity questions. At the beginning of the case your interviewer will explain the problem you are trying to solve and ask you which areas you would look at to solve it.

This is what's called a case framework question and issue trees can be really helpful to answer them. Later on in the case, your interviewer will also often ask you a creativity question. For instance, if you have found that your client's profitability issue was coming from an increase in variable costs, your interviewer might ask you: "What are some of the things we could do to decrease variable costs?

Issue trees can therefore be used in case interviews both to find the root-cause of an issue framework questions , but also to generate ideas on how to solve a problem creativity questions. If you would like to get a feel for how these issue trees are used in practice, you can watch the two case interview extracts below.

Now that you know what an issue tree is, let's train putting one together by answering the following question:. For the purpose of this question, let's imagine that you are a full time employee at a company. Before looking at the answer key below you should spend 2 or 3 minutes building your own issue tree and then comparing it to our suggestion. If you have any thoughts or questions about our suggested answer don't hesitate to leave a comment below and our team will answer you.

Let's create an issue tree that explores how we can grow our personal income. Don't hesitate to let us know in the comment section below! And you can make some areas of your tree deeper than others. To do this you use the MECE principle. Easy, right? Well, kind of. Most problems out there are harder than drawing rectangles. Anyway, enough with MECE. Technique 1: Create a Math Tree. Obviously you can only do that if your problem is numerical.

A math tree is a layered equation. Each part of the tree equals the previous bucket. And each full layer is a complete equation of the variable that's being broken down. So, how to do it? Use a proven formula. If you know a formula that fits the problem well, just use it! But knowing some of these, especially the most basic ones does help a lot. The "Dimensional Analysis" method. The Funnel method. This works wonders when the target metric is a percentage or is the end result of a funnel.

Take one example from e-commerce: Conversion Rate. How can you break that down? Simple, you multiply the steps of the funnel from visitor to buyer. Use a sum of segments. However, it can be useful. I wrote an article specifically on profitability trees that you can check out here.

But not every problem is numerical and can be structured using equations alone. Step 1: Define the problem specifically no need to be a numerical variable here. Case example:. A small management consulting firm wants to improve the quality of its new recruits. How would you help them do that? The most important thing to define in this problem is what is "quality". Which structure would you choose as a 1st layer and why?

What's next? Well, you could very well end your Issue Tree here. Or you could dig a few more layers deeper. It really depends on the situation. Click the arrow on the right to see what my next layer would look like. I use it every day of my life, either on paper or just in my head. How Elon Musk changes the world structuring problems in "obvious" ways.

But how does he do that? There are two underlying logics to the company:. Again, no rocket science here although a bit of tunneling science. Now, onto what matters for us: 1 Most traffic specialists know that trying to reduce demand is an uphill battle and that expanding road capacity is mostly fruitless.

And yet, no one looked at the big picture and questioned things from first principles. And this means if you want to think from first principles, draw Issue Trees. Like what you read so far?

Share the guide on you favorite social media! Share on facebook. Share on twitter. Share on linkedin. Technique 3: Creating Decision Trees. But I will give you a simple example below so you can see what I mean. There are also different types of decision trees. Want to learn to structure any case?

Man does not live by bread alone. Separate different problems early on. Most people who see a huge Issue Tree for the first time are overwhelmed.

Of course they are! First you get the problem question and your only concern is to define it well. Then your only concern is to break it down into a first layer.

One bite at a time, you will eat the whole metaphorical elephant. Each part must be MECE. There are many MECE ways to break down any problem. The one that adds more insight to the problem.

Here are two resources to help you make your structures more insightful and problem-specific: The first is a Youtube video on how to make better revenue trees. Clarify what you need in each layer you build. You might be shy, but hey, overcome that shyness! You can ask first.

Watch and practice real case interview structures! Join our FREE 7-day course on case interviews. When I was preparing for my case interview I looked for good Issue Tree examples all around. I found none. Not my style! Example 1 - Airline fuel costs surge. You can do that too! Takeaway 2: Stop each branch when it can reasonably explain the source of the problem I have stopped some parts of my tree in Layer 2, other parts in Layer 3 and others in Layer 4.

How did I make this call? And so I went a level deeper. Takeaway 3: You can still go deeper in the buckets you need If the last take away gives you an idea on where to stop structuring the Issue Tree, this one gives you permission to dig deeper than that.

Why that might be happening? Example 2 - Overwhelmed consultant productivity. Real consultants have their own personal problems to solve as well. And often time they will solve them with Issue Trees! This tree is solving a more qualitative problem than Example 1, but the techniques still work. You define the problem really specifically at first.

Of course your tree can still be different than this one and still be correct. If so, your Issue Tree is good to go! Example 3 - Help a government solve illiteracy in children. In fact, the whole Issue Tree is built by separating different problems over and over again. Friends help friends build Issue Trees Common mistakes and questions.

Making mistakes if part of the learning process. What you can learn from the key mistakes of real Issue Trees from real candidates. The first Issue Tree I wanna show you was sent by Anastasia. Here it is:. Seems like a quite good Issue Tree, right? I mean, it describes quite well the process of a warehouse. Well, not quite. Most of the tree is not talking about theft at all! This Issue Tree is actually quite good! But it has three main mistakes. Can you guess what they are?

Well, I gave you the main one in the title. And what would this Issue Tree that digs into the potential causes look like? Now, you might be thinking: what are the other two mistakes she made? And the last mistake she did was one related to problem definition.

Can you spot it? Not necessarily! Probably not, right? Again many problems with this Tree. Always be MECE and especially so on the first layer! I actually like this Issue Tree quite a bit.

Maybe her mistakes were showing in her Issue Tree? There are two great mistakes with this tree. It is on the first layer. Because measuring overall crime is a pain.

And getting that data, an even higher pain. Also, how regional should the data be? And in a final round that could make all the difference. Commonly Asked Questions. Learning from the mistakes of others is a great way to accelerate your learning curve! But still, you might have some questions in your head. How do I know if Issue Trees are the tool for the job?

Great questions! Well, whenever you want to be able to foresee the steps to the solution of the problem. Question 2 is a bit trickier to answer… There are other structuring techniques — ways to break down the problem — that you can use. Should I start with a hypothesis? A lot of people who teach case interviews say you should start with a hypothesis. Being hypothesis-driven is tricky because you also have to be structured and MECE.

So, how do you make your hypotheses MECE? How to know what should be a clarifying question and what should be a question within the Issue Tree? Great question, glad you asked that! You use them to understand the problem better. Case Partner. Meeting Board Candidate Listing. Interactive Tools. Login Sign up for free. Show table of contents Hide table of contents. Crack the Case Interview. Ace the Personal Fit Interview.

Master the Problem Solving Test. Written tests such as the PSTs Which companies are currently using written tests? Case Cracking Identify your Case Type. Structure your Thoughts. Practice your Basics. Common Terms of Business. Next article. Apply the concept of issue trees in our New Magazine Case. Allow YouTube videos. Do you have questions on this article? Ask a question. Related Cases.