the bulletproof problem solving

Online Course

Complex problem solving is  the  core skill for the 21st  Century , the only way to keep up with rapid change.  But systematic problem solving is not taught in most universities and graduate schools. The online course covers the  seven-step approach to creative problem solving  developed in leading consulting firms. It employs a  highly visual, logic-tree method  that can be applied to almost any problem, from strategic business decisions to global social challenges. Conn and McLean, with  decades of   experience at McKinsey, start-up companies, and environment-focused foundations,  provide a toolkit with detailed, real-world examples.

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Bulletproof Problem Solving Online Course

The Bulletproof Problem Solving online course is a comprehensive and interactive course that provides the user with key learnings from the best selling book,  Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything . The online course provides insights from the Bulletproof Problem Solving authors, Conn and McLean.

The online course is a self guided, highly interactive course with 4-6 hours of content. The course is designed for people to work at their own pace and develop the problem solving skills employed at leading management consulting firms. There are many worked example problems to practice the 7-step process, as well as a bonus workbook to help solve problems from your own organisation.  

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Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything

Charles conn , robert mclean.

320 pages, Paperback

Published March 6, 2019

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Bulletproof problem solving : the one skill that changes everything

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• Foreword ix
• Introduction: Problem Solving for the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century xiii
• Chapter 1 Learn the Bulletproof Problem Solving Approach 1 A straightforward seven-step process is the key to bulletproof problem solving.
• Chapter 2 Define the Problem 31 Take time upfront to fully understand the problem and its context.
• Chapter 3 Problem Disaggregation and Prioritization 49 Cleave the problem into manageable parts.
• Chapter 4 Build a Great Workplan and Team Processes 87 Drive your workplans from hypotheses to action for efficient problem solving.
• Chapter 5 Conduct Analyses 111 Start with summary statistics and heuristics to find simple answers to complex problems.
• Chapter 6 Big Guns of Analysis 135 Employ sophisticated tools of analysis with confidence when they are needed.
• Chapter 7 Synthesize Results and Tell a Great Story 179 Synthesize your analysis and turn it into a compelling narrative.
• Chapter 8 Problem Solving with Long Time Frames and High Uncertainty 195 Add tools to address issues of long time frames and uncertainty.
• Chapter 9 Wicked Problems 235 Unpick wicked problems to yield surprising insights.
• Chapter 10 Becoming a Great Problem Solver 253 The magic of the bulletproof process is now yours.
• Appendix: Blank Worksheets for You to Try 259
• About the Authors 265
• Acknowledgments 267
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

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Want better strategies? Become a bulletproof problem solver

In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast , McKinsey senior partner Chris Bradley interviews Rob McLean, McKinsey director emeritus, about applying a disciplined, comprehensive approach to problem solving. You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or Google Podcasts .

Sean Brown: From McKinsey’s Strategy and Corporate Finance Practice, I’m Sean Brown. Welcome to Inside the Strategy Room . As the pace of social, economic, and technological change accelerates, organizations everywhere must make increasingly complex decisions in the face of an uncertain future. This is why the value of creative and strategic thinkers capable of solving complex problems has never been higher.

During today’s episode, we have a conversation between Chris Bradley, a senior partner in our Sydney office, and Rob McLean, a director emeritus of the firm, a trustee of the Nature Conservancy in Australia and Asia, and director of Australia’s largest philanthropic foundation, the Paul Ramsay Foundation. Rob, along with Charles Conn, is the coauthor of a recently published book called Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything [John Wiley & Sons, 2018]. Chris and Rob recently met in our Sydney office to talk about Rob’s new book and how a disciplined and comprehensive approach to problem solving can be applied to almost any kind of problem—from personal decisions through to business strategies and on to some of most complex challenges facing society today. We hope you enjoy listening to their conversation.

Chris Bradley: Welcome, Rob. It’s just great to have you here on our podcast. You’ve had such an interesting and long career since you graduated in the ’60s. How did that lead to this book, Bulletproof Problem Solving ?

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Rob McLean: I had no real plan to write a book, but I found myself at a Nature Conservancy trustee meeting in Washington. I was on a panel with Jim Morgan, a legendary Silicon Valley CEO, and Jim talked about this book that he had written. Then I had the long trip home from Washington and thought to myself, “What would I write a book about?” I thought, well, the unifying thing is that I’ve had a problem-solving life and that involved my first real job at RAND in New York, followed by 25 years at McKinsey. Since that time, a lot of the work I’ve done has been with the Nature Conservancy, which is a problem solver in the environment—and more recently, in philanthropy.

Chris Bradley: It sounds like you got this inspiration to write the book. Tell me about the inception of it.

Rob McLean: It turned out that one of my fellow partners in Australia was Charles Conn, who wrote the original “7 easy steps to bullet-proof problem solving.” I went and saw Charles in his role as warden of the Rhodes Trust at the University of Oxford and said I had this idea that we ought to write a book about problem solving because nothing really existed that shared the way to go about problem solving that we’d learned at the firm.

When I had that conversation with Charles, I talked about some of the things I was doing in conservation and social enterprise. And he talked about what he had been doing with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and with other philanthropic foundations and how he taught the young Rhodes Scholars the seven-step process. So out of that, we agreed that we would have a crack at writing a book on problem solving. We spent a summer at the University of Oxford at Rhodes House together with my wife Paula, who is a book editor, and a team of Rhodes Scholars, who were our case writers and research assistants.

Chris Bradley: You’ve set yourself a high bar, calling this book Bulletproof Problem Solving . What makes you believe that this really is bulletproof?

Rob McLean: “Bulletproof problem solving” is an expression we used at McKinsey that meant that what you came up with to present to the client was ironclad. It really was a test of just how rigorously you’d gone about defining the problem, breaking it down, and doing the analysis.

Chris Bradley: So it’s about the bulletproof aspect coming from rigor. What is a bulletproof problem solver then? And why do we need them now?

Rob McLean: What we’ve reflected on in writing the book is that by almost any measure, the world is more complex and uncertain. To our surprise, we came across some work done by the World Economic Forum that lists complex problem solving as the number-one skill for 2020. There’s also work by the McKinsey leadership group that shows that organizations that have problem-solving capability in the top quartile earn something like 3.5 times higher total return to shareholders than those in the bottom quartile. It seems to us that it’s not just an individual skill—it’s also becoming an institutional skill in demand.

Chris Bradley: In your book, you not only explain to us why problem solving is more important than ever and more relevant, but you also go through how to be a bulletproof problem solver. What’s your synopsis there?

Rob McLean: We’ve got some 30 examples that include individual problems, like “Should I have knee arthroscopy?” and “Where should I live?,” and business problems, such as on competitive strategy, “Should I raise my prices or not raise my prices?,” and “Should we go to court and sue people who are infringing on patents?” What we’ve tried to show is that it’s basically the same process that underpins individual, business, and societal problems. Good problem solvers are made, not born. If you want to become an outstanding problem solver, it’s within your grasp. We’re not drawing a line around only dealing with problems that involve good knowledge of accounting or business. People can find their way into the book and into a range of problems that we think are all addressable.

Chris Bradley: I remember when I joined McKinsey, over 20 years ago now, and encountered the seven steps of problem solving. I remember thinking, “Where was this my whole university life?”

Rob McLean: I had a similar experience as dean of a business school in Australia. I saw the students picking up fantastic capabilities in finance, marketing, and change management. But what I didn’t see was a systematic process for dealing with relatively unstructured problems: the ability to define the problem, particularly in terms of what decision makers were looking for, or the ability to disaggregate the problem. Very few problems can ever be solved at the highest level. There’s got to be some way to break the problem down into parts that you can address and then take that into a set of priorities, a work plan analysis, and then recommendations that lead to action. What I saw then, as dean, I continue to see now. College graduates, for the most part, do not know how to solve complex problems that we talk about in the book. And we think that’s a real gap in education globally.

Chris Bradley: So they have depth in their functional wheelhouse, but if they come across a problem that doesn’t fit into one of those taxonomies, we hit trouble, don’t we? And you’re right. More and more of the problems we’re encountering, both as you get more senior in your organization but also as the world gets more complex, aren’t going to fit in those neat buckets, are they?

Rob McLean: No, they’re not. One of the things that we’re very pleased about is that Eric Schmidt, the former chairman and CEO of Google, made the comment with our book that, at Google, they always hired for creative problem-solving talent above all else. We think that’s happening with more and more organizations. It becomes not just a nice to have but a must-have for both business-school graduates and college graduates more generally.

Chris Bradley: One of the things I really love about your book, Rob, is these 30 cases and stories. It really brings it to life, and it allows you to see the common threads there. Let’s start there but perhaps with what happens when you get it wrong. What’s at stake here? What are some examples of when problem solving goes off the path?

Rob McLean: Often it’s missed opportunity. We have an example in the book where in the 1980s, IBM paid 20 percent to buy Intel, and it had another 10 percent of warrants in the company. It sold it for $625 million in 1986–87, and that was worth $25 billion a decade later. Similarly, it had the opportunity to buy 30 percent of Microsoft for $300 million in 1986. And ten years later, that was worth $33 billion.

Chris Bradley: We’re all geniuses in hindsight. What was the failure of problem solving that you saw in those examples?

Rob McLean: It has to be that understanding of the market dynamics and the way that the PC industry was going to evolve. And as you know, IBM was quite a significant player in that business. The amounts of wealth that were created in this case were just quite staggering.

There are also examples from the personal level that we talk about in the book. I talk about whether I should have arthroscopic knee surgery. And then, in the social area and the environment, there’s a lot of things that can go wrong. We give examples of whether you should trade off the loss of fish stocks in rivers in Southeast Asia, where there’s huge hydroelectric potential. There’s some very, very clever work that’s being done by the Nature Conservancy and others to highlight that you can get 90 percent plus of the power by having minimal impact on the fish stocks. But if you go to getting 100 percent of the power, you have an enormous impact on the fish stocks and, of course, on the populations that depend on fish for their livelihoods.

Chris Bradley: What you’re saying is that if you’re not a rigorous, bulletproof problem solver, you’re just going to accept common wisdom. That means you’re going to accept a whole bunch of dumb risks, and you’re going to say no to a bunch of really good opportunities. There’s something about bulletproof problem solving that allows us to see what’s not the common wisdom.

For several years, we’ve talked about strategy in terms of ten tests that define what a good strategy looks like. And test five says, “Do you have a privileged insight or foresight?” The idea is that too often in strategic processes, we saw common math plus common data equals common wisdom. And therefore, clients were surprised that their strategy didn’t lead to a terrifically differentiating or winning position. Talk to us about the problem solver’s knack for getting that privileged insight—that insight that really makes the difference.

Rob McLean: So much of the time, I see it coming from a team leader asking good questions. We had a CEO of a resources company in Australia, Rod Carnegie. His mining company had its most significant asset with these trucks that move iron ore. One of the biggest issues it had was with maintenance and tire changes. Rod asked the question, “Who does this best in the world?” And the answer was Formula 1. So they sent a team off from the Pilbara to the UK to look at the whole procedure, processes, and protocols for changing out tires. It had a very significant impact on the way they thought about it. So that’s an example of a question that led to a different way of going about things.

More frequently, the insight that I saw for years at McKinsey came from talking to people at the front line and, particularly, talking to customers. We have an example in the book of the Avahan project, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, that arrested the spread of HIV in India [avahan means “a call to action” in Sanskrit]. The leader of that project, Ashok Alexander, spent something like a year interviewing over 1,000 sex workers in different parts of India to understand what was happening to them, and a lot of it related to violence. Out of that interview process came the Avahan project, which basically meant that the community was engaged. The journalists, the lawyer from the community, and the women were able to send off a mobile-phone message when they were in distress. And that model was rolled out to 673 towns and villages in two years. They scaled it up really quite quickly. But the insight for the solution came from these women at the front line.

Chris Bradley: How did that differ from the more orthodox way of eliminating HIV?

Rob McLean: There was what you’d call a public-health view that said you should stop the transmission. The hypothesis was that it was because of men on the move at truck stops, and you could show that there were hot spots of the spread of HIV. That was the starting hypothesis.

But Ashok had two insights. One was that every sex worker had 20 to 50 clients. So there was a lot more leverage in working with the sex workers than the men on the move. That was one that didn’t require much analysis, and he had that very early on with his problem-solving capability and discipline. But the way he describes the solution, he feels it owes so much to the learning he got from the women that he spent time with.

Chris Bradley: It’s a great example of problem search, isn’t it? Because the first problem is, “How do we reduce HIV transmission?” Then that led to the problem of, “How do we make sex workers practice safe sex more often?” And that led to the next problem, which was, “Why is it that they’re not doing that?” Which came into these things about attitudes and threats of violence, et cetera.

Rob McLean: That’s right.

Chris Bradley: That’s a fascinating story. Let’s continue in the strategy vein. Some might argue all we really do in our strategy work with clients is just good problem solving applied to a specific business context. What is it about the field of strategy that, in some ways, might bring out the best and the worst in problem solvers?

Rob McLean: Both good strategy and good problem solving involve getting clarity about the problem at hand, being able to disaggregate it in some way, and setting priorities. One of the examples I have is with serving in tennis, which may seem a little bit of a frivolous pursuit. I’ve used a game-theory framework for looking at it: Where do you serve in tennis? You have to think about your own strengths and competitor weaknesses, and you have to bring unpredictability to bear. The way that I’ve laid out a decision tree for where I should serve is based on all of those things.

Chris Bradley: How do you play to win in tennis?

Rob McLean: I’m a left-hander, so I have the advantage on the ad side of being able to serve out quite wide. However that makes me somewhat predictable about where I’m going to serve on key points. I have to have the ability to be able to serve down either the tee or the body, and that brings the unpredictability in—and often turns out to be the basis of a winning point.

Chris Bradley: That’s interesting because a strength that is truly predictable stops being a strength, and that leads in the game-theory literature into mix-strategy equilibria, where the right answer is to mix it up in a certain proportion.

Rob McLean: Exactly.

Chris Bradley: What you’re saying is when we’re doing strategy, it’s not playing tennis against the wall—against ourselves. There’s an opponent in there who we’ve got to outsmart. I think that’s one of the first really important insertions in the problem-solving process that’s important with strategies. You’re not bowling alone. You’re not racing alone. There’s someone else there, and what you do is going to affect what they do—and what they believe as well.

On this uncertainty point, that’s another point where I think strategy differentiates from your more meat-and-potatoes problems. You’ve got to deal with the fact that you’re making decisions now that last a long time. So therefore, 99 percent of the shelf life of your strategies are going to be in a world you don’t know much about, because it’s called the future. Talk to me about how great problem solvers bring uncertainty into the mix.

Rob McLean: I think they do several things. They try to calibrate what the level of uncertainty is and whether that’s going to impact the range of choices they have. For what we refer to as “higher levels of uncertainty,” we then bring out a tool kit that you’re very familiar with that involves how you think about what the no-regrets moves are that you ought to do. Usually they are about building capability. What are some of the low-cost options that you can pursue that position you in the space and that allow you to learn? And then figure out that timing for when you make a big bet.

One of the examples that illustrates this in the book is we looked at the resources company BHP, which was making a 50-plus-year commitment. That’s a long time. It was 50 to 100 years. And we were able to satisfy ourselves the investment looked attractive.

We looked at uncertainty on two major dimensions. One was the iron-ore price, and the second was what happened to the Australian dollar–US dollar exchange rate. We looked at scenarios where the iron-ore price had an expected level, but then we had levels when it fell by two standard deviations, so we’re covering 95 percent of possibilities, and then when it went up by two standard deviations. And then we looked at the range of possibilities of the exchange rate. That then allowed us to say we had a level of confidence that we had a venture that could both survive and prosper in the most likely scenarios—and even the worst of the scenarios. We were able to calibrate the uncertainty and have a way forward.

Chris Bradley: Putting a box around the uncertainty does two things. The first thing is that often, in the face of uncertainty, our clients will say, “Well, everything’s uncertain, so it’s an ambiguous world. Let’s just muddle along.” Or they say the exact opposite, which is, “Pretend uncertainty doesn’t exist, and put it in the corner, and have it as the last page of the pack with risks and uncertainties.” But if you’re bringing it in the center and putting a box around it, what you’d see is that just because the world is highly uncertain, it doesn’t mean that the decision should be uncertain, because in this case, what you found was it was worth proceeding under a very wide range of scenarios.

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Rob McLean: But there was something that happened that was quite important in this. We talk in the book quite a lot about having team structures that have diversity and that allow different viewpoints to be brought together. We had one team member who was very bright, but he played the devil’s advocate in the project. We have an expression, which I know still applies at McKinsey, of having an “obligation to dissent.” He took that very, very seriously. That required us doing the work to have a level of confidence about the solution: that even in adverse scenarios, we had a robust solution to this problem. That too often is missing in problem-solving settings.

Chris Bradley: I love that idea. If you’re going to put a box around uncertainty, it’d better be a good box. That means you need lots of conflicting views.

Rob, since leaving McKinsey, you’ve continued your problem-solving life. In some ways, you’ve graduated from everyday business problems into problems that are perhaps more of a wider global nature in terms of environmental or social problems. And you coined this term in the book: “wicked problem.” Tell us about what it’s like to solve wicked problems.

Rob McLean: There are a lot of wicked problems. It’s hard to say that they’re solved. They keep on needing to be re-solved. But there are cases where I think some significant gains have been made.

Chris Bradley: What is it that makes a problem wicked?

Rob McLean: Take social problems, like obesity, which is one that we tackle in the book. Multiple causes is one significant dimension to it. Often, it’s unintended consequences when you seek to solve the problem in a particular way that make it worse rather than better.

Chris Bradley: Or it creates other problems.

Rob McLean: Or sometimes there are just value disagreements among players about whether this is good, or bad, or otherwise. They’re the kind of problems you have to find a way to pick apart—find ways to have entry to have impact, without feeling that you’re tackling the whole thing at once.

Chris Bradley: Those are complex, messy problems where there’s no benevolent dictator to make everything all right again.

Rob McLean: The example we use with obesity really reflects a quite brilliant piece of work done by the McKinsey Global Institute  where they took the UK and arrayed some 44 interventions that would have the prospect of lowering those with obesity by something like 25 percent in five years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more ambitious and rigorously set-out answer to a wicked problem.

Chris Bradley: That’s a classic multiple-causes situation in which trying to find the right intervention is really, really tough, isn’t it?

I want to talk about getting the conditions right for solving a problem well. In our book Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick: People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds [John Wiley & Sons, 2018], we talk a lot about the social side of strategy. What is it that gets in the way of the purest answers to strategy? And it’s often got things to do with competing interests, and different perspectives, and a lot of bias to the status quo in existing power structures, and so forth. What are the big hacks you have in your book for getting the conditions right for problem solving?

Rob McLean: We do spend quite a lot of time talking about alerting people to biases. They’re not dissimilar to the biases you list around confirmation, loss aversion, availability, and so forth. We also put great weight on team structures. What we might have said more loudly is that you have to have leaders who are prepared to look at sometimes quite-radical choices and real alternatives.

One of the examples we use is the case of mineral exploration, where a CEO agreed to anchor outside rather than anchor inside. In that case, it meant looking at the practices of the best companies in mineral exploration as well as the worst. And that turned out to provide a major insight to us about where exploration reported to the CEO, the level of science in the organization, and the culture that supported it and shifted it to a much more successful strategy. But if you don’t have leadership that is prepared to look at the redefinition of the problem statement, your chances of getting great problem solving are much reduced.

Chris Bradley: Strategists today have more analytical tools at their disposal than ever before. I don’t want to age you too much, Rob, but you started with a slide rule, I think. Then you had the trusty Hewlett-Packard calculator, which people my age just can’t use, because it’s backward to us. And I started in Excel spreadsheets. But now there’s thousands of times more analytical problem-solving horsepower and data to apply to it. How does a problem solver cope with all of that? How do you use these tools well?

Rob McLean: We say to teams that you always should start with heuristics and rules of thumb. For example, say we had a merger or acquisition, and there were three conditions for success that might involve the cost reduction and customer acquisition and retention. Now if each of these three conditions had an 80 percent chance of success, we’d say that if they were independent, there’s only a 50 percent chance of success of the merger. Thinking that way around joint probabilities is where you start.

Chris Bradley: So have good priors.

Rob McLean: Have good priors. Then just start looking at the data.

We’ve got an example in the book about London air quality. I’d read a piece saying that 3,000 people had died in London seven or eight years ago because of PM2.5 [atmospheric particulate matter with diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers], the small particles. So I asked one of our researchers to pull down two data sets. One was on PM2.5, and the other was on asthma hospital admissions in London. I gave him an hour, and he produced this diagram that showed these hot spots. There was enough in that diagram that showed there was something you’d want to explore more closely.

So before you jump into machine learning or major regression analysis, look at the tails—look at where the mean, median, and mode are. Those things then help you with the hypothesis that you want to set for a major piece of regression analysis or machine learning.

Chris Bradley: And somehow through that, you’ve even managed to link obesity to how good the footpaths are in a city. Talk to me about that.

Rob McLean: We know that obesity is a major issue. And we thought, as a team, “How would we start thinking about it?” The first thought thing was, “How would you compare caloric intake with caloric use in the US and Japan?” The team quickly got the numbers on that. It didn’t take more than a half an hour. What we found in Japan was that they had lower caloric intake and that they had substantially more caloric use. And it was like, “Well, why is that?” Well, it was the structure of their cities—walking to the train station, walking to the office. So suddenly, we had this variable of walkability that we needed to explore.

We then asked one of our researchers to take a look at whether we could look at the US and look at differences between obesity in different US cities. He pulled together data on 68 US cities. We were able to determine that there’s an enormous difference in obesity. Some 82 percent of the variance is explained by three variables: income, education, and walkability.

Chris Bradley: And walkability’s the new thing no one was talking about.

Rob McLean: So just kicking around different ways to break down the problem, we came across something that was quite interesting that we think presents a major opportunity for cities to rethink their design in a way that aids walkability.

Chris Bradley: So far from replacing the way you might do problem solving, these new analytical techniques are just allowing you to go deeper and faster. What hasn’t changed, though, is that classic, almost Sherlock Holmes exploration of, “Why?”

We are getting to a world where these algorithms are getting fiendishly good. And they’re getting fiendishly better than humans are at doing certain things like, for example, spotting tumors. What are the chances that our strategists could eventually be made redundant by an algorithm? And what are some of the opportunities and the traps that exist for strategists around this world of machine learning?

Rob McLean: It seems to me that there’s some terrific ways to use machine learning. You may be familiar with Kaggle, which crowdsources machine-learning problems. If you can put a data set of borrowers on Kaggle, something like 500 or 600 teams would come up with predictions for bankruptcy in the next two years from that data set. And the client will choose the algorithm that works best. So that seems to me a good use of algorithms.

Chris Bradley: Yes. And the idea that one very smart team sitting in an office building can beat 500 teams is laughable, isn’t it?

Rob McLean: We also see it in the example we’ve got about using drones for beach safety. Having a drone with a camera and attaching machine-learning algorithms, we’ve shown in Australia that you can have something like 90 percent accuracy in distinguishing a shark from a porpoise and from a human. But you still require that lifesaver on the beach to see people in trouble. So you’re coupling human capability with machine-learning capability to get a better outcome. We’ve gone a step further. I talked earlier about problem solving being an institutional skill that’s being valued in the share market with total returns to shareholders. We think we’re going to see a combination of mental muscle, which is the cognitive problem solving, and machine muscle that will distinguish the better companies going forward.

Chris Bradley: So it’s almost as though these tools are forcing us, in some ways, to be more fundamental problem solvers because a lot of our brain load used to go in making the calculations, which are now happening automatically.

Robert McLean: Let me give another example. There’s an enormous temptation now to just run algorithms over data sets and “boil the ocean.” That was always something when I was learning problem solving that was anathema.

Take another example that’s on Kaggle, which is the Titanic problem. The question they asked the machine-learning team, and I think it was close to 2,000 that had a crack at it, was: “Who survived the Titanic ?” What came out of the algorithm was, people who weren’t called “mister.” It’s amusing because you know that you could take a human, and you could ask, “What were the priorities to put people in the lifeboats?” Of course, the answer was women and children. So you can get there in a fashion with machine learning.

There’s no question that there is this scope for better identification of disease and to save a lot of labor. But we see the same value in doing problem solving, with defining a problem, breaking it down, having hypotheses, and testing them initially with simple data before you go on to run these algorithms.

Chris Bradley: Rob, thank you so much for your time on this podcast, and all the best with your terrific book, Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything.

Sean Brown: Thanks to Chris and Rob for joining us inside the strategy room. If you’d like to learn more about the strategic problem-solving techniques discussed in this episode, Rob’s book Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything is published by John Wiley & Sons and widely available.

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Chris Bradley is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Sydney office, Sean Brown is the global director of communications for strategy and corporate finance and is based in the Boston office, and Rob McLean is a director emeritus in the Melbourne office.

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Book description

Complex problem solving is the core skill for 21st Century Teams

Complex problem solving is at the very top of the list of essential skills for career progression in the modern world. But how problem solving is taught in our schools, universities, businesses and organizations comes up short. In Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything you’ll learn the seven-step systematic approach to creative problem solving developed in top consulting firms that will work in any field or industry, turning you into a highly sought-after bulletproof problem solver who can tackle challenges that others balk at.

The problem-solving technique outlined in this book is based on a highly visual, logic-tree method that can be applied to everything from everyday decisions to strategic issues in business to global social challenges. The authors, with decades of experience at McKinsey and Company, provide 30 detailed, real-world examples, so you can see exactly how the technique works in action. With this bulletproof approach to defining, unpacking, understanding, and ultimately solving problems, you’ll have a personal superpower for developing compelling solutions in your workplace.

• Discover the time-tested 7-step technique to problem solving that top consulting professionals employ
• Learn how a simple visual system can help you break down and understand the component parts of even the most complex problems
• Build team brainstorming techniques that fight cognitive bias, streamline workplanning, and speed solutions
• Know when and how to employ modern analytic tools and techniques from machine learning to game theory
• Learn how to structure and communicate your findings to convince audiences and compel action

The secrets revealed in Bulletproof Problem Solving will transform the way you approach problems and take you to the next level of business and personal success.

Table of contents

• Problem Solving Capability
• Education Gaps
• The Seven‐Steps Process
• High Stakes
• Pitfalls and Common Mistakes
• What's in Store?
• The Bulletproof Problem Solving Cycle
• Prepare for an Avalanche of Trees!
• Let's Start with Some Case Studies
• Case 1: Does Sydney Airport Have Adequate Capacity?
• Case 2: Should Rob Install Solar Panels on His Roof Now?
• Case 3: Where Should I Move?
• Case 4: Making Pricing Decisions in a Start‐up Company
• Case 5: Should Charles Support the Local School Levy?
• Chapter 1 Takeaways
• Problems to Try on Your Own
• Design Thinking and Seven Steps
• Chapter 2 Takeaways
• Introduction
• Types of Logic Trees: Getting Started
• Step 3: Prioritization—Pruning Your Logic Trees
• Advanced Class: Using Cleaving Frames to Take Apart Problems
• Team Processes in Problem Disaggregation and Prioritization
• Chapter 3 Takeaways
• Workplanning and Project Management
• One‐Day Answers
• Great Team Processes for Workplanning and Analysis
• Chapter 4 Takeaways
• Heuristics and Rules of Thumb
• Question‐Based Problem Solving
• Chapter 5 Takeaways
• Firepower Availability
• Sequence Your Thinking
• Which Big Gun to Choose?
• Case Studies for Employing the Big Guns
• Synthesis of Findings
• From One‐Day Answers to Pyramid Structure
• Telling Compelling Stories
• Chapter 7 Takeaways
• Levels of Uncertainty
• Logic Trees to Deal with Uncertainty
• Case Examples of Long Time Frames and Uncertainty
• Case Study: How Should I Choose My Career?
• Case Study: Will My Retirement Savings Last?
• Case Study: How to Make Really Long‐Term Investments
• Case Study: Building New Businesses with Strategic Staircases
• Case Study: Managing a Long‐Term Strategy Portfolio, Pacific Salmon Example
• Chapter 8 Takeaways
• Obesity as a Wicked Problem
• Overfishing: The Quintessential Wicked Problem
• Chapter 9 Takeaways
• Chapter Ten: Becoming a Great Problem Solver
• Appendix: Blank Worksheets for You to Try
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgments
• End User License Agreement

Product information

• Title: Bulletproof Problem Solving
• Author(s): Charles Conn, Robert McLean
• Release date: March 2019
• Publisher(s): Wiley
• ISBN: 9781119553021

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Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything

About this ebook.

Complex problem solving is at the very top of the list of essential skills for career progression in the modern world. But how problem solving is taught in our schools, universities, businesses and organizations comes up short. In Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything you’ll learn the seven-step systematic approach to creative problem solving developed in top consulting firms that will work in any field or industry, turning you into a highly sought-after bulletproof problem solver who can tackle challenges that others balk at.

The problem-solving technique outlined in this book is based on a highly visual, logic-tree method that can be applied to everything from everyday decisions to strategic issues in business to global social challenges. The authors, with decades of experience at McKinsey and Company, provide 30 detailed, real-world examples, so you can see exactly how the technique works in action. With this bulletproof approach to defining, unpacking, understanding, and ultimately solving problems, you’ll have a personal superpower for developing compelling solutions in your workplace.

• Discover the time-tested 7-step technique to problem solving that top consulting professionals employ
• Learn how a simple visual system can help you break down and understand the component parts of even the most complex problems
• Build team brainstorming techniques that fight cognitive bias, streamline workplanning, and speed solutions
• Know when and how to employ modern analytic tools and techniques from machine learning to game theory
• Learn how to structure and communicate your findings to convince audiences and compel action

The secrets revealed in Bulletproof Problem Solving will transform the way you approach problems and take you to the next level of business and personal success.

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About the author

Charles Conn is CEO of the Rhodes Scholarships in Oxford. Previously, he was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, led a technology start-up to its IPO, and was an early team lead at the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation in San Francisco.

Robert McLean is Director Emeritus at McKinsey and Company. He led the Australian and New Zealand McKinsey practice for eight years and served on the firm's global Director's Committee.

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Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything

ISBN: 978-1-119-55302-1

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Charles Conn , Robert McLean

Complex problem solving is the core skill for 21 st Century Teams

Complex problem solving is at the very top of the list of essential skills for career progression in the modern world. But how problem solving is taught in our schools, universities, businesses and organizations comes up short. In Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything you’ll learn the seven-step systematic approach to creative problem solving developed in top consulting firms that will work in any field or industry, turning you into a highly sought-after bulletproof problem solver who can tackle challenges that others balk at.

The problem-solving technique outlined in this book is based on a highly visual, logic-tree method that can be applied to everything from everyday decisions to strategic issues in business to global social challenges. The authors, with decades of experience at McKinsey and Company, provide 30 detailed, real-world examples, so you can see exactly how the technique works in action. With this bulletproof approach to defining, unpacking, understanding, and ultimately solving problems, you’ll have a personal superpower for developing compelling solutions in your workplace.

• Discover the time-tested 7-step technique to problem solving that top consulting professionals employ
• Learn how a simple visual system can help you break down and understand the component parts of even the most complex problems
• Build team brainstorming techniques that fight cognitive bias, streamline workplanning, and speed solutions
• Know when and how to employ modern analytic tools and techniques from machine learning to game theory
• Learn how to structure and communicate your findings to convince audiences and compel action

The secrets revealed in Bulletproof Problem Solving will transform the way you approach problems and take you to the next level of business and personal success.

Charles Conn  is CEO of the Rhodes Scholarships in Oxford. Previously, he was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, led a technology start-up to its IPO, and was an early team lead at the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation in San Francisco.

Robert McLean  is Director Emeritus at McKinsey and Company. He led the Australian and New Zealand McKinsey practice for eight years and served on the firm's global Director's Committee.

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Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything Kindle Edition

Complex problem solving is the core skill for 21 st Century Teams

Complex problem solving is at the very top of the list of essential skills for career progression in the modern world. But how problem solving is taught in our schools, universities, businesses and organizations comes up short. In Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything you’ll learn the seven-step systematic approach to creative problem solving developed in top consulting firms that will work in any field or industry, turning you into a highly sought-after bulletproof problem solver who can tackle challenges that others balk at.

The problem-solving technique outlined in this book is based on a highly visual, logic-tree method that can be applied to everything from everyday decisions to strategic issues in business to global social challenges. The authors, with decades of experience at McKinsey and Company, provide 30 detailed, real-world examples, so you can see exactly how the technique works in action. With this bulletproof approach to defining, unpacking, understanding, and ultimately solving problems, you’ll have a personal superpower for developing compelling solutions in your workplace.

• Discover the time-tested 7-step technique to problem solving that top consulting professionals employ
• Learn how a simple visual system can help you break down and understand the component parts of even the most complex problems
• Build team brainstorming techniques that fight cognitive bias, streamline workplanning, and speed solutions
• Know when and how to employ modern analytic tools and techniques from machine learning to game theory
• Learn how to structure and communicate your findings to convince audiences and compel action

The secrets revealed in Bulletproof Problem Solving will transform the way you approach problems and take you to the next level of business and personal success.

• Print length 303 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Wiley
• Publication date March 4, 2019
• File size 24207 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

From the inside flap.

"Problem solving is the core skill for the twenty-first century. Now, finally, we have a guide to doing it right that any of us can follow." —Dominic Barton, Global Managing Partner Emeritus, McKinsey & Company

PRAISE FOR BULLETPROOF PROBLEM SOLVING

"We always hired for creative problem solving talent above all else; these guys have cracked the code on a replicable approach for problems large and small. Learn it, practice it!" — Eric Schmidt, Former Chairman and CEO, Google; Visiting Innovation Fellow, MIT

"Together Charles and Rob have taken problem solving out of the business school classroom and into real life, where it belongs. Utilizing 30 cases, these masters of the art have something to teach all of us." — James Gorman, Chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley

"As a former policymaker who argues for moving beyond policy to the broader enterprise of public problem solving, I welcome this volume! The techniques and insights apply, with various modifications, to problems everywhere: personal, professional, public and private, local, national and global." — Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America, Former Director of Policy Planning, U.S. Department of State

"Disruption in today's business environment puts problem solving at the top of every leader's challenges. But how? This engaging book puts together a McKinsey team's scientific seven-step approach. From taking a problem apart to rearranging its pieces, to framing it so its solution can be seen, the book presents a must-read analysis for executives and social sector leaders. It excites both the reader's mind and the possibilities for project teams. —Glenn Hubbard, Dean and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School

7 straightforward steps to solving any problem with creativity and rigor

Complex problem solving is the core skill for twenty-first century teams. It's the only way to keep up with rapid change. Winning organizations now rely on nimble, iterative problem solving, rather than traditional planning processes. In this book you'll learn the seven-step systematic approach to creative problem solving that will work in any field or industry. It employs a highly visual, logic-tree method that can be applied to any problem, from strategic business decisions to global social challenges. Charles and Rob, with decades of experience at McKinsey & Company and other institutions, provide a toolkit with 30 detailed real-world examples, so you can see exactly how the technique works in action.

From the Back Cover

"Problem solving is the core skill for the twenty-first century. Now, finally, we have a guide to doing it right that any of us can follow." ―Dominic Barton, Global Managing Partner Emeritus, McKinsey & Company

"We always hired for creative problem solving talent above all else; these guys have cracked the code on a replicable approach for problems large and small. Learn it, practice it!" ― Eric Schmidt, Former Chairman and CEO, Google; Visiting Innovation Fellow, MIT

"Together Charles and Rob have taken problem solving out of the business school classroom and into real life, where it belongs. Utilizing 30 cases, these masters of the art have something to teach all of us." ― James Gorman, Chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley

"As a former policymaker who argues for moving beyond policy to the broader enterprise of public problem solving, I welcome this volume! The techniques and insights apply, with various modifications, to problems everywhere: personal, professional, public and private, local, national and global." ― Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America, Former Director of Policy Planning, U.S. Department of State

"Disruption in today's business environment puts problem solving at the top of every leader's challenges. But how? This engaging book puts together a McKinsey team's scientific seven-step approach. From taking a problem apart to rearranging its pieces, to framing it so its solution can be seen, the book presents a must-read analysis for executives and social sector leaders. It excites both the reader's mind and the possibilities for project teams. ―Glenn Hubbard, Dean and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School

About the Author

Product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07PFRCCY4
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wiley; 1st edition (March 4, 2019)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 4, 2019
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 24207 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 303 pages
• #99 in Business Decision-Making
• #184 in Personal Success in Business
• #198 in Business Decision Making

About the authors

Robert mclean.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Charles Conn

Charles Conn is a seasoned cross-sector leader, entrepreneur and best-selling author. Charles is an experienced investor, and is co-founder of Monograph Capital, a life sciences venture firm. Before that, he was CEO of Oxford Sciences Innovation, a £600m venture firm formed in partnership with Oxford to develop the University’s advanced science ideas. Charles has been a technology entrepreneur, and as founding CEO of Ticketmaster-Citysearch led the company through its IPO (NASDAQ TMCS) and acquisitions of Match.com, Evite, and other companies. He is co-author of Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything, published with John Wiley & Sons in 2019, a best seller which also earned a Top 10 reader ranking on McKinsey.com for 2019. It has been taught at Harvard and Oxford, and to the Schmidt Science Fellows, World Economic Forum Global Shapers, Kauffman Fellows, and Rhodes Scholars. He is also a nonprofit education and conservation leader, including a five year term as CEO of the Rhodes Trust, the organization that delivers the Rhodes Scholarships in Oxford. Prior to his Oxford roles, Charles was senior advisor to the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, where he led conservation projects including the wild salmon ecosystems initiative and the Palmyra atoll research station. He sits or has sat on many company and nonprofit boards, including Patagonia, the Mandela Rhodes Foundation in South Africa, and Arcadia Foundation in London. He began his career at McKinsey & Company, where he was a Partner and leader in the strategy and energy practices. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School, Boston University, and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

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Customers find the book well structured, helpful, and relatable with real-life examples. They also appreciate the simple, clear steps in problem solving and decision making. Readers also mention that the book lays out a very clear and robust 7-stage process to solve.

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Customers find the book well structured, chock-full of case studies, and practical. They also say it's a terrific tool to manage your organization and an efficient way to solve complex problems. Readers also mention that the shared wisdom and insight shine through in practice through great, relatable, real life examples.

"... Extremely important skills , that not everyone has mastered." Read more

"...Bulletproof Problem Solving is chock-full of case study after case study, as well as a bevy of tools and techniques for you to try...." Read more

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Bulletproof Problem-Solving (Book Summary)

August 30, 2020 Jeremey Donovan

Bulletproof Problem-Solving by Charles Conn and Robert McLean

• Define the Problem
• Disaggregate the Issues
• Prioritize the Issues, Prune the Tree
• Build a Workplan and Timetable
• Conduct Critical Analyses
• Synthesize Findings from the Analysis
• Prepare a Powerful Communication

Introduction Problem-solving for the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century

• a drive to be working on the right problems
• addressing root causes
• engaging teams around short duration work plans
• allocating responsibilities and timelines with accountability.
• The World Economic Forum in its Future of Jobs Report placed complex problem-solving at #1 in its top 10 skills for jobs in 2020.
• We see few problems that can ever be solved without disaggregation into component parts.
• Sometimes no amount of regression analysis is a substitute for a well-designed, real-world experiment that allows variables to be controlled and a valid counterfactual examined.

Chapter One Learn the Bulletproof Problem-solving Approach

• Problem-solving means the process of making better decisions on the complicated challenges of personal life, our workplaces, and the policy sphere.
• We encourage you to think of problem-solving as an iterative process rather than a linear one. This cycle can be completed over any timeframe with the information at hand. Once you reach a preliminary end point, you can repeat the process to draw out more insight for deeper understanding.
• We often use the expression, “What’s the one-day answer?” This means we ask our team to have a coherent summary of our best understanding of the problem and a solution path at any point in the project, not just at the end.
• We use logic or issue trees to visualize and disaggregate problems. We employ several types, including hypothesis trees and decision trees.
• Use a hypothesis to bring forth the arguments to either disprove it or support it.

Chapter Two Define the Problem

• Getting problem definition right, including boundaries, is essential to good problem-solving and can be an essential competitive advantage.
• Outcomes focused: A clear statement of the problem to be solved, expressed in outcomes, not activities or intermediate outputs.
• Specific and measurable wherever possible.
• Clearly time bound.
• Designed to explicitly address decision-maker values and boundaries, including the accuracy needed and the scale of aspirations.
• Structured to allow sufficient scope for creativity and unexpected results — too narrowly scoped problems can artificially constrain solutions.
• Solved at the highest level possible, meaning for the organization as a whole, not just optimized for a part or a partial solution.

• Constant iteration allows the team to hone its understanding and therefore to sharpen its strategies to achieve the desired outcome — at the same time keeping all the stakeholders onside as the process runs through time.
• When we worked for McKinsey, we often saw problems that benefited from redefinition to a higher level.
• When possible, it is advantageous to allow flexibility in the scope or width of your problem-solving project.
• Wherever you can, target your problem-solving efforts at the highest level at which you can work, rather than solving for the interests only of smaller units.

Chapter Three Problem Disaggregation and Prioritization

• Any problem of real consequence is too complicated to solve without breaking it down into logical parts that help us understand the drivers or causes of the situation.
• Types of logic trees:

• Trees should have branches that are MECE which stands for “mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive.”
• Inductive trees show probabilistic relationships, not causal ones.
• Good prioritization in problem-solving makes solutions come faster and with less effort.
• We don’t want to retain elements of the disaggregation that have only a small influence on the problem, or that are difficult or impossible to affect.
• Prioritize problems where both potential scale of impact your ability to influence are high
• Use of constructive challenging and “what you’d have to believe” questions can help get the process out of ruts and foster more creativity in solution paths.

Chapter Four Build a Great Workplan and Team Processes

• The workplan is the place to get specific about your initial hypotheses, clarify what outputs you want from analysis, and assign the parts so that everyone knows what they are doing and by when.
• We don’t do any analyses that aren’t guided by very clear and testable hypotheses.  We never go off and build a model without a very good idea about what question it answers. There is no vague “I’ll look into X or Y.”
• We sharpen our thinking even more by requiring that we can visualize what form the output might take (we call this dummying the chart), so we know if we would want it if we had it.
• We are very careful about the order in which we do analyses. Do knock-out analyses first.
• We are very specific about who is doing what by when.  No confusion about responsibilities for deadlines.
• We have workplans to go out only 2-3 weeks, and longer-term study plans to rough out later periods.
• Model workplan:

• Focus your work on the 20 % of the problem that yields 80 % of the benefit.
• Our approach is to do short, but highly specific, workplans that focus on the most important initial analyses, perhaps stretching out two to three weeks, and constantly revise them as new insights come from the team’s work. We couple these with rougher project plans, usually in Gantt chart format, that cover the fixed milestone dates and to ensure the overall project stays on track from a time perspective.
• A short description of the situation that prevails at the outset of problem-solving. This is the state of affairs that sets up the problem.
• A set of observations or complications around the situation that creates the tension or dynamic that captures the problem. This is typically what changed, or what went wrong that created the problem.
• The best idea of the implication or resolution of the problem that you have right now. At the beginning this will be rough and speculative. Later it will be a more and more refined idea that answers the question, “What should we do?”
• They are hypothesis driven and end-product oriented.
• They porpoise frequently between the hypothesis and data. They are flexible in the face of new data.
• They look for breakthrough thinking rather than incremental improvements.
• Confirmation bias: Confirmation bias is falling in love with your one-day answer.
• Anchoring bias: Anchoring bias is the mistaken mental attachment to an initial data range or data pattern that colors your subsequent understanding of the problem.
• Loss aversion: Loss aversion, and its relatives, the sunk cost fallacy, book loss fear, and the endowment effect, are a failure to ignore costs already spent (sunk) or any asymmetric valuing of losses and gains.
• Availability bias: Availability bias is use of an existing mental map because it is readily at hand, rather than developing a new model for a new problem, or just being influenced by more recent facts or events.
• Over-optimism: Over-optimism comes in several forms including overconfidence, illusion of control or simply failure to contemplate disaster outcomes.
• Diversity in team members
• Always try multiple trees / cleaves:
• Try adding question marks to your hypotheses.
• Obligation to dissent
• Role playing – Try acting out your interim solutions from the perspective of clients, suppliers, other family members, citizens … whoever isn’t you.
• Dialectic standard – every idea or hypothesis must be met with its antithesis and challenged, before joining the learning together in synthesis.
• Perspective taking – Perspective taking is the act of modeling another team member’s assertion or belief (especially if you don’t agree) to the point that you can describe it as compellingly as the other.
• Constructive confrontation – To disagree without being disagreeable. One of the great tools we both used in McKinsey is “What would you have to believe? “to accept a particular thesis or viewpoint.
• Team distributed voting – One approach we have used is to assign each team member 10 votes; the most senior person votes last
• Solicit outside views (but be careful with experts). The normal thing is to interview experts — but the risk is that they just reinforce the dominant or mainstream view and therefore smother creativity. Try talking to customers, suppliers, or better yet players in a different but related industry or space.
• Explicit Downside Scenario Modeling and Pre-Mortem Analysis.
• Broaden your data sources: The best problem solvers that reflects an active openness to new ideas and data, and a suspicion of standard or conventional answers

Chapter Five Conduct Analyses

• Don’t jump right into building giant models until they have a clear understanding of whether and where complex tools are required.
• Smart analysis starts with heuristics and summary statistics to assess the magnitude and direction of the key problem levers.

• We see many common errors that relate to the distribution of outcomes. These include placing too much emphasis on the mean outcome, typically called the base case, and insufficient weight on outcomes that are one or even two standard deviations from the mean in a normal distribution.
• The Sherlock Holmes approach of painting a picture of the problem by asking who, what, where, when, how, and why is a powerful root-cause tool to quickly focus problem-solving. Ask “Why? five times.

Chapter Six Big Guns of Analysis

• Bayesian statistics, regression analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, randomized controlled experiments, machine learning, game theory, or crowd-sourced solutions
• First-cut data analysis often points to direction of causality and size of impact, which are critical to evaluating the results of complex models later.
• Data-fishing expeditions or unfocused analysis that “boil the ocean” are likely to result in inefficient problem-solving.
• Our preferred sequence, not surprisingly, is to start with clearly defining the problem and forming initial hypotheses. Then get to know your data by looking at the mean, median, and mode, as well as other summary statistics.
• One answer is the natural experiment, also called a quasi-experiment: If you can’t run an experiment yourself, look to see if the world has already run it — or something like it — for you.

Chapter Seven Synthesize Results and Tell a Great Story

• Done right, your conclusions are an engaging story, supported with facts, analyses, and arguments that convince your audience of the merits of your recommended path.
• Our recommended process is iterative at each stage and driven by the interaction of the strong hypotheses of your one-day answers with the analyses of your workplan.
• Where possible, the most powerful visualization is to show each graphic as branches on your revised tree structure.
• What problem are we trying to solve? How has this evolved?
• What are the key criteria for success that our decision maker (which may be yourself) set out in advance? It is important to reflect these explicitly in your story.
• Did you honor the boundaries of the problem set by the decision maker? If not — which may be for good reasons around creativity or deciding to relax a constraint to open up new possibilities — you need to make the case here.
• Sometimes it is best to carefully lead the audience from situation to observation to resolution, which are your recommended actions. But our bias in most circumstances is to lead by answering the question “What Should I Do?” and then summarize the situation and key observations that support action.
• it was not one that the local management team wanted to hear. In circumstances like this, it can make sense to use a revealed approach to your arguments,

Chapter Eight Problem-solving with Long Time Frames and High Uncertainty

Chapter Nine Wicked Problems

• These problems typically involve multiple causes, major values disagreements among stakeholders, unintended consequences, or substantial behavior change in order for the problem to be solved. Terrorism, environmental degradation, and poverty are often proffered as examples of wicked problems.

Chapter Ten Becoming a Great Problem Solver

• good questions that become sharp hypotheses
• a logical approach to framing and disaggregating issues
• strict prioritization to save time
• solid team processes to foster creativity and fight bias
• smart analytics that start with heuristics and move to the right big guns
• a commitment to synthesize findings and turn them into a story that galvanizes action.
• Take the time up front to really understand your problem.
• Get started with nothing more than a problem statement.
• Try several cuts at the tree.
• Use a team wherever you can.
• Make the right investment in a good work-plan.
• Start your analysis with summary statistics, heuristics, and rules of thumb to get a feel for the data and the solution space.
• Don’t be afraid to employ big analytic guns when required.
• Treat the seven-steps process like an accordion.
• Don’t be intimidated by any problem you face.

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Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything Paperback – 6 Mar. 2019

Complex problem solving is the core skill for 21 st Century Teams

Complex problem solving is at the very top of the list of essential skills for career progression in the modern world. But how problem solving is taught in our schools, universities, businesses and organizations comes up short. In Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything you’ll learn the seven-step systematic approach to creative problem solving developed in top consulting firms that will work in any field or industry, turning you into a highly sought-after bulletproof problem solver who can tackle challenges that others balk at.

The problem-solving technique outlined in this book is based on a highly visual, logic-tree method that can be applied to everything from everyday decisions to strategic issues in business to global social challenges. The authors, with decades of experience at McKinsey and Company, provide 30 detailed, real-world examples, so you can see exactly how the technique works in action. With this bulletproof approach to defining, unpacking, understanding, and ultimately solving problems, you’ll have a personal superpower for developing compelling solutions in your workplace.

• Discover the time-tested 7-step technique to problem solving that top consulting professionals employ
• Learn how a simple visual system can help you break down and understand the component parts of even the most complex problems
• Build team brainstorming techniques that fight cognitive bias, streamline workplanning, and speed solutions
• Know when and how to employ modern analytic tools and techniques from machine learning to game theory
• Learn how to structure and communicate your findings to convince audiences and compel action

The secrets revealed in Bulletproof Problem Solving will transform the way you approach problems and take you to the next level of business and personal success.

• ISBN-10 1119553024
• ISBN-13 978-1119553021
• Edition 1st
• Publisher Wiley
• Publication date 6 Mar. 2019
• Language English
• Dimensions 18.54 x 2.03 x 23.37 cm
• Print length 320 pages
• See all details

Product description

From the inside flap.

"Problem solving is the core skill for the twenty-first century. Now, finally, we have a guide to doing it right that any of us can follow." —Dominic Barton, Global Managing Partner Emeritus, McKinsey & Company

PRAISE FOR BULLETPROOF PROBLEM SOLVING

"We always hired for creative problem solving talent above all else; these guys have cracked the code on a replicable approach for problems large and small. Learn it, practice it!" — Eric Schmidt, Former Chairman and CEO, Google; Visiting Innovation Fellow, MIT

"Together Charles and Rob have taken problem solving out of the business school classroom and into real life, where it belongs. Utilizing 30 cases, these masters of the art have something to teach all of us." — James Gorman, Chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley

"As a former policymaker who argues for moving beyond policy to the broader enterprise of public problem solving, I welcome this volume! The techniques and insights apply, with various modifications, to problems everywhere: personal, professional, public and private, local, national and global." — Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America, Former Director of Policy Planning, U.S. Department of State

"Disruption in today's business environment puts problem solving at the top of every leader's challenges. But how? This engaging book puts together a McKinsey team's scientific seven-step approach. From taking a problem apart to rearranging its pieces, to framing it so its solution can be seen, the book presents a must-read analysis for executives and social sector leaders. It excites both the reader's mind and the possibilities for project teams. —Glenn Hubbard, Dean and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School

7 straightforward steps to solving any problem with creativity and rigor

Complex problem solving is the core skill for twenty-first century teams. It's the only way to keep up with rapid change. Winning organizations now rely on nimble, iterative problem solving, rather than traditional planning processes. In this book you'll learn the seven-step systematic approach to creative problem solving that will work in any field or industry. It employs a highly visual, logic-tree method that can be applied to any problem, from strategic business decisions to global social challenges. Charles and Rob, with decades of experience at McKinsey & Company and other institutions, provide a toolkit with 30 detailed real-world examples, so you can see exactly how the technique works in action.

From the Back Cover

"Problem solving is the core skill for the twenty-first century. Now, finally, we have a guide to doing it right that any of us can follow." ―Dominic Barton, Global Managing Partner Emeritus, McKinsey & Company

"We always hired for creative problem solving talent above all else; these guys have cracked the code on a replicable approach for problems large and small. Learn it, practice it!" ― Eric Schmidt, Former Chairman and CEO, Google; Visiting Innovation Fellow, MIT

"Together Charles and Rob have taken problem solving out of the business school classroom and into real life, where it belongs. Utilizing 30 cases, these masters of the art have something to teach all of us." ― James Gorman, Chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley

"As a former policymaker who argues for moving beyond policy to the broader enterprise of public problem solving, I welcome this volume! The techniques and insights apply, with various modifications, to problems everywhere: personal, professional, public and private, local, national and global." ― Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America, Former Director of Policy Planning, U.S. Department of State

"Disruption in today's business environment puts problem solving at the top of every leader's challenges. But how? This engaging book puts together a McKinsey team's scientific seven-step approach. From taking a problem apart to rearranging its pieces, to framing it so its solution can be seen, the book presents a must-read analysis for executives and social sector leaders. It excites both the reader's mind and the possibilities for project teams. ―Glenn Hubbard, Dean and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School

About the Author

Charles Conn  is CEO of the Rhodes Scholarships in Oxford. Previously, he was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, led a technology start-up to its IPO, and was an early team lead at the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation in San Francisco.

Robert McLean  is Director Emeritus at McKinsey and Company. He led the Australian and New Zealand McKinsey practice for eight years and served on the firm's global Director's Committee.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wiley; 1st edition (6 Mar. 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1119553024
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1119553021
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 18.54 x 2.03 x 23.37 cm
• 1,306 in Business Life (Books)

About the authors

Charles conn.

Charles Conn is a seasoned cross-sector leader, entrepreneur and best-selling author. Charles is an experienced investor, and is co-founder of Monograph Capital, a life sciences venture firm. Before that, he was CEO of Oxford Sciences Innovation, a £600m venture firm formed in partnership with Oxford to develop the University’s advanced science ideas. Charles has been a technology entrepreneur, and as founding CEO of Ticketmaster-Citysearch led the company through its IPO (NASDAQ TMCS) and acquisitions of Match.com, Evite, and other companies. He is co-author of Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything, published with John Wiley & Sons in 2019, a best seller which also earned a Top 10 reader ranking on McKinsey.com for 2019. It has been taught at Harvard and Oxford, and to the Schmidt Science Fellows, World Economic Forum Global Shapers, Kauffman Fellows, and Rhodes Scholars. He is also a nonprofit education and conservation leader, including a five year term as CEO of the Rhodes Trust, the organization that delivers the Rhodes Scholarships in Oxford. Prior to his Oxford roles, Charles was senior advisor to the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, where he led conservation projects including the wild salmon ecosystems initiative and the Palmyra atoll research station. He sits or has sat on many company and nonprofit boards, including Patagonia, the Mandela Rhodes Foundation in South Africa, and Arcadia Foundation in London. He began his career at McKinsey & Company, where he was a Partner and leader in the strategy and energy practices. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School, Boston University, and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Robert McLean

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

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Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything Paperback – 6 March 2019

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• Print length 320 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Wiley
• Publication date 6 March 2019
• Dimensions 18.54 x 2.03 x 23.37 cm
• ISBN-10 1119553024
• ISBN-13 978-1119553021
• See all details

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Product description

From the inside flap.

Problem solving is the core skill for the twenty-first century. Now, finally, we have a guide to doing it right that any of us can follow. --Dominic Barton, Global Managing Partner Emeritus, McKinsey & Company

PRAISE FOR BULLETPROOF PROBLEM SOLVING

We always hired for creative problem solving talent above all else; these guys have cracked the code on a replicable approach for problems large and small. Learn it, practice it! -- Eric Schmidt, Former Chairman and CEO, Google; Visiting Innovation Fellow, MIT

Together Charles and Rob have taken problem solving out of the business school classroom and into real life, where it belongs. Utilizing 30 cases, these masters of the art have something to teach all of us. -- James Gorman, Chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley

As a former policymaker who argues for moving beyond policy to the broader enterprise of public problem solving, I welcome this volume! The techniques and insights apply, with various modifications, to problems everywhere: personal, professional, public and private, local, national and global. -- Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America, Former Director of Policy Planning, U.S. Department of State

Disruption in today's business environment puts problem solving at the top of every leader's challenges. But how? This engaging book puts together a McKinsey team's scientific seven-step approach. From taking a problem apart to rearranging its pieces, to framing it so its solution can be seen, the book presents a must-read analysis for executives and social sector leaders. It excites both the reader's mind and the possibilities for project teams. --Glenn Hubbard, Dean and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School

7 straightforward steps to solving any problem with creativity and rigor

Complex problem solving is the core skill for twenty-first century teams. It's the only way to keep up with rapid change. Winning organizations now rely on nimble, iterative problem solving, rather than traditional planning processes. In this book you'll learn the seven-step systematic approach to creative problem solving that will work in any field or industry. It employs a highly visual, logic-tree method that can be applied to any problem, from strategic business decisions to global social challenges. Charles and Rob, with decades of experience at McKinsey & Company and other institutions, provide a toolkit with 30 detailed real-world examples, so you can see exactly how the technique works in action.

From the Back Cover

"Problem solving is the core skill for the twenty-first century. Now, finally, we have a guide to doing it right that any of us can follow." —Dominic Barton, Global Managing Partner Emeritus, McKinsey & Company

"We always hired for creative problem solving talent above all else; these guys have cracked the code on a replicable approach for problems large and small. Learn it, practice it!" — Eric Schmidt, Former Chairman and CEO, Google; Visiting Innovation Fellow, MIT

"Together Charles and Rob have taken problem solving out of the business school classroom and into real life, where it belongs. Utilizing 30 cases, these masters of the art have something to teach all of us." — James Gorman, Chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley

"As a former policymaker who argues for moving beyond policy to the broader enterprise of public problem solving, I welcome this volume! The techniques and insights apply, with various modifications, to problems everywhere: personal, professional, public and private, local, national and global." — Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America, Former Director of Policy Planning, U.S. Department of State

"Disruption in today's business environment puts problem solving at the top of every leader's challenges. But how? This engaging book puts together a McKinsey team's scientific seven-step approach. From taking a problem apart to rearranging its pieces, to framing it so its solution can be seen, the book presents a must-read analysis for executives and social sector leaders. It excites both the reader's mind and the possibilities for project teams. —Glenn Hubbard, Dean and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School

About the Author

Product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wiley; 1st edition (6 March 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1119553024
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1119553021
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 644 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 18.54 x 2.03 x 23.37 cm
• #323 in Self-Help for the Workplace
• #1,355 in Self-Help for Success
• #3,782 in Analysis & Strategy

About the authors

Charles conn.

Charles Conn is a seasoned cross-sector leader, entrepreneur and best-selling author. Charles is an experienced investor, and is co-founder of Monograph Capital, a life sciences venture firm. Before that, he was CEO of Oxford Sciences Innovation, a £600m venture firm formed in partnership with Oxford to develop the University’s advanced science ideas. Charles has been a technology entrepreneur, and as founding CEO of Ticketmaster-Citysearch led the company through its IPO (NASDAQ TMCS) and acquisitions of Match.com, Evite, and other companies. He is co-author of Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything, published with John Wiley & Sons in 2019, a best seller which also earned a Top 10 reader ranking on McKinsey.com for 2019. It has been taught at Harvard and Oxford, and to the Schmidt Science Fellows, World Economic Forum Global Shapers, Kauffman Fellows, and Rhodes Scholars. He is also a nonprofit education and conservation leader, including a five year term as CEO of the Rhodes Trust, the organization that delivers the Rhodes Scholarships in Oxford. Prior to his Oxford roles, Charles was senior advisor to the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, where he led conservation projects including the wild salmon ecosystems initiative and the Palmyra atoll research station. He sits or has sat on many company and nonprofit boards, including Patagonia, the Mandela Rhodes Foundation in South Africa, and Arcadia Foundation in London. He began his career at McKinsey & Company, where he was a Partner and leader in the strategy and energy practices. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School, Boston University, and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Robert McLean

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

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• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 71% 18% 8% 2% 1% 2%
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