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Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

economist.com

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Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#71

Post by ambicapter »

OptionOfT wrote: post #61

It was a really interesting place to work at a Software Engineer. It made me understand the business. It made me understand that doing the right thing isn't valued. You do the thing that has the shortest ROI. It also made me realize that it is horrible to build software with people who expect short term deliveries like the usual McKinsey engagement. People who expect that the automation of an Excel file takes the sam…

> What I miss the most is coming into contact with people with a huge variety of backgrounds. > Which surprisingly were the people with who I had to spent the most amount of time explaining how software works.

How is this surprising? I read this as "huge variety of backgrounds", meaning, all kinds of backgrounds which are NOT software. It would make sense to me they don't understand how software works.

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#72

Post by [deleted] »

mtlynch wrote: post #64
OptionOfT wrote: post #61

It was a really interesting place to work at a Software Engineer. It made me understand the business. It made me understand that doing the right thing isn't valued. You do the thing that has the shortest ROI. It also made me realize that it is horrible to build software with people who expect short term deliveries like the usual McKinsey engagement. People who expect that the automation of an Excel file takes the sam…

> Not to mention they paid for my GC. What does GC mean in this context?

[deleted]

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#73

Post by mordymoop »

candiddevmike wrote: post #35
jncfhnb wrote: post #9

Current McKinsey here. I don’t think anyone expects the current difficulties to last indefinitely. Its fairly well established that consulting struggles during times of economic uncertainty (but does fine when things are outright bad or good).

> Its fairly well established that consulting struggles during times of economic uncertainty Only the bullshit kind of consulting McKinsey is known for, IMO. The value of someone coming in and repeating what the smart folks on the team are saying is no longer there. Plenty of boutique consulting shops are eating just fine right now. Delivering real results/solutions and being a SME is always in demand.

I have worked in specialist consulting for 10 years and I agree with this take. Our business does the best during times of uncertainty. During lean times, operators want to make sure they are allocating capital intelligently, so they pay for our insights and advice. In the good times, they just plow all their revenue into making the flywheel spin faster, no need to be cautious or thoughtful when money is coming in no matter what you do.

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#74

Post by crazygringo »

samdung wrote: post #58

I have a small story about McKinsey from friend of mine in the Indian Bureaucracy from about 10-12 years ago. McKinsey was doing some work for their dept. I asked him what they did. He said, "McKinsey asked us for lots of information. Then they put it into a dossier and gave it back to us."

To be fair, a lot of organizations can't do this on their own. Which is why they hire a consultancy.

Information is siloed, teams compete rather than cooperate, any team's own dossier is going to be seen as biased and unobjective.

There's real value in hiring a neutral, competent vendor to come in, assemble the relevant information using best practices, and present a "dossier" with common-sense conclusions. Then the leader who hired them can use that as political cover for taking the necessary actions they wanted to in the first place, because the leader is no longer siding with one bureaucratic faction against another, but merely taking objective advice from an outsider.

That's actually worth a lot.

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#75

Post by ainiriand »

I've por es as an external consultant to KPMG as a software engineer and I loved that all processes are clearly defined. I think is big because all steps are clear for everyone in the company so the do not misstep that often.. I also felt like we had so few meetings and a lot of work was done in little time with almost 0 interference from management.

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#76

Post by kevinventullo »

rc_mob wrote: post #54
stonethrowaway wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less than nothing. It has flipped to the other side in the bullshit of it all. Pundit hot takes have ruined quality dialogue. Frankly I’d rather have discussions with people who do their own research and form their own opinions, no matter how faulty those opinions may be (there is always room for improvement precisely because there is room for discussion), than to hear them regurgitate party-speak drivel shilled by a…

??? John Oliver has always does a great job of understanding and communicating an issue in depth. He is exactly the opposite of everything you are accusing him of.

Even on topics where I agree with him directionally, I find he misrepresents the truth or omits significant caveats.

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#77

Post by [deleted] »

OptionOfT wrote: post #61

It was a really interesting place to work at a Software Engineer. It made me understand the business. It made me understand that doing the right thing isn't valued. You do the thing that has the shortest ROI. It also made me realize that it is horrible to build software with people who expect short term deliveries like the usual McKinsey engagement. People who expect that the automation of an Excel file takes the sam…

[deleted]

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#78

Post by [deleted] »

OptionOfT wrote: post #61

It was a really interesting place to work at a Software Engineer. It made me understand the business. It made me understand that doing the right thing isn't valued. You do the thing that has the shortest ROI. It also made me realize that it is horrible to build software with people who expect short term deliveries like the usual McKinsey engagement. People who expect that the automation of an Excel file takes the sam…

[deleted]

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#79

Post by samdung »

crazygringo wrote: post #74
samdung wrote: post #58

I have a small story about McKinsey from friend of mine in the Indian Bureaucracy from about 10-12 years ago. McKinsey was doing some work for their dept. I asked him what they did. He said, "McKinsey asked us for lots of information. Then they put it into a dossier and gave it back to us."

To be fair, a lot of organizations can't do this on their own . Which is why they hire a consultancy. Information is siloed, teams compete rather than cooperate, any team's own dossier is going to be seen as biased and unobjective. There's real value in hiring a neutral, competent vendor to come in, assemble the relevant information using best practices, and present a "dossier" with common-sense conclusions. Then the…

Yup makes sense from that point of view.

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#80

Post by karmakurtisaani »

jakubmazanec wrote: post #60
stonethrowaway wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less than nothing. It has flipped to the other side in the bullshit of it all. Pundit hot takes have ruined quality dialogue. Frankly I’d rather have discussions with people who do their own research and form their own opinions, no matter how faulty those opinions may be (there is always room for improvement precisely because there is room for discussion), than to hear them regurgitate party-speak drivel shilled by a…

If only you did your own research on how John Oliver does his research.

Source: trust me bro?
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