Opposite Words: The 5th Way To Be MECE In Case Interviews

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Find more about the 5 Ways To Be MECE at www.craftingcases.com/MECE
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The MECE principle (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) is the most famous principle in management consulting.
It is used every single day by McKinsey, BCG and Bain consultants to structure their client's problems just like you see in case interviews.
When I was preparing for my case interviews I was constantly afraid I was not being MECE when solving my cases. Everyone told me that I should be MECE: Victor Cheng, Case in Point, and all the other "experts".
But one thing they did not tell me was HOW to be MECE.
In this video, I'm sharing with you The 5th Way To Be MECE: Opposite Words. This is the simplest way to be MECE: you divide a problem into one characteristic and its exact opposite.
This video is a follow-on from another video, The 5 Ways To Be MECE, which are 5 practical techniques you can use to create your own customized frameworks.
Opposite Words are always aplicable to divide any type of problem. They're always MECE and the can the used as quickly as you can speak them. Sounds perfect, right?
Well, not so much. While they're amazing, they're often the least insightful way to structure a problem.
But even then, consultants from McKinsey, Bain and BCG use Opposite Words as a way to create Mutually Exclusive and Collectivelly Exhaustive frameworks for their client's problems every day.
So, should you use opposite words or not?
Through the video I'll show when you should and when you should not use opposite words to structure your problems.
Basically, there are 3 situations in which you should use this technique: to separate inherently different problems, to add depth to your structures and to quickly make your communication more structured, even in trivial matters.
Tell me in the comments if you've liked this video and what you've liked about it.
Table of contents (so you can find stuff later in the future):
00:47 - Examples of Opposite Words
02:05 - How to use Opposite Words
02:38 - Using Opposite Words to separate inherently different problems
03:56 - Using Opposite Words to quickly make your structures deeper
08:21 - Using Segmentations to have quick structures that organize your speech
09:20 - Things to be aware of when using Opposite Words
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Hope the best for your case interview preparation and I'll see you on the next video :)
Bruno
Music in the video:
"Funk Game Loop" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

[@CraftingCases]

If you've found the 5 Ways to be MECE helpful to improve your MECEness, you're gonna find our free course 3X more helpful. That's because we show you how to answer any case interview question in a step-by-step method through our signature system "The 6 Building Blocks". Join now at www.craftingcases.com/freecourse

[@hajnalkagodanyi2975]

Thanks for this video series, Bruno. It was really insightful. I am preparing for my case interview nowadays and CraftingCases is my biggest help. I started with Victor Cheng, but you are better, at least for me.

[@oliviakelnreiter219]

Through this video, I realized what opposite-structures are and how I've used them intuitively before. I did not know why they would or would not be the most appropriate to use for a specific question. Now I do!
THANK YOU :) You definitely deserve more than 39 "thumbs up", hope more people will get to know your channel soon!

[@CraftingCases]

Great it helped Olivia! We'd love it if you could spread the word about our channel out with friends and other students (if you are in university right now).
By the way, is there anything you want more help on but can't find? I'd love to know so we could create more content on that topic.

[@soumen_das]

Every video in your channel is not just insightful for case interviews but problem-solving in general. Thanks a lot for these content

[@osorgini]

Thanks for the video!
It made me realize that , even if opposite words won't solve the case, it is a good starting point.

[@dinocollins720]

Thank you Bruno! This video was extremely insightful!

[@williamoon6421]

Hey Bruno, thanks so much for the video- this series might be the most useful resource that I've come across on TH-cam so far. Could I just a question? I was thinking about how to structure the response to a brainstorming question about cost streams. In what situations might it be better to think about costs using a fixed/variable framework, and when might it be better to use a direct/indirect framework?

[@raghavajitsaria6757]

Greetings from India! Could you find an answer to this? I cant seem to find a relevant video on youtube or anywhere?

[@rarehuman]

@CraftingCases Hey Bruno, awesome video! Where is the following Issue Tree video?

[@CraftingCases]

Hey rarehuman, we've posted 3 examples of issue trees in our channel. Also, you can find a complete guide to issue trees in our blog (just google "issue tree crafting cases" and you'll find it)

[@kshitizkhandelwal9348]

Can I structure ad revenues into- No of people who who advertise* no of advertisements(Volume)* revenue generated from each advertisment?

[@marianaferreira3651]

Melhor canal (:

[@CraftingCases]

Really glad you like our channel Mariana,
What specific things do you like about it the most?

[@Knowledge_Nuggies]

@7:35 How is that using opposite words or even MECE?

[@CraftingCases]

It's the "Production vs. Distribution" dichotomy.
Most activities in a company are related to (1) Making the product (Product Development, Manufacturing, Quality Control, etc.) and (2) Selling the product (getting it to retail, branding, pricing, etc.).
It's a false dichotomy as there are a few things that overlap both functions and possibly some things that fall outside of it (in a few industries), but it's close enough to explaining the full picture.

[@raficassaf3514]

@@CraftingCases Production vs Distribution is not a process framework instead ?

[@CraftingCases]

@@raficassaf3514 Could be, sure. The typology is just to help you think of MECE structures fast and know through some sort of logic that they're actually MECE.
The Yin-Yang dichotomy (which is probably the most famous "opposite words" concepts) could also be thought of as a process, as Yin gives rise to Yang and vice-versa.
The 5 Ways to be MECE (as any MECE structure) is a map to help you solve a problem (in this case, being MECE). Reality is always a bit more complicated than the map :)