What is the best framework for your problem?

1 The MECE principle

The first thing you need to know about frameworks is the MECE principle, which stands for mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. This means that your framework should divide your problem into distinct and non-overlapping categories, and cover all the relevant aspects of the problem. The MECE principle helps you avoid gaps, overlaps, and redundancies in your analysis, and ensures that you address the problem in a comprehensive and logical way.

2 The issue tree

The issue tree is a visual way of applying the MECE principle to your problem. It is a diagram that breaks down your problem into smaller and more manageable sub-issues, and shows how they relate to each other and to your main question. The issue tree helps you structure your thinking, prioritize your analysis, and communicate your findings. To create an issue tree, you need to start with your main question, and then generate hypotheses, or possible answers, to that question. Then, you need to identify the criteria, or evidence, that would support or refute each hypothesis. Finally, you need to map out the data sources, or information, that you need to collect to evaluate each criterion.

3 The hypothesis-driven approach

The hypothesis-driven approach is a way of using your issue tree to guide your analysis and recommendations. It is based on the idea that you should start with a tentative answer to your problem, and then test it with data and logic, rather than collecting data first and then looking for an answer. The hypothesis-driven approach helps you focus your analysis, save time and resources, and avoid confirmation bias. To use the hypothesis-driven approach, you need to formulate a clear and specific hypothesis, or best guess, based on your initial understanding of the problem. Then, you need to identify the most critical assumptions, or risks, that underlie your hypothesis, and test them with data and logic. Finally, you need to refine or revise your hypothesis based on the results of your tests, and present your recommendations with supporting evidence.

4 The 4C framework

The 4C framework is a popular and versatile tool used by consultants. It can be applied to many different problems, such as those in strategy, marketing, and operations. The 4C stands for customer, company, competitors, and collaborators. It helps to analyze external and internal factors that affect the client's situation, and identify the opportunities and threats they face. To use the 4C framework, you need to ask questions about the customer and their needs, preferences, and behaviors; the company's strengths and weaknesses; the competitors' strategies; and the collaborators' roles in the client's value chain. Additionally, you need to consider how satisfied customers are with the client's products or services, how loyal they are to the client or other brands, how profitable and efficient the company is, how they differ from competitors in terms of quality, price, and differentiation, how they affect the client's market share and profitability, what their contributions to the client's value chain are, how dependent or cooperative they are with your client.

5 The 5 forces framework

The 5 forces framework is a widely used tool for consultants to apply to problems related to industry analysis, competitive advantage, and market attractiveness. Developed by renowned strategy expert Michael Porter, this framework helps evaluate the competitive intensity and profitability of an industry. It consists of five forces: rivalry, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of new entrants, and threat of substitutes. Rivalry assesses the competition among existing firms in terms of price, quality, innovation, and differentiation, while bargaining power of suppliers and buyers measure how powerful they are in terms of costs and demand. The threat of new entrants and substitutes assesses how easy or difficult it is for new firms to enter the industry or for customers to switch to alternative products or services.

6 The 3C framework

The 3C framework is a useful tool used by consultants to identify the sources and drivers of growth for their clients. This framework stands for customer, capabilities, and context. To use it, consultants must ask and answer questions related to potential customers, core competencies and capabilities, as well as external and internal factors that could affect the viability and profitability of new products or services. For customers, questions should focus on unmet needs, pain points, aspirations, the size of the market segments they belong to, and how to reach and serve them effectively. For capabilities, the consultant needs to consider how competencies and capabilities match or differ from the client's existing ones, and how to acquire or enhance them efficiently and sustainably. Lastly, in terms of context, questions should address factors that influence demand, supply, competition, regulation of the market, as well as how they align or conflict with the client's goals, values, and culture.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?