Do you speak consulting? We liked this round-up of consulting-ese published by
ConsultingFact.com

Blue-sky Thinking
It connotes thinking creatively, unconventionally, or from a new perspective. Just like the blue sky, ideas should be without limits. It is similar to the expression, "thinking outside the box".
"Each brainstorming session requires blue-sky thinking from all participants."

Boil the Ocean
Boiling the ocean suggests inefficiency when you are working on something which outcome isn't worth the effort.
"There's no need to boil the ocean for this research. We already have the necessary data at hand."

Close the Loop
In meetings, closing the loop means finishing an item on the agenda or a topic of discussion with everyone in agreement. It can also be used to describe an item still to be done.
"Let's close the loop about the pricing model."

MECE
MECE stands for Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive. This acronym originated from McKinsey. Wikipedia defines it as a grouping principle for separating a set of items into subsets, making sure that you include all relevant information without overlaps. Usually used when structuring research and presentations.
"Why don't we try MECE to analyze this scenario?"

On the Beach
It describes management consultants not getting billable projects from clients. The term derived from the idea of bumming on the beach during free time.
"Many consultants have been a lot on the beach during the recent recession."

Ping
Taken from the computer and networking world, to ping someone means to contact him or her on a matter. Generally, it is done with email, but the term can be used no matter the media.
"Can you ping me later this evening?"

Scope Creep
A management consultant is brought in to find out why a company's new marketing strategy is affecting workplace productivity. Scope creep sets in when they find out that they are also responsible for assisting on writing policies and other tasks not initially included in the project.
"Avoid the scope creep in this project."

SWAG
Stands for Some Wild-Ass Guess - an idea formulated without supporting data or facts. Often created based on experience. Another expression used with the same meaning is "POOMA" (Pulled out of my ass).
"It would not be safe to rely on SWAG completely. We must do our research for this project, as well."

Takeaway
The takeaway is the set of key points that the audience should understand by the end of a presentation or meeting. Management consultants who don't ensure their clients get the "takeaway" may not be successful.
"So, what is the takeaway of your analysis?"

View from 30,000 Feet
Viewing something from 30,000 feet means to understand a strategy, business problem or anything in a bigger picture. Because you are viewing things from a distance, you can think more strategically.
"Before we decide on pricing strategy, let's have a 30,000 feet view of the current market."

CSS Director Caroline Evans writes about an important issue in Corporate Governance.

BLT’s home is in Chancery Lane, London. So when we open our Australian office we can save some printing costs by locating it in Chancery Lane, Bendigo (Victoria).

We thank JC, one of our newsletter subscribers, for sending us the picture. And if you see a Quality Court or a Chancery Lane on your travels, please let us know -and send us the snap.

The MCA Annual Awards ceremony attracted a 600-strong crowd of management consultants, their clients, and BLT to the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, London. We sponsored the award for the best change management project in the private sector (won by Boxwood)., We also cheered for PKF and Hudson & Yorke, two smaller consultancies who beat off the big boys to scoop awards for best international project and best outsourcing project. Top-Consultant writer Mick James caught the mood of the evening well.

BLT’s Kate Birtwistle presented the prizes .

Case study guru and strategy consultant Victor Cheng wrote this great item in his newsletter. The first part is an extract from a New York Times interview with the former head of the Bain Capital NY office, who has a new book out on the US economy. It also reveals how this ex-Bain consultant used a statistical approach to choosing his wife.

Here's Cheng’s excerpt from the newspaper (you can click through to the whole New York Times article here )

"There's also the fact that Conard applies a relentless, mathematical logic to nearly everything, even finding a good spouse. He advocates, in utter seriousness, using demographic data to calculate the number of potential mates in your geographic area.

Then, he says, you should set aside a bit of time for "calibration" -- dating as many people as you can so that you have a sense of what the marriage marketplace is like. Then you enter the selection phase, this time with the goal of picking a permanent mate.

The first woman you date who is a better match than the best woman you met during the calibration phase is, therefore, the person you should marry. By statistical probability, she is as good a match as you're going to get. (Conard used this system himself.)

This constant calculation -- even of the incalculable -- can be both fascinating and absurd."

Cheng continues:

Now, obviously not everyone from Bain actually uses this approach to choose a spouse. Some of us prefer the romance of falling in love. BUT, (and this is very important), everybody I know at MBB most certainly sees the logic behind this approach (even if they would not use it themselves) and many of them will use a similar logical approach to other aspects of their lives.

For example, you should have seen one of my former McKinsey colleagues. She was a woman who was planning her wedding and basically "estimated" how many people would attend her wedding.

She started with a list of everyone invited, estimated whether or not said person would bring a date based on their current relationship status, further estimated based on distance of travel needed what percent would actually make the trip to create an excel forecast model that estimated total headcount.

This in turn provided the assumptions for her wedding cost forecasting model which factored in the latest head count estimate and the cost per person for food.

Crazy? Maybe. Did everyone at McK who saw this, understand and at some level was secretly impressed (even if they wouldn't admit to it out loud)? Oh most definitely.

THIS is just how consultants think about things... or at least have the OPTION to think in this way when they want to. I hope this gives you a sense of the mentality MBB consultants have and how they approach (or have the option to approach) nearly any unstructured problem, and structure it in some logical way.