📝 Workbook · Business · Unit 10

Workbook · 10B — The consulting mindset

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Exercise 1

Exercise 1 — Consulting-mindset vocabulary

Complete each sentence with ONE phrase from the box.

Word bank — drag or tap, then tap a gap
  1. Before we open the analysis, our working  drop  is that the pricing problem is really a segmentation problem.
  2. The client asked how to open 40 stores. The  drop  is where to spend the FY27 budget to preserve optionality.
  3. The  drop  is stark: one bad quarter of margin sacrificed for two years of predictable growth.
  4. Every recommendation must publish a  drop  — the number that would make us reverse it.
  5. This started as a pricing review. Six weeks in, we're doing everything — a textbook case of  drop .
  6. The  drop  is that the CFO doesn't believe the survey numbers.
  7. We have six weeks — we can't  drop . Let's scope this to the three markets that matter.
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Exercise 2

Exercise 2 — Articles (a / an / the / — zero)

Complete each line from a real consulting brief. Use '—' for zero article.

  1. 'We recommend ___ pilot with ___ Berlin practice in Q3.'
  2. '___ AI is not ___ substitute for ___ judgement.'
  3. '___ client asked for ___ pricing recommendation by Friday.'
  4. '___ Managing Partner signed off ___ rollout, but ___ risk team asked for ___ 30-day review.'
  5. '___ hallucinations are ___ classic failure mode of ___ large-language models.'
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Exercise 3

Exercise 3 — Fix the article error

Correct the ONE article error in each sentence.

  1. 'We proposed the pilot with a Berlin practice.'
  2. 'An advice from the risk team was clear: don't ship.'
  3. 'AI has been a wonderful tool for a drafting.'
  4. 'The Managing Partner Anika Rao signed off.'
  5. 'Client wants ROI on SAP investment within 18 months.'
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Exercise 4

Exercise 4 — Framed or unframed?

Decide whether each opening sentence FRAMES the problem (hypothesis first, real question) or is UNFRAMED (methodology first, unrestated ask).

  1. 'The client asked how to open 40 stores. The real question is where to spend the FY27 budget to preserve optionality.'

  2. 'We surveyed 200 stores and did a competitive benchmark. Three options: expand aggressively, expand carefully, expand very carefully.'

  3. 'Our working hypothesis: concentrated expansion maximises year-one revenue but destroys optionality if that region softens.'

  4. 'The client kind of wants to expand — there are pros and cons.'

  5. 'Two genuinely different options: 40 stores in one region OR 10 stores in four. The trade-off is revenue vs. optionality.'

  6. 'In most cases we should probably consider a pilot of some kind.'

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Exercise 5

Exercise 5 — Rewrite with a word-pair collocation

Rewrite each vague sentence using ONE of: pros and cons · risks and rewards · short- and long-term · do's and don'ts · supply and demand · carrot and stick.

  1. 'There are good things and bad things about the plan.'
  2. 'It's risky but there's a big upside if it works.'
  3. 'This will hurt for a bit but pay off later.'
  4. 'Here are the things to do and not do.'
  5. 'There aren't enough of the specialists everyone wants.'
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Exercise 6

Exercise 6 — Three juniors present the same problem

You'll hear three junior consultants brief the same client problem: whether to open 40 new stores in FY27. Decide whose brief goes to the client.

🎙️ Three juniors brief the same client problem — 40 new stores in FY27 — multi-voice

  1. Whose brief will you take to the client, and why?
  2. Whose brief 'boiled the ocean'?
  3. Whose brief has instinct but no discipline?
Show transcript

Yasmin (Tomás):So, our methodology. We looked at the European retail sector, we surveyed 200 stores, we did a competitive benchmark. An advice from the client suggested they want to open 40 new stores. Informations from the survey are that the market is competitive. Three options: expand aggressively, expand carefully, expand very carefully. We recommend the pilot. We think it will work well.

Pedro (Sara):The client asked how to open 40 stores in FY27. The framing question is different: across which geographies should we spend the FY27 budget to maximise long-term revenue and preserve optionality? Working hypothesis: concentrated expansion into one region maximises year-one revenue but destroys optionality if the region softens; a seeded pilot across four regions costs 15% of year-one revenue but keeps three future options open. Two genuinely different options, with the pros and cons and the short- and long-term implications on page two. Recommendation: the seeded pilot. Kill-metric: a like-for-like sales decline of more than 4% in the first two regions in H1 FY27 kills the further 30 stores in H2 — that decision reverts to the board. Risks and rewards are named on the front page, over my signature.

Clara (Meera):Yeah, so the client kind of wants to expand, and there are a few different ways they could do it. In most cases we should probably consider a pilot of some kind. There are pros and cons, obviously. I think we should probably recommend being careful. It's a big decision. We should discuss it more with the team.

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Exercise 7

Exercise 7 — Your one-page brief

Write your OWN one-page brief for a real decision (max 180 words). Order: (1) framing question, (2) hypothesis, (3) two options with pros and cons, (4) trade-off in one sentence, (5) recommendation over your signature, (6) kill-metric with a consequence, (7) do's and don'ts (three each). Every article must be intentional. At least TWO word-pair collocations.

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