How do you narrow down a consulting problem?

Focus on contribution/impact vs effort: When working with a logic tree, focus on what the individual branches can contribute to the problem. Do not get hung up on the "mutually exclusive" part of MECE, as long as every branch individually contributes to the problem, it is worth your while. Once you are done listing put the individual, prioritize those issues that have high contribution/impact and (!) low effort to solve.

In my experience, I have found that asking clarifying questions can help break down the problem. Ask questions to simplify the problem by using different but similar words to those in the problem statement. For instance, when asking about the risks emanating from an event, replace risks with terms like issues, challenges, opportunities, effects. Also avoid technical ‘jargon’.

Clarifying questions are essential. Organizational problems and issues can manifest themselves in numerous ways. It’s essential to understand how multiple stakeholders are impacted and to quantify this impact - lost revenues, callbacks, rework, etc. in order to quantify impact and potential benefit of proposed solutions.

Developing a solution is often the easier part. Making sure the problem and individual stakeholder goals are identified and confirmed first is often not executed sufficiently. My approach to achieve understanding is usually: 1. Identify all relevant stakeholders - who are the key people leading the initiative & key people who will be affected by the solution 2. Talk to identified relevant stakeholders and ask them questions to understand the problem from their perspective; repeat your understanding of what they've said until they say "that's right" 3. Ask all of the identified relevant stakeholders what are their top factors for solution success; confirm your understanding again. You now have the inputs to truly understand the problem.

Do not ask "why" - instead do this: When I ask my clients clarifying questions, I always ask them "what are the reasons for X?". Asking this way will point to the plurality of potential reasons and remove a potentially accusatory vibe. That, in turn could make your client defensive and shut down his creative abilities.

I would add a very important element here - Stakeholder Analysis. It’s important to understand any problem from all parts of the organization and of course understanding the costs and benefits of any proposed solution from the perspective of these stakeholder groups as well.

A concise and precise assessment of clients should be made. There are clients, even when they know they should seek advice from others, who may not like what they have heard and not willing to follow and implement the advice of consultants. Care should be made when giving out advice to this type of clients.

Stories are the strongest persuasive method we know to convey a lesson or moral. Tell me facts and maybe I will hear a few of them. Tell me an argument I might consider it. Tell me a story I am yours. The first thing to do is to understand what a story is. A dramatic story embodies the following characteristics: it focuses on a central character, the protagonist, who is faced with a dilemma; the dilemma develops into a crisis; the crisis builds through a series of complications to a climax; in the climax, the crisis is solved. All storytelling is based on somebody wanting something, facing obstacles, not getting it, trying to get it, trying to overcome obstacles, and finally getting or not getting what he wanted.