Firmsconsulting LLC Succeeding as a Management Consultant

I have been a subscriber to Firmsconsulting for 5+ years and I have not found anything quite like their materials to expand my capabilities for strategic and critical thinking.As a former consultant, I can vividly remember how reading the first edition of the book helped me significantly improve my performance on the job, enabling me to unlock better value for my clients. The additions to the second edition bring you even more value and learnings!Among other things, this book will teach you the basics for successfully tackling problems, prioritizing your time and analysis towards the things that matter the most through an hypothesis-driven approach, and elaborate meaningful solutions that actually have a measurable impact.Although these are two fundamental skills, their value would be diminished if you were not able to communicate clearly your thinking, findings, and recommendations in an effective way: thankfully this book also teaches the fundamental for effective communication through storyboards.The language used in the book is clear and simple, making you acquire new skills in an easy, almost effortless process.Having transitioned into an investor role, I can confidently say that everything I have learned I still use to this day to analyze investment opportunities and (hopefully) make sound investment decisions.In general, all materials from Firmsconsulting will elevate your business & critical thinking skills and I highly recommend them if you want to invest in yourself.

I've not yet read the book - so this review is not about the quality of the writing or content.HOWEVER - I paid £36 to have a printed copy, and the quality is utterly unacceptable.See for yourself in the attached photos.The paper is the cheapest, thinnest budget printer-paper you could imagine. It's so poor - that you can see the print through the paper straight from the reverse side. The pages do not have sufficient weight to hold themselves straight, so the book splays open in gaps when you try to close it.And the cutting of the pages is nothing short of shocking! Half the pages are cut back at an angle - so the are short of the cover! Other pages are also not cut straight - leaving parts of some pages protruding past adjacent pages.In addition - the printed tables and charts are so ridiculously tiny, they are mostly illegible (including some very poor hand scribbled lines over printed tables - see attached).May I suggest to the authors and publishers - that you use your consulting expertise towards rectifying the quality-control of your products? As well as consider if you really feel it's acceptable to deliver this to your customers?This would be unacceptable at £3.60, let alone £36. I will be sending back for a refund. Highly disappointed.My advice is to avoid this printed disaster and just get the Kindle version.

SAAMC is a great book to read if you want to understand how a management consulting engagement is ran. It includes internal in-depths conversations within the engagement team with great visuals and good description of the logic behind each important assumption and thinking. Furthermore, it conveys how a management consulting engagement should be structured with regards to building the storyboard, the decision trees, the hypothesis, the communication between the team and the client, workshops all while demonstrating the core values of the management consulting profession.This may seem to analytic, but they also include a twist of emotions released in an engagement, and how to cope with these emotions.In addition, this book also includes the procedure of managing a crisis within an engagement that was created by pushing the limits of human body (the consultants); A crisis within the consultants popped-up due to the constant high pressure they were put upon and this book showed how the following procedure to manage a crisis without pointing fingers at the team members was handled.One of the most powerful insights I developed from this book is the fact that the higher level consultants investing time in developing the aspiring lower-level consultants have a real impact on the consultant's view of the profession. It is interesting following through the development of Alana, and how Max takes care of her development.It is even more interesting to read the specific words (basically the conversation) a partner that groomed the engagement partner, Marcus Capple, told him when he was just a Business Analyst about the firm's values, which Marcus took with him and taught the new consultants the same values.Overall, I was comfortable reading this book. It is both interesting and insightful, and it makes you constantly think of how to solve the client’s problem(s) - even after you leave the book on the desk for a couple of days!

Loved the fact that it was written in a story like format that made it informative as well as engaging.

The book received a five star rating from my side for a) exceeding my expectations with regarding the depth and the way the material is presented and b) for clearly fulfilling the authors intension to a 100 percent to serve the interested reader with very valuable insights amongst others about how consulting studies during an engagement are structured, which tools are applied and most importantly, which pitfalls to avoid along the way.The book is actually not only suited for management consultants but actually everyone who seeks to improve his problems solving skills and deliver results that have the potential to exceed expectations through a successfully field tested, structured approach and appropriate tools applied.The material introduced is based on a fictional consulting engagement case. This approach makes the book fun to read without lagging the rigor of introducing the concepts and thinking applied by tier 1 consulting firms. The story flows in a very natural way and the presented material is accompanied by insightful graphics and charts in consulting style ppt-format which not only makes the material presented very understandable but at the same time shows how information should be presented to make an impact and win people over. In order to achieve the latter, the book clearly does a great job of pointing out the importance of building relationships and the value of ethics correctly applied. As with anything else, also for these areas the reader is provides with field tested how to do’s in order to achieve the desired outcomes.All in all, the book is definitely worth the investment and the time spent to read, understand and apply the knowledge presented. For the ones who seek additional training resources to profit from the skills and knowledge of top tier 1 management consultants, I also recommend to check out the online content of firmsconsulting.com. You’ll get excellent value for your money.

Succeeding as a Management Consultant is a very insightful book that offers practical problem-solving tools and frameworks as well as offering qualitative insights on how to manage a consulting engagement. The content is well structured and written. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and would highly recommend it.