McKinsey Problem Solving Game Explained (with footage)

the mckinsey problem solving test has become irrelevant in 2019 mckinsey replaced it with the problem solving game or psg and this new gamified test has gathered all the attention from consulting applicants recently it's unpredictable and impossible to game pun intended mckenzie themselves said candidates do not need to prepare for the psg because they would not be able to prepare anyway well i don't think so hi my name is kim tran a former mckenzie consultant and the founder of mconsultingprep.com ten years ago we developed the first and only system to break down the test by question types and give candidates a significant boost in pass rate this time let's crack the problem solving game this is a big video please make the best use of the time stamp to jump to the content suitable to you part one what is the psg psg stands for problem solving game it is a gamified test created by a company called embellis for mckinsey as a replacement for its proprietary problem-solving test or pst for short it is a collection of video games intended to measure the consulting traits and qualifications of a candidate then compare them to those of a real mckinsey consultant if you appear similar or even better than the model consultant you'd be given a pass there are a few different names for this game problem-solving game or psg embellish game or digital assessment but they all refer to the same thing the gamified nature of the new psg points to a fundamentally different assessment process from the traditional pst how one the psg is a computer-based gamified test while the pst was a paper-based standardized test two this difference also enabled the psg to be taken at home compared to the pst which had to be conducted at designated test sites this has become quite convenient these days when social distancing is the norm three the psg supposedly allows mckinsey to rule out the bias caused by the familiarity of some candidates with standardized tests such as the gmat or gre enabling them to test candidates from all kinds of backgrounds equally but in fact i think the psg highly favors those of the history of playing strategy video games instead four the assessment mechanisms not only measure the final product of each candidate as of the psg but also the process of how candidates arrive at that product it tracks every behavior of the candidate to grade them using dozens of different criteria this is where the pst falls short because it cannot tell apart candidates with different traits as long as they have the same results in these regards the psg is quite similar to other gamified tests however with that said the psg is still a test instead of relying on arcade style games similar to angry birds penguin diners simple maze games as with many other gamified assessments out there the unique requirements of mckinsey lead to the use of puzzle and strategy games with highly complex mechanisms overwhelming data and uncertainties in fact mckinsey official guidelines implied that you need a scratch paper to play the psg just like you do with a test you'd actually spend more time planning calculating on that scratch paper than actually playing the game on the computer screen part 2 the mini games of the psg the psg is made of too many games called ecosystem placement and invasive species for the sake of better reflecting the objectives of these games and for better synergy without other literature i'll call them ecosystem building and plant defense these two mini games can be categorized into the puzzle genre with perhaps a slight blend of strategy games they all rely on the candidate drawing effective plans and making correct calculations pure brain exercises there are a few reports of other alternative mini-games entering their beta testing at different times as well but at the time of this video summer 2021 we don't have to worry about those yet if there is news the psg mega article on our website will be the best place to stay updated link is in the description both mini games are currently played within a hard total time limit of 71 minutes over the years there have been reports of this hard limit being between 60 and 80 minutes usually depending on the mini game that is played you are free to allocate your time however you like mckinsey recommends 35 minutes for the ecosystem building mini game and 36 minutes for the plant defense playing the first mini game quickly and you'll have more time for the second and vice versa according to the field reports and beta testers of our psg simulation yes we developed a practice mock psg with 95 similarity time is relatively comfortable compared to the psd if you have a structured approach of course you will still be focused and make the most out of every minute playing the game but time will not be the issue especially after some practice in part 2.1 minigame number one ecosystem building in ecosystem building the player objective is to create a sustainable ecosystem which basically consists of two big steps one build a food chain of eight species with sustainable calories input and output using a given base of 39 species place that food chain in location with a suitable living condition the game will randomly assign you to a mountain or a coral reef environment the appearances might be different but all the important bits really stay the same so don't worry about that now let's walk through the interface of the game these screen capture is not from the real game mackenzie would know about if you attempt to illegally take a screenshot the footage demonstrated in this video is from the psg simulation the mock game that we developed on the left hand side of the screen you'll be given a guidebook window with an instruction and species tab the instruction tab is pretty much self-explanatory just remember to always read the instructions even if you have to read it 100 times in practice there's always a slight chance a small aspect of the game is updated right at the time you take it you'll not want to put a hundred thousand dollars a year offer at risk with the wrong assumption under the species tab is the database from which you will view and choose your species there are 39 species divided into nine producers and 30 animals as the name suggests producers are species that don't eat others but they do act as the food or in other words the calorie source for others producers are plants fungi and corals while most animals are well animals of various sizes and shapes from plant-eating animals to top predators this little arrow button allows you to open the species tab to see detailed data points the first and second will tell you about the amount of calories it needs and the calories it provides the third and fourth is about its desirable living conditions the fifth and six about the species that eat it and the species that it eats and if the seventh and eighth data points are present they're usually about the desirable living conditions as with the third and the fourth so eight data points for 39 species we have data points to deal with if this is not hard enough mckinsey puts an obstacle here by only allowing you to view 8 to 12 data points at a time if all of the data is neatly placed on an excel spreadsheet you can see almost everything and the game would be significantly easier but we don't live in a perfect world and in the real world mckenzie consultants also have to deal with lots of volume messy data all the time this ecosystem mini-game replicates that aspect of a consultant's work very well moving on to the right-hand side of the screen you will see a monitors or conditions panel this contains seven or eight data points on the living conditions of the chosen location you need the data to know if your species can live in a given location when you hover or click on any point of the map the living conditions for that specific location will be displayed mackenzie puts another obstacle here you can only choose to view at most four data points at the same time so if you want to view all seven or eight living conditions for one location the time to perform that action effectively doubles that's because you have to tick the first four conditions choose the location note down the number untick those four conditions then repeat the process for the remaining three it's really tedious remember that the main task is to build a food chain where every species has one enough food to eat and two suitable conditions to live in every time the living conditions don't match or species is not given the right food source or not enough food or does not provide enough food for its predator the system fails and the story does not end there the species in your food chain don't just eat and get eaten in a random manner they follow a very strict set of rules which themselves are difficult to comprehend in a high pressure test setting here's how it goes don't worry if this overwhelms you at first by the way it does that to everybody we'll walk you through an example right after and everything will make sense number one the species with the highest calories provided eats first it eats its food source with the highest calories provided in the case of a thai it eats equally from both sources number two when a food source is eaten its calories provided decreases permanently by an amount equal to eating species calories needed if the eating species needs more calories it eats the next food source with the highest calories provided at that point it will keep eating until all calories needed or met or all the food sources have been exhausted number three then the species with the next highest current calories provided eats the same process repeats itself number four at the end when all species have eaten the surviving species are those with a positive net calories provided and b calories needed fully met let's look at an example of a hypothetical food chain and in this example i will also demonstrate the note-taking method that you can use to organize data neatly in your notes you're welcome to pause the video and try to solve this on your own first try to figure out which species will live and which will die in the end here's how the food chain plays out with the first three eating rules the three producers at the bottom automatically have their calories needed satisfied and do not need to eat anything beside the three producers the first species to eat is an animal the mouse because it produces the most calories three thousand it takes calories equally from grass and mushroom which have equal calories provided of five thousand each the mouse needs four thousand calories so it takes two thousand from each the mouse's calories needed is reduced to zero while the calories provided for grass and mushrooms are reduced to 3 000 each the next specie seat is a squirrel with 2 500 calories provided it should have eaten grass but grasses new calories provided is only 3 000 so the squirrel picks nuts instead scrolls calories needed comes down to zero while nuts calories needed becomes 500. the next to eat is the snake with 1500 calories provided most in the field at the moment it eats the mouse reducing its own calories needed to zero while taking 2 000 from the 3 000 of the mouse's calories provided then comes the fox with 1200 calories provided it eats the squirrel reducing its own calories needed to zero while taking 2000 from the 2500 of the squirrels calories provided the last species to eat is the tiger eats the snake first taking away all the snakes 1500 calories provided then proceeds to take 500 from the fox's 1200 so that its calories needed can be reduced to zero the tiger is not eaten by any other animal applying the fourth eating rule reveals that the snake dies out from overconsumption by the tiger in a real psg session you will need to find a replacement for the snake which often requires you to change a few other species as well sometimes you may change the whole ecosystem if time allows otherwise you have to submit a suboptimal ecosystem which will surely compromise your chances for the scope of this video without over complicating things let me share you with you some simple tips for this ecosystem mini game apply these and with practice you'll soon be mastering the game for more advanced tips look up to our website at the link below tip 1 filter noise among over 312 data points presented in this minigame fewer than 100 are actually relevant study the game hard and find out beforehand which data points you can ignore and which you have to pay attention to for example out of seven to eight living condition metrics you only need to care about the depth and elevation and temperature others are just noise there to distract you tip two develop and follow a structured process do not pick your species in a random order bottom up from the producers or top down from the apex predators either way is fine but always have a structure in your mind tip three take notes don't just calculate in your head and play on the screen the main battle is fought on the scratch paper in front of you everything you do on the screen can be and will be used as evidence against you in a court of law the scratch paper is your good old lawyer use it we created a note template in the description and you can take advantage of that part 2.2 minigame number two plant defense this minigame is essentially a tower defense game consisting of three rounds officially called maps each map is a complete and independent round so if you do poorly on the first one you still have a chance to start over with a clean slate for the second one the recommended time for each round is 12 minutes so 36 in total you can allocate your time however you want each map often comes with a square grid playing field of 10 by 10 or 12 by 12. somewhere in the middle you have a base represented in game by a native plant and your job is to arrange resources to help defend that plant against invaders the game is turn based so you make a move then the computer makes another move then back to your turn this aspect of the game is somewhat similar to chess the difference is that in chess both opponents play an indefinite number of turns until one player wins in this game you can only play a maximum of 15 turns then the computer can make indefinite consecutive turns until your base is invaded so you will always lose in this plant defense minigame your objective is to delay that for as long as possible most new players will be taken out even before the 15 turn mark but i've seen testers of our psg simulation product making it to 40 or even 50 turns no matter how good your process score is if you lose in the 14th turn you will lose the offer to the one making it in 50 turns the invaders in this game are real life invasive species such as fox mice or groundhogs they appear randomly from the borders of the map every three to four turns and move one square per turn toward your base they come in stacks occupying one square each with a population that acts too similar to health points in other games to delay and destroy these invaders you'd use resources called defenders in terrain transformations or just terrains as i usually call them defenders are predators such as wolves snakes or falcons which in this game would act as towers to defend the base by taking away the population from invaders that get into their range each defender has its own range and damage but generally the weaker defenders have longer ranges and the stronger defenders have shorter ranges trains such as rocks forests and cliffs on the other hand do not kill invaders but act as obstacles to invaders some trains such as cliffs force invaders to change paths while others such as rocks and forests slow them down the way you play each turn is not totally straightforward instead of making each move at the time the game requires you to plan five turns at the time of course you can adjust the plan along the way so the logic is just like other normal turn-based games here's how the game interface works hover on each of the defenders or terrain to see the full specs some important data points to notice are the attack the range the availability and the compatibility meaning where you can place them to plan a turn you can click on the defender or terrain choice then click on a point on the map where you want to place it the map will show a visual cue of where you can place it based on the rule and specs of your selected defender or terrain once placed on the map the cyan shaded squares show you the attack area of that defender do that five times to fully plan five turns the tracker for your turns and your selected actions is shown here in the bottom center of the screen only after completing the five turn plan you can play the scenario by clicking on the run plan button you have to keep clicking that button which now becomes next turn each time for the computer to take a turn the fenders and terrains you place for each turn will only start to take effect or activate when their turn comes once activated the cyan shaded squares around the fenders will become purple notice the yellow glow around the turn you are about to execute that tells you where you are in the process you can also see the turn count here in the status bar right above this data however tells you how many turns have been fully completed to modify the plan click on the edit plan button then erase the move you planned by clicking on the little x button on each move you can only change the moves that haven't been executed when an invader appears you will see its trajectory represented by a yellow line once shown you can be assured that the path is fixed regardless of how you make your move the only exception is when you place a cliff to block the path when that happens the invader will change the path but it always chooses the shortest path that is most similar to the original path so it's quite predictable the population of the invader is always shown right beneath it here's some more detailed rules making the game more challenging the first one is that the invaders will come from all directions in most tower defense gains you only have to deal with just a few possible starting points in this planet defense mini-game it's literally dozens of possible starting points for invaders remember invaders appear from any board of square on the map and on each map there are at least 36 such squares then just place dozens of defenders and trains across the map right no not so easy here's the second twist there are limits to how many defenders and trains you can use and you cannot just place them wherever and whenever you want each of the 15 defenders and trains has to be assigned to one specific turn and only takes effect from that turn onward so for example at turn five there's an invader stack only two squares away from your base you place a wolf between the base and the evader stack to kill it but assigns that wolf to turn 9 the invader stack will just pass right through to your base without any resistance and as i briefly mentioned before each defender and terrain all have specific rules of placement most often terrain can only be placed next to an existing terrain of the same type and defenders must always be placed in certain types of terrain so in the example before if say the wolf must be placed on a forest square there is no forest near the base you would not be able to place the wolf in time to kill the invader stack then let's just shift the resources from place to place adapting to incoming invader threats maybe remember when we talked about this earlier once a resource has been activated that is it is assigned turn has come up and is started to take effect it can no longer be removed replaced nor can you change its position plus you also have to make plans to defend the future invaders that have not appeared yet unpredictable risks limited resources restricting circumstances that's the psg for you we can literally write a whole book on strategy to tackle this game alone there's so many formulations and formations and tactics you can apply to maximize the survival length you'll get to read a version of that in the psg simulation package in the limited scope of this video here are a few tips to get you started tip 1 overlap your defenses this is one of few cases where being mesi has a disadvantage the more your defenders and terrain overlap the more damage they cause to invaders and the less likely your base will be taken tip 2 place your defenders near the base the logic for this is simple think of your defense as a ring the closer it is to the center base the smaller it needs to be smaller rings mean you can cover the whole circumference more easily and have more overlap tip three see the big picture don't get tunnel vision and look at immediate invaders only at the moment plan for the long term and future invaders as well remember you still have the objective of surviving as long as possible part three let me take advantage of this opportunity to clear up some of the most frequently asked questions regarding the psg question one is the mckinsey psg available on ios or android no at least not yet for now the psg both the real mckinsey ones and our simulation is available only on desktop both mac and windows are okay question two are there any requirements for the equipment all you need is just a decent computer which you most likely already have a three hundred dollar office laptop will do just fine there's no need to spend fifteen hundred dollars on a lenovo thinkpad just to take this psg with that said there are a few recommendations to help your test go smoothly get a high spec computer and fast broadband internet the psg is pretty hefty for a web-based game with all its fancy graphics and animations in fact if your internet and hardware is too slow you won't pass the initial system check and won't be allowed to take the psg if you don't have such a computer try to borrow one from your family or friends look for a computer with high resolution preferably hd or more than set low screen scaling one hundred percent this will allow more data to be shown on the screen at the same time this is hugely beneficial the biggest challenge of the ecosystem minigame is how to cope with a messy and large volume of data if you're the kind of person who uses 125 to 150 scaling because you have bad eyes or prefer big letters like me well time to get out of our comfort zone and don't worry the ordeal will last just an hour if you don't have a mouse buy one the cheapest mouse would serve just as well as the best all actions in the game are done by clicking so having a mouse instead of a touchpad will vastly speed up your game and leave more time for the calculations question 3. who will be invited to take the test and how do they use the results the psg is used to screen a wide range of candidates for various positions not just the traditional consulting track the grading mechanism especially the process score part will be slightly different for different positions you will only be informed about the final result two simple words pass or fail no explanation no component score no nothing question four i made a mistake during the test will i still pass this is like missing one question in the pst of course if you do well in the other parts you'll still make it with that said given that the process score can be unpredictable i believe we should strive to be perfect on the product score it's totally possible to do so if you strictly follow my methodology why do you want to leave some achievable points on the table question five i switched between this and that x number of times i swapped y species from the food chain etc would i still pass don't worry about the algorithms tracking your behavior focus on the game's objectives and approach them in a careful structured tactical manner like i show you if the algorithms are as smart as they are said to be they should know that we are tackling the game exactly like a consultant would do it question 6 should i use paper notes or excel sheets to take notes use whatever feels right and convenient for you personally i'm more comfortable with paper notes because i write fast and i don't need to switch windows to view my notes the downside is that correcting mistakes is a bit clumsy and the note can not do calculations by itself i have heard of candidates using two laptops side by side to take this test with one for note taking using excel so try a few practices for yourself and see what works best for you question 7 are those real screenshots from the psg nobody is allowed to take real screenshots from the pst the footage you see in this video is from our premium product m consulting preps psg simulation it's a practice platform designed to help candidates familiarize themselves with the interface try out strategies and hone their problem solving skills for the psg built using the most up-to-date reports and feedback it also comes with a detailed manual showing step-by-step approaches as well as common mistakes potential pitfalls and how to avoid them over the past two years thanks to many of you my dear followers i have been piecing the game one by one from 125 field reports and counting whenever i can i jump onto zoom call with the test takers just minutes after they complete their psg i was able to get super fresh perspectives how the screen looks what each button does how each aspect of the game logic works how the invaders move how the game generates its data or makes its maps etc in the process i also intentionally made the psg simulation a little broader than the real one this allows users to practice multiple times with endless scenarios while improving a combo of different skills on top of all the quick tricks to hack the game so even in a rare but possible event of mackenzie updating the game exactly at the time you take it you'll still ace it with grace visit the m consulting prep website for more information you can find the link in the description i hope this faq session and this video have resolved some of the most pressing questions about the psg for you guys if you have any other questions feel free to leave a comment and i will personally answer each if you're about to take the test and are willing to contribute field reports in exchange for partial access to our psg simulation you can message us on facebook or send an email to support mconsultingprep.com at m consulting prep we believe anyone can gain are you a believer

Channel: MConsulting Prep

Views: 41,927

Rating: 4.9209304 out of 5

Keywords: problem solving game, imbellus game, PSG Simulation

Id: 5B--hYDUgmE

Length: 24min 11sec (1451 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 02 2021