A free, open-source consulting knowledge base for Claude, built to help students, MBA candidates, and early-career professionals think more clearly, prep for case interviews, and apply consulting frameworks practically.
TL;DR: Install this skill to give Claude a structured consulting workflow, useful for case prep, framework practice, or thinking through real business problems. Free, open-source, contributions welcome.
flowchart LR
A["🔍 Problem Brief"] --> B["1. Frame"]
B --> C["2. Structure"]
C --> D["3. Analyse"]
D --> E["4. Synthesise"]
E --> F["5. Deliver"]
B -.->|reads| G[("111 Reference Files")]
C -.-> G
D -.-> G
E -.-> G
F -.->|"Board-ready output"| H["✅ Client Value"]
Frame → Structure → Analyse → Synthesise → Deliver. Every problem flows through the same consulting operating system, drawing from 5 knowledge pillars and 110+ reference modules.
This repository contains a consulting knowledge base for Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant. When installed, it gives Claude a structured senior-consultant workflow, built around MBB-style problem-solving and communication patterns built by distilling publicly available MBB frameworks, case prep resources, and consulting methodology into a single knowledge base.
This is not a simple prompt. It is a structured knowledge system with 110+ reference files covering every dimension of consulting work, from MECE issue trees and Pyramid Principle communication to due diligence, post-merger integration, GenAI enterprise strategy, and case interview coaching.
It is completely free.
This project contains no proprietary, confidential, or insider material from any consulting firm or client engagement. Everything here is derived from publicly available sources only.
What this knowledge base is built from:
- 📚 Published books — The McKinsey Way, Bulletproof Problem Solving, The Pyramid Principle (Barbara Minto), Case in Point, Competitive Strategy (Porter), Good Strategy Bad Strategy, and other widely available texts
- 🌐 Firms' own public content — McKinsey Insights, BCG Henderson Institute, Bain & Company articles, Deloitte Insights, PwC Strategy& reports — all publicly accessible
- 🎓 Case prep platforms — Victor Cheng's Case Interview Secrets, PrepLounge, CaseCoach, IGotAnOffer, and MBB-published practice case books
- 📊 Public industry data — SEC filings, World Bank, IMF, IEA, CMS, FDA, Bloomberg public datasets, and industry association benchmarks
- 🏫 Academic and business school material — HBS, Wharton, INSEAD case abstracts and publicly released teaching notes
- 🔓 Open-source consulting frameworks — Porter's Five Forces, BCG Growth-Share Matrix, McKinsey 7-S, Ansoff Matrix, and others that have been in the public domain for decades
What this knowledge base does NOT contain:
- ❌ No client names, engagement details, or project-specific data
- ❌ No internal firm templates, proprietary scoring rubrics, or methodology documents obtained under NDA
- ❌ No unpublished research, pre-release reports, or confidential benchmarks
- ❌ No content obtained through employment at or breach of agreement with any firm
- ❌ No leaked internal documents of any kind
Use of terms like "McKinsey-style" or "MBB" throughout this repo is purely descriptive — referring to a publicly understood standard of consulting practice, not a claim of affiliation or endorsement by any firm.
If you are a current or former consultant and wish to contribute, please ensure any additions follow these same standards: public sources only, no client data, no confidential firm IP.
| Audience | How You Benefit |
|---|---|
| MBA students and candidates | Practice case interviews, learn consulting frameworks, build structured thinking from scratch |
| MBB / Big 4 consultants | Faster decks, sharper issue trees, better synthesis |
| Business professionals | Apply consulting-grade thinking to real problems without hiring a firm |
| Founders and operators | Structure strategy, diagnose profitability issues, build board-ready narratives |
| AI / Claude enthusiasts | Fork, extend, and build your own specialist skills on top of this architecture |
| Students and academics | Learn how high-performance problem-solvers actually think |
management-consultant-claude-skill/
├── README.md <- You are here
├── INSTALL.md <- Step-by-step setup guide
├── FRAMEWORKS.md <- Complete consulting frameworks reference
├── CASE-STUDIES.md <- 3 worked case examples with full solutions
│
└── skill/
├── SKILL.md <- The main skill definition (install this)
└── references/ <- 110+ deep-knowledge reference files
├── frameworks.md
├── case-interview.md
├── guesstimation.md
├── issue-hypothesis-trees.md
├── storylining.md
├── pyramid-to-diamond.md
├── healthcare-life-sciences.md
├── financial-services.md
├── genai-enterprise-strategy.md
├── post-merger-integration.md
├── corporate-restructuring-financial-distress.md
└── ... 100+ more
Once installed, Claude can assist you with:
- MECE issue trees: decompose any problem into mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive branches
- Hypothesis-driven analysis: start with a point of view, test it with evidence
- 80/20 prioritization: focus on the 20% of drivers that create 80% of impact
- First-principles thinking: break assumptions, reason from fundamentals
- Porter's Five Forces, 3C's, McKinsey 7-S, Ansoff Matrix, BCG Growth-Share
- Value Chain Analysis, Blue Ocean Strategy, GE-McKinsey 9-Box
- PESTEL, TAM/SAM/SOM, STP, Jobs-to-Be-Done
- DuPont Analysis, Unit Economics (CAC/LTV), DCF basics
- Profitability frameworks, Kotter's 8 Steps, RACI, Three Horizons
- Full McKinsey / Bain / BCG case formats
- Practice cases across all case types (profitability, market entry, M&A, pricing, growth)
- Scoring rubrics and structured feedback
- PEI (Personal Experience Interview) preparation with STAR coaching
- Math and estimation drills
- Pyramid Principle: lead with the answer, support with evidence
- SCR structure: Situation, Complication, Resolution
- Executive-grade slide action titles, memos, one-pagers
- Storylining: from 200 facts to 5 messages with a red thread
- Communication under pressure, hostile Q&A, executive presence
- Healthcare and Life Sciences (hospital P&L, pharma pipeline, FDA, CMS)
- Financial Services (NIM, ROE, Basel IV, insurance, fintech)
- Energy and Utilities (LCOE, IRA, energy transition, FERC)
- Technology, Media and Telecom (SaaS unit economics, platform dynamics, 5G)
- Consumer, Retail and CPG (GMROI, trade spend, DTC disruption)
- Industrial and Manufacturing (OEE, Lean/TPS, S&OP, Industry 4.0)
- Public Sector and Defense (FAR/DFARS, GovCon, IDIQ)
- Real Estate and Infrastructure (cap rates, NOI, REPE, REIT)
- Hospitality and Travel (RevPAR, ADR, airline CASK)
- Due diligence (commercial, operational, financial, ESG)
- Post-merger integration (IMO, synergy framework, Day 1 readiness)
- Corporate restructuring and financial distress (Chapter 11, DIP, 13-week cash flow)
- GenAI enterprise strategy (pilot purgatory, RAG, LLMOps, EU AI Act)
- Pricing and revenue management (conjoint, Van Westendorp, price waterfall)
- Org design and workforce planning (Galbraith Star, spans and layers, SBO)
- Change management (ADKAR, Kotter, resistance management)
- Climate strategy and net-zero (SBTi, MAC curves, CSRD, CBAM)
- Process mining (Celonis, Signavio, conformance checking)
- Sales force effectiveness (quota setting, coverage models, CRM analytics)
- McKinsey 7-step problem-solving methodology and day-one answer discipline
- Hypothesis invalidation and structured pre-mortem thinking
- Cost restructuring anatomy (zero-based, complexity reduction, shared services)
- Transformation program architecture (wave planning, governance, benefits tracking)
- Executive presence in senior rooms, board communication and decision-support
- Technology vendor selection and evaluation frameworks
- Synergy modeling and validation (revenue, cost, financial)
- Behavioral change design and insight-to-action translation
- Client political mapping, scope creep governance, and consulting negotiation
You need access to Claude. Free tier works; Pro is recommended for heavy use.
See INSTALL.md for the full setup guide. The short version:
- Download
skill/SKILL.mdand the entireskill/references/folder - Follow the Cowork/Claude Code installation steps in
INSTALL.md - Start a new conversation and type: "Act as my management consultant"
"Help me structure a profitability analysis for a $500M retail chain whose margins have been declining."
"I have a case interview at McKinsey next week. Run me through a market entry case."
"Size the US electric vehicle charging market from first principles."
"My company is considering acquiring a SaaS competitor. Build me an M&A issue tree."
"Write me an executive summary for a cost reduction initiative in the logistics function."
"I need to present a go-to-market strategy to the board. Help me structure the narrative."
This skill is built for active practice, not just passive reading.
For case interview prep:
- Ask Claude to run you through a case as an interviewer (McKinsey-led, BCG candidate-led, Bain collaborative)
- Get scored on structure, hypothesis, quant, synthesis, and recommendation
- Practice market sizing, profitability, market entry, M&A, pricing across all formats
- Drill behavioral / PEI stories with real-time STAR coaching
For case competitions:
- Use Claude to stress-test your team's issue tree before the presentation
- Get a second opinion on your recommendation and the risks you may have missed
- Sanity-check your market sizing assumptions and financial math
- Sharpen your slide action titles and executive narrative
For self-study and groundwork:
- Work through the 3 case studies in CASE-STUDIES.md before attempting live cases
- Use FRAMEWORKS.md as your active reference, not just a read-once guide
- Build the habit of structuring every problem MECE before answering
"Run me through a McKinsey-style profitability case. Play the interviewer."
"Score my structure on this market entry case on a 1-4 scale across all dimensions."
"My case comp team has 48 hours. Help us stress-test our recommendation."
"Give me 10 market sizing questions and coach me through each one."
Top consultants operate with a specific cognitive architecture that most people are never explicitly taught:
- They lead with the answer, not the analysis
- They think in structures, not lists
- They form hypotheses before gathering data, not after
- They apply 80/20 thinking ruthlessly
- They communicate in pyramids: governing thought, then evidence
This skill is a scaffold for building those habits. It is not a replacement for judgment, but a way to practice the patterns consistently.
See FRAMEWORKS.md for the complete reference. Highlights:
| Problem | Framework |
|---|---|
| Why is profit declining? | Profitability tree, DuPont, Value chain |
| Should we enter market X? | 3C's + Market sizing, Porter's Five Forces |
| How to grow revenue 20%? | Ansoff Matrix + Solution issue tree |
| Should we acquire Company Y? | 3C's + Synergy analysis + DCF |
| How to optimize operations? | Lean / Value stream, DMAIC |
| How to build a strategy? | Porter's Five Forces + 3C's + Blue Ocean |
| How to restructure the org? | 7S + Kotter + RACI + Talent 9-Box |
| How to price a new product? | Value-based pricing + Competitive positioning |
See CASE-STUDIES.md for 3 fully worked cases. Each includes: full interviewer prompt → candidate structure → key analyses → final recommendation.
| Case | Type | Setup | What You'll Practice |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Falling Star | Profitability | $800M specialty beverage company, margins declining 3 years running | Issue tree, cost/revenue disaggregation, root cause identification |
| New Frontier | Market Entry | European athletic apparel brand evaluating US expansion | Market sizing, 3C's, entry mode selection, go/no-go recommendation |
| The Big Question | Market Sizing | PE fund sizing the US pet insurance market for acquisition due diligence | Bottom-up sizing, TAM/SAM/SOM, assumption stress-testing |
A PE / LBO case is in progress — see Issue #6 if you'd like to contribute it.
This is a living knowledge base — the more industries, benchmarks, and cases it covers, the more useful it becomes for everyone.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guide: file structure, quality bar, and how to submit a PR.
Open issues (good places to start):
- Add reference file: Cybersecurity Consulting
- Add reference file: Education & EdTech
- Update benchmarks: genai-enterprise-strategy.md
- Add case study: PE / LBO case
- Add reference file: Semiconductor & Hardware
You don't need to be ex-MBB to contribute. If you've worked in any industry, finance role, or ops team, you have something concrete to add.
This skill is free and always will be. If it helped you land an interview, ace a case, or think more clearly about a hard problem, here are a few ways to give back:
- ⭐ Star the repo — helps others find it
- 💖 Sponsor on GitHub — directly support ongoing development
- ☕ Buy me a coffee — ko-fi.com/doginfantry (set this up at ko-fi.com if you haven't yet)
- 🔁 Share it with someone preparing for consulting interviews or working through a strategy problem
- 🛠️ Contribute a case study, framework, or industry reference file
Built for free, meant to stay free. Any support goes directly toward keeping this knowledge base current and growing.
MIT License. Free to use, fork, adapt, and distribute. See LICENSE for details.
Pass it on.