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I know it's fashionable to hate on MBAs, but I am not entirely convinced engineers are any better equipped with skills such as: requirements gathering, scoping,

I know it's fashionable to hate on MBAs, but I am not entirely convinced engineers are any better equipped with skills such as: requirements gathering, scoping, presenting, project management, competitive research, financial modeling, memo writing, and strategic planning. I don't believe these are truly vacuous activities, and - loathe as I am to say - MBAs may be the best trained to do this. (Disclosure: I do not have an MBA)

the8472 6y ago
This is about a specific consulting company, not MBAs in general.
cowanon22 6y ago
I agree with this - young engineers typically do not appreciate the importance of building the right thing vs building it well. However, the OPs point stands. McKinsey and these other companies just regurgitate what is printed in the trade press and charge you top dollars for it. You meet an experienced person once at project kickoff, and then most of your contacts are fresh grads with 2-5 years of experience. They really specialize in attending meetings and conference calls, but are all over the place (from excellent to awful) at actually implementing things.
olsonjeffery 6y ago
I'm fine stating that engineers from non-elite schools are just as well equipped for the tasks you describe, but that wasn't the GP's contention. The point is that McKinsey make bad recommendations that have demonstrably bad outcomes. Their fingerprints are all over numerous bad decisions in business and government in the past few decades[0]. These are the bare minimum, because there are quite likely many negative outcomes they have championed in their role as consultants that were never publicized or reported on. Totally separate from the above is their absolutely mercenary tendency to work with anyone who will pay them[1][2]. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#Controver... [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/asia/mckinsey-china-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/asia/mckinsey-china... [2] - https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/mckinseys-work-for-saudi-arabia-highlights-its-history-of-unsavory-entanglements https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/mckinseys-work-for-...
- ath92 6y ago
  McKinsey has 27,000 employees. That's the population of an entire town. I'm not saying that the things described in the links you posted here aren't bad, but I think it's important to remember with this many employees, there will always be someone doing something that you don't agree with.
  - olsonjeffery 6y ago
    To be clear: Is your assertion that, because these outcomes aren't a deliberate conspiracy, we have to let them happen because of... what, exactly? Whether it's an emergent feature of this style of consulting or a firm consisting of the worst human beings is besides the point. Elite management consulting firms (McKinsey, Deloitte, Bain, etc) exist to enable the worst impulses of leadership across the spectrum. The ends certainly justify scrutinizing the means.
  - _jal 6y ago
    This assertion is both true and irrelevant. Try: "Comcast customer service has a huge number of employees. I'm not saying there aren't jerks in there, but..." Devolving corporate responsibility (for the bad stuff) to individuals is of course the corporate preference. But at some point you run in to the "only the best people" problem - McKinsey hires them, trains them, assigns them and pays them, no matter how slippery McKinsey PR is, I keep seeing that name, McKinsey.
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  Cherry picking bad examples is not how to evaluate how often McKinsey "make bad recommendations that have demonstrably bad outcomes". Any company the size of McKinsey around as long as McKinsey will have success and failure stories. The proper way to evalaute is to take all things McKinsey did, normalize for background, and see how it performs compared to other methods of solving the same problems. Cherry picking to make a claim is the 2nd worst form of evidence, outranked only by outright lying.
  - GreeniFi 6y ago
hehehaha 6y ago
Getting an MBA right now is a clear signal that you have zero skills.
MisterTea 6y ago
Its a people problem. Actually solving problems takes a particular kind of mind. A degree is just a piece of paper which certifies the fact that you sat through lectures on subjects and you successfully regurgitated said lecture material on another piece of paper from memory. The issue with the MBA field is that it tends to attract power hungry narcissists/psychopaths who enjoy holding power over others. Engineers like to tinker with stuff and be left alone.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  Posting this comment on a website dedicated to self-promotion of engineers who want to get rich quickly is an interesting choice.
IMTDb 6y ago
The problem are not MBA's. The problem is that the incentive of consulting companies are not aligned with the incentive of their clients. Take a big construction project. In the like of the Berlin airport. What do you think is more profitable for the consulting companies : a) A well thought project, done in budget and in time. Where the consulting company gets the whole contract + all the bonuses associated with it. b) A poorly managed project, that gets refinanced multiple times and that ends up being pushed back decades. It's actually B. Consulting companies love long projects, because this allows them to place consultant for extended periods of time. And any consultant working for a client is a profitable consultant event without bonuses. Consulting companies hate projects that end up shorter than expected, because any bonus they might get from that project ends up being spent on consultant that are waiting for their next assignment. The main KPI of any consulting company is "the %age of time you consultant are spending 'on assignment' vs 'on the bench'". And long projects where consultant are busy for years are the best way to bring that KPI to 100%, even when the underlying project is a complete mess. The only thing they get from shorter and better managed projects is a better image, which is easier and less expensive to get using marketing technique and PR.
- alexpetralia 6y ago
  Yes, and I agree with all the child comments. The principal-agent cost with consulting firms is enormous. In the most uncharitable light, their business model is a wealth transfer insofar as their profit derives directly from maximizing this cost.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  Your complaints apply exactly as well to the internal employees.
- rvwaveren 6y ago
  Your point about incentives is exactly the structural problem here. I've been a consultant years ago and on a human level we loved projects that ran well. You feel good about yourself and your team for helping the client quickly and efficiently. However, zooming out, it's the incentive system that's completely broken: there is no skin in the game. Consulting firms are too detached from the consequences of their advice. Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote a nice book about this phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_in_the_Game_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_in_the_Game_(book)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
I'm fairly sure it's much easier to teach engineers how to business than it is to teach MBAs how to engineer.
alisonkisk 6y ago
Maybe companies hire MBAs as a perk/morale-booster for the engineers, so they have someone to unite in their hate against and not fight with each other over their failures.

the8472 6y ago

This is about a specific consulting company, not MBAs in general.

cowanon22 6y ago

I agree with this - young engineers typically do not appreciate the importance of building the right thing vs building it well. However, the OPs point stands. McKinsey and these other companies just regurgitate what is printed in the trade press and charge you top dollars for it. You meet an experienced person once at project kickoff, and then most of your contacts are fresh grads with 2-5 years of experience. They really specialize in attending meetings and conference calls, but are all over the place (from excellent to awful) at actually implementing things.

olsonjeffery 6y ago

I'm fine stating that engineers from non-elite schools are just as well equipped for the tasks you describe, but that wasn't the GP's contention. The point is that McKinsey make bad recommendations that have demonstrably bad outcomes. Their fingerprints are all over numerous bad decisions in business and government in the past few decades[0]. These are the bare minimum, because there are quite likely many negative outcomes they have championed in their role as consultants that were never publicized or reported on. Totally separate from the above is their absolutely mercenary tendency to work with anyone who will pay them[1][2]. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#Controver... [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/asia/mckinsey-china-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/asia/mckinsey-china... [2] - https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/mckinseys-work-for-saudi-arabia-highlights-its-history-of-unsavory-entanglements https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/mckinseys-work-for-...

ath92 6y ago
McKinsey has 27,000 employees. That's the population of an entire town. I'm not saying that the things described in the links you posted here aren't bad, but I think it's important to remember with this many employees, there will always be someone doing something that you don't agree with.
- olsonjeffery 6y ago
  To be clear: Is your assertion that, because these outcomes aren't a deliberate conspiracy, we have to let them happen because of... what, exactly? Whether it's an emergent feature of this style of consulting or a firm consisting of the worst human beings is besides the point. Elite management consulting firms (McKinsey, Deloitte, Bain, etc) exist to enable the worst impulses of leadership across the spectrum. The ends certainly justify scrutinizing the means.
- _jal 6y ago
  This assertion is both true and irrelevant. Try: "Comcast customer service has a huge number of employees. I'm not saying there aren't jerks in there, but..." Devolving corporate responsibility (for the bad stuff) to individuals is of course the corporate preference. But at some point you run in to the "only the best people" problem - McKinsey hires them, trains them, assigns them and pays them, no matter how slippery McKinsey PR is, I keep seeing that name, McKinsey.
ChrisLomont 6y ago
Cherry picking bad examples is not how to evaluate how often McKinsey "make bad recommendations that have demonstrably bad outcomes". Any company the size of McKinsey around as long as McKinsey will have success and failure stories. The proper way to evalaute is to take all things McKinsey did, normalize for background, and see how it performs compared to other methods of solving the same problems. Cherry picking to make a claim is the 2nd worst form of evidence, outranked only by outright lying.
- GreeniFi 6y ago

hehehaha 6y ago

Getting an MBA right now is a clear signal that you have zero skills.

MisterTea 6y ago

Its a people problem. Actually solving problems takes a particular kind of mind. A degree is just a piece of paper which certifies the fact that you sat through lectures on subjects and you successfully regurgitated said lecture material on another piece of paper from memory. The issue with the MBA field is that it tends to attract power hungry narcissists/psychopaths who enjoy holding power over others. Engineers like to tinker with stuff and be left alone.

alisonkisk 6y ago
Posting this comment on a website dedicated to self-promotion of engineers who want to get rich quickly is an interesting choice.

IMTDb 6y ago

The problem are not MBA's. The problem is that the incentive of consulting companies are not aligned with the incentive of their clients. Take a big construction project. In the like of the Berlin airport. What do you think is more profitable for the consulting companies : a) A well thought project, done in budget and in time. Where the consulting company gets the whole contract + all the bonuses associated with it. b) A poorly managed project, that gets refinanced multiple times and that ends up being pushed back decades. It's actually B. Consulting companies love long projects, because this allows them to place consultant for extended periods of time. And any consultant working for a client is a profitable consultant event without bonuses. Consulting companies hate projects that end up shorter than expected, because any bonus they might get from that project ends up being spent on consultant that are waiting for their next assignment. The main KPI of any consulting company is "the %age of time you consultant are spending 'on assignment' vs 'on the bench'". And long projects where consultant are busy for years are the best way to bring that KPI to 100%, even when the underlying project is a complete mess. The only thing they get from shorter and better managed projects is a better image, which is easier and less expensive to get using marketing technique and PR.

alexpetralia 6y ago
Yes, and I agree with all the child comments. The principal-agent cost with consulting firms is enormous. In the most uncharitable light, their business model is a wealth transfer insofar as their profit derives directly from maximizing this cost.
alisonkisk 6y ago
Your complaints apply exactly as well to the internal employees.
rvwaveren 6y ago
Your point about incentives is exactly the structural problem here. I've been a consultant years ago and on a human level we loved projects that ran well. You feel good about yourself and your team for helping the client quickly and efficiently. However, zooming out, it's the incentive system that's completely broken: there is no skin in the game. Consulting firms are too detached from the consequences of their advice. Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote a nice book about this phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_in_the_Game_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_in_the_Game_(book)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

I'm fairly sure it's much easier to teach engineers how to business than it is to teach MBAs how to engineer.

alisonkisk 6y ago

Maybe companies hire MBAs as a perk/morale-booster for the engineers, so they have someone to unite in their hate against and not fight with each other over their failures.