Does McKinsey Solve game change every year?

Question

I've heard from a friend that McKinsey change their game style and tasks every year such that every new application process the game is fully changed. Is this true?

I'd like to know since all prep material I've seen so far reference the same game with the same tasks.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Hi there,

Q: I've heard from a friend that McKinsey change their game style and tasks every year such that every new application process the game is fully changed. Is this true?

Not exactly.

The McKinsey game is made by a few different games. McKinsey changed some of the games during the last years, but not all of them.

Specifically, the current game is made of up to three games:

Ecosystem Game. This was present from the very beginning and it is still present today.
Redrock Study. This was introduced in a testing phase in 2022 and added to all candidates in 2023, substituting the previous second game (Plant Defense).
Ocean Treatment. This was introduced in a testing phase in 2024.

The Ocean Treatment game is not present for all candidates at the moment, as it is in a testing phase.

If you want to check the latest version of the game, you can have a look at the guide I created at the link below, including all three current games (plus a review of all 7 games ever used, in case you want to check them):

▶ McKinsey Solve Game Combo Guide

Good luck!

Francesco

Answer 2

Hi there,

This is partially true.

McKinsey adjusts the Solve periodically but historically, most of the major changes were never implemented for the evaluation.

To give you a brief history of the game:

It started with two games in November 2019 for the London office and then spread across the globe in 2020:

Ecosystem creation
Plant defense (similar to a tower defense game)

Initially, since November 2019 when they launched, they made quite a few minor adjustments to both games to adjust the difficulty levels, nothing major though.

Over time, they released a few additional games (e.g., animal migration planning) that never made it into the actual evaluation. These additional games were used as a public beta where candidates worked through them on top of the normal games, yet they were not evaluated based on them.

One game that made it out of beta testing was the Red Rock.

Nothing major changed for a while until the Plant defense game was replaced by the said Red Rock game in March 2023.

Since then the lineup is

Ecosystem creation
Red Rock study and simulation

This went on until now, where they have introduced another 3rd game (since June 2024), called Ocean Cleanup or Ocean Treatment (likely not used for the evaluation again and just a beta test). It remains to be seen if this might replace the ecosystem creation in the future.

As a consequence of these many small and few major changes, the course and guide that I have developed since November 2019 is already in version 21. I constantly adjust it based on the latest user feedback.

So from the outside, it might look the same but on the inside all changes are reflected.

Cheers,

Florian

Answer 3

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Answer 4

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