The Consulting Toolkit: Core Methods, Skills, and Prompts

How This Toolkit Is Organised

This hub holds three different kinds of resource, and picking the right one saves a wasted click. A method guide is the full explanation: what the method is, when it applies, worked examples, and the exhibit it produces, written for someone learning the method or explaining a reasoning choice to someone else. A skill pack is that same method installed once as a small file in a Claude project, so Claude applies it the same way on every future engagement without being re-explained each time. A prompt is the narrowest slice of the two: the specific copy-paste instruction sitting at the end of every method guide below, for a single one-off use when nothing needs installing at all.

Reach past all three only when the analysis needs a specific named framework, a 2x2, a value chain map, a RACI matrix, which the field guide covered under Go Deeper below handles separately from the five core methods.

Key Takeaways

• If the question is still broad and there is no candidate answer yet, start with an issue tree; splitting it MECE first is what makes it assignable and testable in parallel.
• If early evidence already points somewhere, skip the open-ended study and test a named hypothesis instead; it is faster whenever the first guess is a reasonable one.
• Never present a breakdown that has not passed the MECE test, and never present a validated breakdown without compressing it through the pyramid principle first.
• A structured argument is not a deck until it is storylined into action titles, and a comparison inside that deck needs a rating notation, not just a table.
• Once a method is second nature, install it as a Claude skill so it runs the same way on every engagement instead of being re-explained from memory each time.

Find the Right Page for What You Need

Use this table instead of reading every guide top to bottom. Find the job actually in front of you, then follow the one link that answers it; most readers only need two or three rows below, not the whole page.

How Do You Frame and Test a Consulting Problem?

Every engagement starts the same way: a question broad enough that nobody can act on it yet. An issue tree splits that question into MECE branches a team can assign and test in parallel, the right move whenever there is no candidate answer yet, covered in the full guide to building and presenting an issue tree. Once early evidence already points toward a likely answer, switch to hypothesis-driven problem solving instead and test that answer directly, covered in the guide to hypothesis-driven problem solving. The gap matters: Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg's 2017 Harvard Business Review survey of 106 C-suite executives across 17 countries found 85% agreed their organizations were bad at diagnosing problems in the first place. The trade-off: an issue tree is slower but safer when the question itself might be wrong; a hypothesis is faster only when the first guess is already a good one.

How Do You Structure the Argument Once You Have Findings?

Findings do not structure themselves. Before trusting any breakdown, an issue tree branch, a hypothesis's sub-claims, a slide's bullet groups, check it against MECE: no overlap, no gap, covered with worked examples and a four-question test in the full MECE guide. Paul Nutt's 1999 Academy of Management Executive study tracked 356 real decisions and found managers who generated more than one option saw their success rate rise from 56% to 70%, yet did so in fewer than 20% of cases. A wide MECE breakdown is how a real second option gets onto the table at all. Once the breakdown holds, the pyramid principle compresses it into a governing thought plus three or four supporting arguments, the same answer-first logic the guide to building an executive summary slide applies directly to a slide. The trade-off: MECE without the pyramid principle is a correct but unreadable breakdown; the pyramid principle without MECE is a confident answer built on a structure nobody checked.

How Do You Communicate a Structured Argument?

A pyramid-structured argument still is not a deck until it runs across slides in an order a reader can follow without anyone narrating it. Storylining sequences that argument into action-titled slides, so the titles alone carry the story to someone who only skims them, covered inside the guide to building an executive summary slide as the anchor slide of that storyline. Comparison slides in the same deck need a rating notation too: the filled-circle Harvey ball scale is the standard, and it travels unchanged from a capability assessment to a vendor shortlist, covered in the guide to adding Harvey balls in PowerPoint. The trade-off: storylining takes longer than writing slide by slide, and it is the only version a partner actually reads start to finish.

When Do You Need a Framework Beyond These Five?

These five methods carry most engagements from a blank page to a signed-off deck. When the analysis calls for a named framework instead, a value chain map, a 2x2, a market sizing model, reach for the field guide to 16 more frameworks, grouped by engagement stage. Market sizing deserves its own mention: CB Insights' 2026 analysis of 431 venture-backed companies that shut down since 2023 found weak product-market fit cited as a contributing cause in 43% of them, a mismatch a properly triangulated sizing slide is built to surface early, covered in the guide to building a market sizing slide. The trade-off: a named framework is more specific than the five methods above, and narrower, useful for one kind of analysis and useless outside it.

Frequently Asked Questions