Game

The McKinsey Digital Assessment is a video game style online simulation used to assess a
candidate's cognitive abilities. It is created by a startup called Imbellus, which builds
simulation-based cognitive assessments that measure how people think

Measure the consulting traits and qualifications of a candidate and compare with
McKinsey’s model consultant

2 mini-games:
Ecosystem Placement – Ecosystem Building
Invasive Species – Plant Defense

Puzzle genre, strategy game

Effective plans, correct calculations

McK recommends 35 minutes each for both the games

Requires a structured approach. Time won’t be an issue after some practice

You are then given 60 minutes to complete five tasks in the McKinsey Digital Assessment
across two different scenarios
 Critical thinking: How well can you draw the right insights and make appropriate
judgments from facts?
 Decision making: How well can you select the best course of action among different
options with limited time and imperfect information?
 Meta-cognition: How well can you develop and use strategies to make learning
information and solving problems easier? (e.g., taking notes, using a hypothesis-
driven approach)
 Situational awareness: How well can you determine and understand relationships
between different variables to predict the outcome of a scenario?
 Systems thinking: How well can you understand cause and effect relationships?

Captures information on all of the candidate’s actions. For example, it measures the time
spent on each page and the movement of the mouse. It then uses data science to assign a
score on all five of these capabilities

Each candidate gets two different scores. The product score measures how good the
outcome was in each scenario. The process score evaluates the different steps and actions
the candidate took to complete each task

Prioritize which pieces of data or information are most important.

Some data will be irrelevant to the decisions that you make. Other data will be relevant,
but not that important. You should focus your time on the data that has the greatest
impact on your decision-making
In some scenarios, you will have questions about certain ideas or strategies that you have.
You’ll most likely not get answers to these questions unless you test your strategies.
Therefore, test your ideas and strategies and record the outcomes. Afterwards, you can
adapt your strategy based on what you have learned

Constantly learning new things as you read information and analyze data. Make sure that
you take good notes on your observations and learnings. This will help you be more
effective in your use of time by helping you avoid having to re-read information or re-
analyze data

Be comfortable with making imperfect decisions and guesses based on incomplete

information

Some scenarios may introduce new data or information halfway through the scenario.
Whenever you receive new data or information, make sure you review it. You may need to
change or adapt your strategy given new circumstances

https://hackingthecaseinterview.thinkific.com/pages/mckinsey-digital-assessment
https://www.mckinsey.com/careers/mckinsey-digital-assessment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B--hYDUgmE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYrAoUyrFKg

Ecosystem Building:

Create a sustainable ecosystem

- Build a food chain of 8 species with sustainable calories input and output,
using a given base of 39 (30-40) species (9 producers, 30 animals) – living
condition requirements, food source, energy balance
- Place that food chain in a location with suitable living conditions
- Randomly being assigned to a mountain or coral reef environment
- Producers – calorie source for others
- Details – 8 data points (7-10) – calories needed, calories provided, depth
range, temperature range, food sources, eaten by, desirable living conditions
(salt content range, water current range)
- 8 data points for 39 species = 312
- Allows 8-12 data points to be viewed at a time
- Can click on screen and get the conditions for that point. Conditions – 7, can
choose 4 data points at a time
- Goal: Every species have enough food to eat and suitable conditions to live in
- Strict set of eating rules:
 Species with highest calories provided eats first, it eats the food source
with the highest calorie provided. In case of a tie, eats equally from
both sources
 When a food source is eaten, its calories provided decreases
permanently by amount equal to eating species’ calories needed. If the
species need higher calories, it eats the next food source with the
highest calories provided at that point
 Keep eating until all calories needed are met or all the food sources
have been exhausted
  Then species with the next highest calories provided eats
 At the end, surviving species are: a) Positive net calories provided, b)
calories needed fully met

Tasks:
 Select a suitable location
 Select 8 species for forming a food chain

1)
Filter noise: Out of 312, only 100 data elements are relevant
Out of 7-8 living conditions, focus on depth/elevation and temperature

2)
Develop and follow a structured process – Don’t follow random order, follow bottom up or
top down

3)
Take notes

Plant Defense:

3 rounds – map, each round is complete and independent round

Recommended time for each round – 12 minutes so overall of ~36 minutes

10X10 or 12X12 square grid

In middle, base represented by green
Arrange resources to help defend that plant against invaders
Turn based game – You move, computer move
You can make max of 15 turns and computer can make indefinite consecutive turns until base
is invaded.
Objective is to delay the invasion for as long as possible
Invaders appear randomly from the borders every 3-4 turns, move 1 square/turn
You can use defenders (animals acting as towers to defend the base) or terrains (obstacles)
Cliffs force invaders to change paths and rocks, forests slow them down
Each defender has own range and damage. Generally, weaker defenders have longer range
and vice versa
You have to plan 5 turns at a time
Can predict the invaders path, they choose the shortest path

Invaders will come from all directions

Limits to how many defenders and terrains – can’t just place wherever and whenever you
want
Defenders can be placed near certain types of terrain
Once resources have been activated, can’t be removed, replaced, changed its position
Plans to defend future invaders who haven’t appeared yet

1. Overlap your defenses – more damage to invaders, less likely base will be
taken
 2. Place your defenses near your base - Smaller rings means you can cover the
whole circumference more easily and have more overlaps
3. See the big picture, plan for long term and future invaders as well

Set low screen scaling – 100% - more data shown at the same time
Get a mouse
2 laptops, 1 for note taking

I took a bottom up approach on the ecosystem management with 3 groups of producers. I

analyzed the data systematically starting with the producer group that offers the most
calories, it turned out that the only producer group that allows for a stable ecosystem is
the one that produces the least calories, so it was the 3rd chain I tried that worked out. Also
my system didn't allow for an apex predator and I only had three levels (3 producers, 3
herbivores and 2 predators) and that surprised me as I didn't run into this possibility when
preparing. Overall it worked out OK. On the invasive species part I managed to get to turn
33, 27 and 22 on maps 1, 2 and 3. Once you pass turn 15 the AI definitely exploits any blind
spot in your defenses to beat you as fast as possible

I chose elevation 481-1250, and temperature 6 - 12,5 as my guiding principles

For the animals, I looked only at the ones that would eat my choice of producers - and to
decide between multiple, I calculated the ration between calories provided and calories
needed in order to select the best candidates

Name of the animals in the game is mind-blowing: super long and really hard to remember.
Be prepared for that

I used bottom up approach while choosing species. I also chose location followed by food
producers first. I have prepared an excel spreadsheet on my second laptop and was using it
for calculation. Taking the ratio of cal needed to cal provided is always helpful and should
always be over 1.

You cannot place different species into different locations. The game doesn't let you do it.
The most optimal strategy is to scan through the species list, have a feel of which
location zone is best, then look deep into species that can live in that location zone. Next,
spend most of your time creating the food-chain. Once done, simply place the whole thing
on a specific location spot that meets all criteria

Just concentrated defense in the middle. Slowing down areas + coyots + hawks overlapping.
Damage in one cell was like 180-240

In terms of the plant defense, it was pretty straightforward and easy, just make sure you count
each turn vs how much damage you can do in each of those turns to invaders, and plan your
defense around your plant (not too close). Make sure you DO NOT concentrate on one
invader and put all your defenders against that, if your calculation already tells you that your
damage is enough. Keep putting your defenders on the other sides (overlapping)

Different terrains only affects SELECTED invasive species, not all

For the defence game, even when you see that there's no way the animal can reach your plan
in 15 moves, just try to make it as many steps that you can as possible instead of randomly
placing on the map. I think the system will count it as your result as well

Disease Management

Disaster Management