Lesson 4: The Triple Anchor

As discussed in the prior lessons, proceeding with your answer to a case interview can be made more effective by first defining a Framework for your answer that identifies individual sections, and then step through each section. This technique is effective because it makes it clear what you will discuss at a high level and why. It makes clear the underlying logic of your answer.

It does not by itself guarantee the content of your answer within each section is clear, however. As described in the previous article, sections include a section header that explains its existence, as well as sub-sections and lists. Defining lists effectively is particularly important to get right, since otherwise your content may become a ramble.

Most cases interviews include lists of options that must ultimately prioritize. For example, you might have three different potential customer groups, or a variety of behaviors that might be important to measure. For each list, you might need to prioritize one or many of them.

To have a repeatable and easy to understand approach to defining these lists, we have created a structure called the Triple Anchor. It’s designed to give structure to the smaller ideas in your discussion and ensure that your content is comprehensive and well-organized. It also allows us to come up with a clear prioritization sub-section that following the Qualify and Decide approach.

The Triple Anchor

The Triple Anchor is a simple template for an item in a list that uniformly labels the item, describes it, and explains its relevance to the purpose of the subsection that contains it. Consider the “customer” section of the product design interview. In this section, candidates must identify groups of people that might make for good target audiences for the product they are designing.

A Triple Anchor in this section will provide the item a label, then explain what it is, and then explain why the group is a plausible target audience for the product. Any content that doesn’t fall into one of these three parts is likely irrelevant (unless you have a good explanation for why you should include it). By sticking to this structure, you both remember to include the important content and exclude all extraneous content. You also remember to present it in a logical way. First describing a thing and then explaining why it’s important is straightforward and will land well with your interviewer.

Remember, even if you come up with great content, it won’t land if it’s disorganized, has irrelevant details, and isn’t well-justified. To address this, the Triple Anchor imposes structure on how each of these people groups is described.

The Triple Anchor’s Structure

As the name implies, the Triple Anchor has three parts. Here’s how it works:

1. Label. This is an easy-to-remember 1–2 word phrase (usually a noun) that clearly encapsulates what the item is. The label is important because it makes it easy to refer back to the idea later in the discussion by improving recall by your audience or interviewer. The more memorable and accurate it is, the better the recall.

2. Description. This is where you explain the key details about the thing you’re talking about, being sure not to overwhelm your audience with extraneous details. The description is important because it gives definition to the idea and sets up later discussion with details that will be used to further your argument.

3. Why it matters. After describing your idea, you must explain why it is meaningful, important, or worth including so your interviewer can understand your reasoning. This part is critical because it justifies the item’s existence in the list by relating it back to the purpose of the section. By tying the item to the purpose of the section, you also make it clear why it supports your overall argument.

Since most candidates don’t do this consistently, doing it yourself will make your arguments clearer and more persuasive than candidates who don’t have a similar approach.

Here’s an example of a Triple Anchor that defines an item in the “customer” section of a Product Design interview.

My first potential customer segment is the [1] “busy parent”. [2] The busy parent is someone who has children and a schedule with lots of competing priorities. You can imagine that the last thing they want to do is worry about how this product affects their family or their time. [3] I think this group might be a great potential audience for our product because in addition to being a large group that may have a high demand for a new product in this space, they also face constraints that make engaging with existing products in this space especially challenging.

The label is [1], the description is [2], and the why is [3]. Each section can include as much detail as is required to make your case.

The Triple Anchor packages the detail into a single memorable noun. This Triple Anchor delivers the most important information for advancing the argument in a logical sequence that makes it clear that the group might be a reasonable one to choose for further discussion.

Qualify and Choose

In situations where you identify items in a list and must subsequently prioritize them, the Triple Anchor provides a platform for facilitating the choice.

The “Why it matters” portion acts as a qualifier for each item in the list. This is important because it allows you to prove that you have chosen at least three items that you might reasonably choose for your product. This means there is an actual tradeoff among appealing options. Without a tradeoff, it’s unlikely that all of your options were very good. By qualifying each item, you make the case that you have chosen good options before you choose from among them.

Next Steps

Now that you’ve learned how the Triple Anchor works, give it a try in your next mock interview or presentation.