To get up to speed on the latest thinking about telecom organization and industry trends, the McKinsey Budapest team (partner, engagement manager, and two associates) traveled to Warsaw for a day to meet and interview colleagues with deep telecom industry knowledge. One Polish partner and another engagement manager from McKinsey's Telecommunication Practice agreed to continuously act as sparring partners and join the most important client meetings.

Two days later, the team was ready to "kick-start" the project at the client's site. The half-day meeting included an introduction to McKinsey, discussion of the project aims, and a proposal for the workplan. The team also shared some best practice examples from telecom organizations all over the world.

The project had two phases:

• Phase 1: Designing the main building blocks of the organization based on the company's main strategic goals.

• Phase 2: Detailing the new organizational structure, including mapping the new core processes, core job descriptions, and a subsequent implementation plan.