Lab Leader: Our Simulator for the New 30-Minute Sustainable Futures Lab

McKinsey has updated the Sustainable Futures Lab. There are now two versions of the game in circulation, and each candidate is given one of them. Today we are launching Lab Leader, our simulator for the new version, alongside the existing Standard simulator. Both are live now in the Sustainable Futures Lab simulator.

What McKinsey changed

Until recently, the Sustainable Futures Lab (SFL) was a 20-minute module of 13 scenario questions. You read a short brief, ranked or chose interventions, and moved on. This is the version behind the 85-minute Solve invitation, and it is what our simulator has covered since launch.

In late August, candidates began reporting a 95-minute Solve invitation. The extra time comes from a redesigned SFL that runs for about 30 minutes and looks nothing like the old one. Instead of independent questions, you lead a small research team over three consecutive days. We covered the early reports in detail when they first surfaced: McKinsey Solve 95-minute assessment: new SFL format.

Since then the picture has firmed up. The new format is real, it is being given to a meaningful share of candidates, and the old format has not been retired. Both are running in parallel.

Which version will you get?

Your invitation tells you. Check the stated duration:

• 85 minutes: Redrock, Sea Wolf, and the Standard 20-minute SFL.
• 95 minutes: Redrock, Sea Wolf, and the new 30-minute SFL.

If your invitation says 85 minutes, practise Standard. If it says 95 minutes, practise Lab Leader. If you have not received an invitation yet, practise both. They test different things, and there is no way to know in advance which one you will be assigned.

How the new format works

Lab Leader follows the structure candidates have described. You are put in charge of four researchers at a field lab: an ecologist, a biologist, a habitat planner, and an engineer. The lab has four workstations covering plants, water, animals, and communications. The project runs for three days, and each day has the same four stages.

Explore. You start each day with a small budget of questions, usually three. You can put a question to a researcher or to a workstation, but you cannot ask everyone everything. Which questions you spend your budget on is part of what is being assessed.

Assign. You place each researcher at a workstation for the day. Every time you move someone, you give a reason for the move from a short list.

Support. Once the team is working, researchers come to you with problems. Each one needs a decision, made with incomplete information, from a set of predefined responses.

Reflect. At the end of the day you assess how each researcher is doing on a three-point scale. The scale changes by day: on one day it is doubtful, neutral, or confident; on another it is unbalanced, neutral, or balanced. You can also say you do not know, which is scored differently from a wrong read.

Then the next day begins. Researchers start from new positions, the project has moved on, and what you learned yesterday shapes what is worth asking today.

What Lab Leader includes

Five missions. Nalu Forest Nesting Crisis, Kaito Reef Bleaching Event, Verde Delta Flood Recovery, Sierra Pinos Wildfire Regrowth, and Orkney Kelp Forest Collapse. Each is a distinct three-day project with its own team dynamics and its own answers.

Two modes. Assessment mode runs the full 30-minute clock and ends the attempt when time is up, the same as the real thing. Practice mode removes the deadline and adds a pause button, so you can learn the interface and think through each decision without pressure.

A tutorial and onboarding. Every mission opens with the same tutorial sequence you will see on assessment day, including the initial ordering question about how the project will run.

A notes drawer. Everything you learn during Explore is saved and available for the rest of the mission, so the game rewards remembering and using information rather than trying to hold it all in your head.

A scored review. At the end you get a breakdown across three dimensions: Delivery (did you place people where the work needed them, and did you handle the support requests well), Prioritisation (did you spend your questions where they changed a decision), and Team Work (did you read your researchers accurately). The review walks back through each day’s decisions with the mission content beside them, so you can see what you missed.

What has not changed

The Standard simulator is still there, with the same six missions and the same 20-minute, 13-question format. If you have an 85-minute invitation, nothing about your preparation needs to change.

One thing we have deliberately kept separate: cohort percentiles. Our percentile benchmarks are built from timed Standard attempts, and Lab Leader attempts are not mixed into that data. Lab Leader gives you a scored review; it does not yet give you a percentile.

Access

Lab Leader is included in the Ultimate plan and in the Sea Wolf + Sustainable Futures Lab plan, which both carry all five Lab Leader missions and all five paid Standard missions. The Express plan includes two of each. Free accounts can play the Standard Urban Flood mission and see the Lab Leader missions listed, but will need to upgrade to play them. Full details are on the pricing page.

A note on accuracy

McKinsey has not published a specification for the new SFL. Lab Leader is built from candidate reports and from our own reading of what the format is designed to observe. The structure, the stages, the team size, and the day cycle match what candidates have consistently described. The scoring model is ours, and it should be treated as a training signal, not a prediction of your McKinsey result.

We will keep adjusting as more candidates sit the new format. If you have taken the 95-minute Solve and something in Lab Leader does not match what you saw, tell us. That feedback is how the simulator gets better.