McKinsey Solve 95-Minute Assessment: New SFL Format Being Tested

Early-format notice, September 2026: This article documents a version of Sustainable Futures Lab described in early candidate reports. McKinsey has not published an official mechanics or scoring breakdown for this version, and it may be limited testing rather than a permanent rollout. Your invitation and on-screen instructions are the source of truth.

Some candidates are beginning to report a 95-minute McKinsey Solve assessment, rather than the better-known 65- or 85-minute configurations. A recent public candidate report confirms that 95-minute invitations exist, but it does not independently establish every mechanic described below.

The clearest early explanation is a redesigned 30-minute Sustainable Futures Lab (SFL) added to the established 35-minute Redrock and 30-minute Sea Wolf modules. That arithmetic reaches 95 minutes, but candidates should still check whether their invitation states active assessment time separately from tutorials, setup, or technical checks.

The reported 95-minute configuration

The three invitation patterns can be used as a practical, not guaranteed, guide:

• 65 minutes: commonly associated with Redrock (35 minutes) and Sea Wolf (30 minutes).
• 85 minutes: commonly associated with Redrock, Sea Wolf, and the established 20-minute SFL format.
• 95 minutes: early reports suggest Redrock, Sea Wolf, and a redesigned SFL lasting approximately 30 minutes.

For a fuller explanation of the established configurations, read our 65 vs 85-minute McKinsey Solve guide. If the timing or module names in your email differ from any general guide, follow your email.

Overview of the new SFL game

The reported new SFL is a 30-minute team-management simulation. You manage four researchers across four workstations over three consecutive days.

The game begins with a project context and an initial prioritisation question. It then moves through Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3, with a broadly similar decision cycle each day. The important difference from a set of independent situational-judgement questions is continuity: information and team signals gathered earlier may matter later.

Four researchers and four workstations

The reported scenario contains four researchers and four workstations. Your task is to gather limited information and decide how the researchers should be allocated to the available work.

At the beginning of each day, you receive three opportunities to ask questions. Questions can be directed to researchers or workstations, although not every person or station may be available every day.

Reported workstation prompts include:

• “What did we learn that can add value to today’s work?”
• “What needs to be done today?”

Reported researcher prompts include:

• “How are you feeling on the project?”
• “How would you like to work with team members today?”

Because only three questions are available, you cannot collect every possible piece of information. Choosing who or what to question therefore appears to be part of the decision challenge, rather than a neutral information-gathering step.

Assigning researchers and responding to the team

After gathering information, you assign the researchers to workstations. Early reports indicate that each researcher then asks for guidance or help, and you respond using predefined answer choices.

You are subsequently asked to assess how each researcher is feeling, using categories such as neutral, balanced, or unbalanced. The exact meaning of these labels, and how closely an assessment must match the game’s internal state, is not yet public.

Once these decisions are complete, the simulation advances to the next day.

The three-day decision cycle

The same general sequence appears to repeat across all three days:

1. Gather information using three questions.
2. Assign researchers to workstations.
3. Respond to each researcher’s request for guidance.
4. Assess the state or feelings of each researcher.
5. Carry relevant information and consequences into the next day.

The final step may be central to the redesign. Treating each day as an isolated puzzle could mean missing how team preferences, previous assignments, researcher wellbeing, and workstation needs evolve together.

Information gathered on Day 1 may affect the questions worth asking on Day 2. Those answers may influence the next allocation, which may then change what requires attention on Day 3. The reported format therefore appears to reward a coherent sequence of decisions, not simply one strong allocation.

What might the redesigned SFL test?

McKinsey has not published the scoring model, so the following is interpretation rather than confirmed scoring guidance.

The format appears suited to observing how candidates:

• decide which missing information has the greatest value;
• balance workstation requirements against researcher preferences and team state;
• allocate limited people across competing work;
• respond when individual team members need support;
• update decisions as new information becomes available; and
• maintain a coherent management approach over several connected days.

The challenge may be less about discovering one permanently correct allocation and more about making and adapting a defensible series of decisions under limited information.

What remains unknown

Important details are still unverified:

• whether the 95-minute configuration will expand beyond testing;
• how questioning choices affect the score;
• whether researcher allocation has an objectively optimal answer;
• how guidance responses interact with researcher state;
• how emotional-state assessments are evaluated;
• whether decisions have different weights across the three days; and
• how the redesigned SFL contributes to the overall Solve result.

Until more evidence is available, be sceptical of any source claiming a guaranteed answer key, exact scoring weights, or a universal rollout schedule.

How should you prepare now?

Start with the invitation. If it states approximately 95 minutes, allow for the possibility of a longer management simulation and read every tutorial screen carefully.

For the reported new format, practise identifying the highest-value question, recording what each person and workstation needs, and carrying decisions forward rather than resetting your reasoning each day. Avoid memorising a single allocation rule: the point appears to be adapting to the information presented.

Solve Games Guide’s current Sustainable Futures Lab simulator reflects the established 20-minute, 13-question format. It can help with prioritisation, ambiguity, and stakeholder judgement, but it does not yet reproduce the reported 30-minute, four-researcher/four-workstation workflow.

Bottom line

The 95-minute McKinsey Solve assessment appears to be a test configuration featuring a substantial SFL redesign: four researchers, four workstations, three days, limited questioning, team allocation, guidance decisions, and repeated assessment of researcher state.

Those mechanics are early candidate-reported observations, not an official specification. Prepare for the structure indicated by your invitation, retain flexibility, and expect this guidance to evolve as more candidates encounter the format.