MECE principle

MECE (English for mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive to German as mutually exclusive and total exhaustive ) is a technical term for the characteristic of sub- elements based on a generic element to map and identify this complete and free from overlapping ( disjoint → set theory ). He so far describes a rule for unique (and therefore functional ) creating logical trees in the structured problem solving. Criteria must accordingly be clearly allocated or to be allocated. That is, there must be no double assignments, yet features that fit into any of the categories.

Examples

Categorized you a group of people according to their birthdays, so this would be, under the premise that all birth dates are known, an example of a categorization which satisfies the MECE rule. However, a categorization according to the criterion of nationality would not MECE rule compliant, as there are people who have no or multiple citizenships.

Areas of application

The MECE rule is a basic approach of decision-making and is used universally.

It is currently being used in problem structuring among others by McKinsey.

Criticism

Critics of the MECE rule mention that the rule is not compliant in itself. As a collection of grouping rules that disjointness can indeed be guaranteed, but a simultaneous depletion was virtually excluded, as for example vertical and horizontal parallels can not be mapped.