McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab (SFL) Guide 2026

The McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab (SFL) is a decision-making simulation within the McKinsey Solve assessment. It evaluates how candidates approach priorities, incomplete information, team dynamics, and practical trade-offs in an environmental research scenario.

There are two reported SFL formats in 2026:

• Original SFL (20 minutes): A scenario-based assessment with approximately 13 tasks, including an initial priority-ranking exercise and 12 situational decisions.
• New SFL / Lab Leader (30 minutes): An interactive team-management simulation across three project days, with four phases each day: Explore, Assign, Support, and Reflect.

This guide explains both formats, how the assessment works, what it appears to evaluate, and how to prepare. It also includes a detailed walkthrough of the new Lab Leader version and practice recommendations.

Important: The version candidates receive can vary. Your McKinsey invitation and the instructions displayed during the assessment should take precedence over any preparation guide.

To learn about other McKinsey Solve games, including Red Rock Study and Sea Wolf, explore our complete McKinsey Solve guide for game formats, strategies, and preparation tips.

McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab: Key Takeaways

• Sustainable Futures Lab (SFL) is a decision-making simulation within McKinsey Solve.
• Two formats have been reported: the original 20-minute version and the newer 30-minute Lab Leader version.
• The original format includes approximately 13 scenario-based tasks, while Lab Leader uses a three-day team-management simulation.
• Lab Leader follows four daily phases: Explore, Assign, Support, and Reflect.
• Preparation should emphasize prioritization, evidence-based decisions, adaptability, and team management.
• McKinsey does not publicly disclose the exact SFL scoring formula or the weighting of individual decisions.

Original vs New McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab: Key Differences

The original Sustainable Futures Lab is a 20-minute assessment featuring approximately 13 scenario-based tasks. The newer Lab Leader format is a 30-minute, multi-day team-management simulation.

Both formats have been reported in McKinsey Solve assessments. The main differences are the assessment structure, candidate responsibilities, and types of decisions required.

Feature	Older SFL	New SFL
Approximate duration	20 minutes	30 minutes
Structure	13 scenario-based questions	Tutorial, Onboarding, and three project days
Candidate role	Respond to individual scenarios	Lead a four-person research team
Information gathering	Limited	Choose which Researchers or Workstations to investigate
Researcher assignment	Not a central mechanic	Researchers can be moved between Workstations
Daily flow	Sequential questions	Explore → Assign → Support → Reflect

The 13-task description refers to the original format. The newer Lab Leader version has a different structure; follow the specific instructions provided with your assessment.

Which McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab Version Will You Take?

Candidates may encounter different versions of Sustainable Futures Lab depending on their McKinsey Solve assessment configuration.

Based on reported assessment formats, the total invitation duration can provide a useful clue:

Total Solve Duration	Reported Configuration
65 minutes	Red Rock Study + Sea Wolf
85 minutes	Red Rock Study + Sea Wolf + original 20-minute SFL
95 minutes	Red Rock Study + Sea Wolf + 30-minute Lab Leader

These are reported configurations rather than guaranteed rules. McKinsey may change the assessment structure, so always follow your invitation and official on-screen instructions.

What if your invitation does not specify the SFL version?

Prepare for the general decision-making principles shared by both formats, then familiarize yourself with their different mechanics. This helps avoid preparing exclusively for one version when your specific assessment configuration is uncertain.

Original McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab: 20-Minute Format

The original Sustainable Futures Lab is a reported 20-minute, scenario-based assessment. Unlike Lab Leader, it focuses on a sequence of situational decisions rather than managing a research team across three project days.

How Does the Original SFL Work?

The reported assessment consists of approximately 13 tasks:

1. Priority Ranking: Review a research scenario and rank four priorities using the available information.
2. Situational Decisions: Complete approximately 12 subsequent tasks involving project challenges, changing information, competing priorities, and team coordination.

What Does the Original SFL Assess?

These scenarios involve prioritization, decision-making, adaptability, communication, and responding to uncertainty. McKinsey does not publicly disclose an exact scoring rubric or the weighting of individual decisions.

How to Prepare for the Original SFL

Identify each scenario's objective, evaluate what is known, consider the people affected, and choose a response that addresses the underlying problem. Although the two SFL formats differ in structure, both involve decisions under uncertainty.

Watch: McKinsey Solve SFL 2026 – New Game Format Explained

Watch our video explaining the new Sustainable Futures Lab, including the key differences between the old and new formats, changes to McKinsey Solve in 2026, and preparation considerations for candidates.

What Is the New McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab (Lab Leader)?

The newer Sustainable Futures Lab, also known as Lab Leader, is a reported 30-minute simulation within McKinsey Solve. You take the role of a Team Leader working with four Researchers on an environmental project.

The scenario centers on a declining forest and its effects on the surrounding ecosystem. Researchers investigate possible causes of the decline, identify impacts on bird habitats, share findings, and work toward potential solutions.

The four Workstations are:

• Water
• Plants
• Communications
• Animals

Each Workstation can hold up to two Researchers. Throughout the simulation, you decide what information you need, where Researchers should work, how you should respond when they ask for support, and how confident you are in what you know about them.

How Does the New Sustainable Futures Lab Work?

The simulation begins with a Tutorial, followed by Onboarding and three project days.

The overall sequence is:

Tutorial → Onboarding → Day 1 → Day 2 → Day 3

Each of the three project days then follows the same four phases:

Explore → Assign → Support → Reflect

Tutorial

The Tutorial introduces the Sustainable Futures Lab interface and how you interact with the simulation.

This is where you become familiar with the Workstations, Researchers, dialog boxes, and the actions used during later phases of the game.

Pay attention to how the interface works rather than clicking through immediately. Once the project begins, you will repeatedly use the same mechanics to gather information, move Researchers, respond to situations, and record your judgments.

Onboarding

Onboarding introduces the project and asks you to prioritize four questions for the team:

• What work needs to happen across the Lab?
• How has the team's understanding of the problem evolved?
• How can I help my team work together effectively?
• How can I support each Researcher's needs?

After you prioritize the questions, the simulation provides information addressing all four.

What work needs to happen across the Lab?

Researchers will investigate possible causes of the tree decline, identify impacts on bird habitats, share findings, and develop solutions across the four Workstations.

How has the team's understanding of the problem evolved?

The team has investigated several possible explanations for the forest decline, including changes in water quality, soil conditions, and disease. More information is still needed to determine the main cause and how it should be addressed.

How can I help my team work together effectively?

You lead four Researchers with different professional backgrounds:

• Adam – Ecologist
• Bonnie – Biologist
• Connor – Habitat Planner
• Donna – Engineer

Your role is to decide how their different perspectives and expertise can be used across the project.

How can I support each Researcher's needs?

You learn about each Researcher, decide where they should work, and respond when they need help throughout the simulation.

What Happens on Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3?

Each project day has its own emphasis while using the same Explore, Assign, Support, and Reflect sequence.

Project Day	Main Goal	Explore Tokens
Day 1	Researchers' Needs	3
Day 2	Workstations' Needs	3
Day 3	Balance	2

Day 1: Researchers' Needs

Day 1 places greater emphasis on understanding the Researchers. The information you gather can help reveal what they want to work on, how they feel about the project, and where their skills or preferences may be most relevant.

Day 2: Workstations' Needs

Day 2 shifts attention toward what the Workstations require. New information may emerge about the work that needs to be completed, which can influence whether the current Researcher assignments still make sense.

Day 3: Balance

Day 3 asks you to balance the needs of the Researchers with the needs of the Workstations. You also have fewer Explore tokens, with only two opportunities to gather additional information before making assignments.

What Are the Four Sustainable Futures Lab Phases?

1. Explore

Explore is the information-gathering phase at the beginning of each project day.

You receive a limited number of tokens that can be spent either asking Researchers questions or inspecting Workstations.

• Day 1: 3 tokens
• Day 2: 3 tokens
• Day 3: 2 tokens

Researchers may tell you how they feel about the project or what type of work they would like to do.

Workstations can reveal what work needs to be completed or what new information has emerged.

Because the number of tokens is limited, you cannot investigate every possible Researcher and Workstation. The information you choose to uncover provides clues that can later affect your assignments.

How to Approach Explore

A useful way to think about Explore is to focus on information that could change your next decision.

If you already have enough information to make one assignment confidently, another question about the same Researcher may provide less value than investigating a Workstation or Researcher where important uncertainty remains.

2. Assign

During Assign, you decide where the four Researchers should work.

At the start of each project day, Researchers are already placed at Workstations. You can drag and drop their profile pictures to change those assignments.

Each Workstation can contain up to two Researchers.

When you move a Researcher, the game asks you to select a reason for the change. Options include:

• Researcher preference
• Researcher assistance
• Latest Workstation needs
• Workstation coverage
• Cancel

This means the Assign phase is not just about placing people into Workstations. You are also identifying the reason behind the assignment.

How to Approach Assign

Use the information you uncovered during Explore and compare it with the goal for that project day.

On Day 1, Researcher preferences or needs may be particularly relevant. On Day 2, updated Workstation requirements may become more important. By Day 3, you may need to balance both sides at the same time.

3. Support

During Support, each of the four Researchers presents a situation and asks how you would respond.

This produces four Support questions per project day and 12 Support questions across the full three-day simulation.

The scenarios can involve situations such as:

• Making progress with incomplete information
• Supporting another team that is under pressure
• Responding when new evidence changes the project
• Managing disagreements between team members
• Communicating difficult findings to another group
• Organizing work when several activities depend on one another
• Revisiting a plan after new information appears

Each question gives you several possible responses. Some questions contain two options, while others contain three or four.

How to Approach Support

Read the full situation before focusing on individual answer choices.

Look at what has changed, what information is available, who is affected, and what the Researcher is actually asking for. Avoid choosing an answer only because it sounds the most supportive or the most decisive.

The Support scenarios repeatedly require you to balance progress with collaboration, changing evidence, practical constraints, and the needs of other people involved in the project.

4. Reflect

Reflect is the final phase of each project day.

You rate how confident you feel about each Researcher using one of four responses:

• Doubtful
• Neutral
• Confident
• Don't Know

Your Reflect choices should be based on what you have actually learned during the day's Explore, Assign, and Support phases.

How to Approach Reflect

Be careful not to convert assumptions into facts.

If you have direct evidence about a Researcher, use it. If the simulation has not given you enough information to form a view, “Don't Know” exists as an available response for a reason.

What Does Sustainable Futures Lab Appear to Assess?

McKinsey does not publicly disclose the exact scoring model for Sustainable Futures Lab, so it is important to separate observed game mechanics from assumptions about how they are scored.

Based on the tasks candidates are asked to complete, the simulation involves several types of decisions:

Game Mechanic	What You Are Asked to Do
Explore	Choose which information is worth gathering
Assign	Allocate Researchers to Workstations and explain why
Support	Respond to changing situations involving Researchers and other teams
Reflect	Assess your confidence based on what you have learned

The Support scenarios also involve incomplete information, adapting to new evidence, collaboration, communication, prioritization, and helping work move forward.

These are observations about the mechanics of the game. They should not be interpreted as an official McKinsey scoring rubric.

How Is Sustainable Futures Lab Scored?

There is currently no publicly disclosed information explaining exactly how Sustainable Futures Lab performance is calculated.

McKinsey does not publish the weighting of Explore decisions, Researcher assignments, assignment reasons, Support responses, or Reflect ratings.

For that reason, be cautious with claims that a specific sequence of answers, a particular personality style, or one fixed assignment strategy is guaranteed to produce a high score.

The safest preparation approach is to understand the mechanics of the simulation and practice making decisions using the information available in each situation.

How to Prepare for McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab: 6 Practical Strategies

1. Understand Your SFL Format

Familiarize yourself with both the original 20-minute assessment and the newer 30-minute Lab Leader simulation. Follow the information provided with your own invitation.

2. Prioritize Information That Matters

In Lab Leader, Explore tokens are limited. Prioritize questions that could meaningfully change your next decision rather than gathering information indiscriminately.

3. Match Assignments to the Daily Objective

Day 1 emphasizes Researchers' Needs, Day 2 Workstations' Needs, and Day 3 Balance. Use each goal when deciding what to investigate and whether assignments should change.

4. Connect Information to Decisions

Use what you learn during Explore to inform Assign. Avoid leaving assignments unchanged automatically or selecting a reason that does not match the evidence.

5. Evaluate Support Scenarios in Context

Read each situation carefully. Consider what changed, who is affected, and what the Researcher needs to accomplish rather than choosing an answer simply because it sounds supportive or decisive.

6. Reflect Using Available Evidence

Distinguish what you know from what you assume. When information about a Researcher is insufficient, recognize that “Don't Know” is an available Reflect response.

Preparation tip: Practice complete scenarios and review your reasoning rather than memorizing supposedly universal answers.

Sustainable Futures Lab Practice Example

The example below is an original CaseBasix practice scenario created to demonstrate the mechanics. It is not an actual McKinsey question.

Imagine that one Researcher has said they would prefer to work on the Plants Workstation, while the Water Workstation has revealed a new problem that requires additional support.

You have one Explore token remaining.

What Would You Do Next?

Which action would be most useful before making the next assignment?

1. A. Investigate the Plants Workstation because the Researcher prefers working there.
2. B. Investigate the Water Workstation to understand the urgent issue before assigning Researchers.
3. C. Skip further investigation and immediately reassign the Researcher to Water.

Suggested Answer and Explanation

B is a reasonable choice if the Water issue is not yet understood and investigating it could materially affect the upcoming assignment. However, the most useful information depends on the day's objective and what you already know. If Water's needs are already clear, a different information request could be more valuable.

The lesson is to prioritize information that improves your next decision, not to follow a fixed rule such as always honoring Researcher preferences or always prioritizing Workstation needs.

This is an original CaseBasix educational example, not an official McKinsey question or verified scoring answer.

How to Practice Sustainable Futures Lab

Practical preparation should make the decision-making process familiar before the real assessment. For Lab Leader, focus on limited information requests, Researcher and Workstation needs, assignments, Support situations, and evidence-based Reflect choices.

Explore CaseBasix McKinsey Solve Practice

Review the available practice options and confirm which SFL format they cover before choosing a simulation. A practice session is most useful when you can review why you made each decision.

Try the free McKinsey Solve simulation to explore available assessment-style practice. Check the course details for included games; this link does not by itself confirm that SFL is included.

McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab FAQs

What is McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab (SFL)?

It is a reported decision-making simulation within McKinsey Solve. Two formats have been described: an original 20-minute scenario-based format and a newer 30-minute Lab Leader team simulation.

Is Sustainable Futures Lab still 13 questions in 20 minutes?

That describes the original format, with approximately 13 tasks. The newer Lab Leader version lasts approximately 30 minutes and uses a three-day team simulation. Refer to your assessment instructions for the applicable format.

How do I know which SFL version I will take?

Your invitation and on-screen assessment instructions are the most reliable indicators. Reported total Solve durations can offer context but do not guarantee a particular game combination.

What is the difference between original SFL and Lab Leader?

Original SFL uses a sequence of scenario-based tasks. Lab Leader has you manage four Researchers across Workstations and three project days, using Explore, Assign, Support, and Reflect.

Is McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab difficult?

The challenge comes from making timely decisions with incomplete information, competing goals, and changing circumstances. Difficulty varies by candidate and format; there is no publicly confirmed universal pass-rate figure for SFL.

Does Sustainable Futures Lab involve math?

The reported Lab Leader mechanics emphasize information gathering, assignments, judgment, and reflection more than calculation-heavy tasks. Follow the instructions for your specific assessment.

How is McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab scored?

McKinsey does not publicly disclose the complete SFL scoring model or exact weightings for individual decisions. Avoid claims that a fixed response pattern guarantees a particular score.

How should I prepare for SFL?

Understand the format you may receive, practice prioritizing relevant information, connect evidence to decisions, and review how you handle ambiguity and trade-offs.

Can I practice Sustainable Futures Lab before the assessment?

You can prepare with original scenario exercises and available third-party simulations. Check that a practice product explicitly covers your expected SFL format; third-party examples are not official McKinsey questions.

Final Takeaway

McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab has two reported formats: the original 20-minute scenario-based assessment and the newer 30-minute Lab Leader simulation. Both require candidates to evaluate information, prioritize, and make decisions under uncertainty.

For Lab Leader, learn how Explore, Assign, Support, and Reflect fit together across the three project days. Use realistic practice to develop sound reasoning rather than memorizing fixed answers.