Please summarize the MECE principle, give an example and explain how it can be used in business

Context: The MECE principle, is a grouping principle for separating a set of items into subsets that are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. It was developed in the late 1960s by Barbara Minto at McKinsey & Company and underlies her Minto Pyramid Principle, and while she takes credit for MECE, according to her interview with McKinsey, she says the idea for MECE goes back as far as to Aristotle.

The MECE principle has been used in the business mapping process wherein the optimum arrangement of information is exhaustive and does not double count at any level of the hierarchy. Examples of MECE arrangements include categorizing people by year of birth, apartments by their building number, letters by postmark, and dice rolls. A non-MECE example would be categorization by nationality, because nationalities are neither mutually exclusive nor collectively exhaustive.

Answer: MECE stands for Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive and serves as an organizing framework used by management consulting firms, such as McKinsey and BCG as a way to organize reports and complicated data.  Due to its effectiveness, it has made it's way into the larger business community.  An example MECE arrangement would be departments within an organization, year hired for employees, the choice to eat in or eat out.  MECE can be used to simplify complex ideas.