A brief is not a summary of a conversation. It is the conversation, resolved — every open question closed, every assumption named, every trade-off decided by someone with the authority to decide it.
Most briefs fail because they describe a deliverable instead of an outcome. “A new website” is not a brief. “A site that makes procurement officers confident enough to shortlist us without a call” is.
Four questions we will not start without
Who is the one person this has to work for? What do they believe before they arrive? What do they need to believe afterwards? And what will you accept as evidence that it worked?
If any of those are unanswered, we answer them together before anyone opens a design tool. It is the cheapest week of the project.
Write the constraints down
Constraints are not obstacles; they are the shape of the solution. Budget, timeline, legal, the CMS your team actually uses, the fact that half your audience reads on a five-year-old phone — every one of those removes a hundred wrong answers.
A brief with no constraints is a brief that has not been thought about yet.
Then stop writing
A brief that runs past three pages has usually stopped deciding and started hedging. Say what it is, say what it must do, say what would count as failure. Sign it. Build.
