by Duncan Watts

A brief brief on the art of briefing.

As a consultant who often project manages on behalf of clients, I regularly find myself switching between the roles of ‘briefer’ and ‘briefee’. Clients brief me – the project manager – as to what they want in a website / brochure / campaign / research project and I, in turn, brief our graphic designer, web developer or researcher so we can achieve this.

If anything goes wrong in a given project, you can usually trace it back to something that wasn’t properly addressed in the initial brief. Put simply, you should be careful what you wish for.

Here are some tips to do just that.

1.    Take responsibility for the brief

In my opinion, the briefing process should be a coroboration. If you’re the client, spend some time before your first meeting with a supplier making notes about exactly what it is you’re looking to achieve.

If you’re a supplier who’s usually the one taking the brief, you’re equally responsible for getting that brief right, so keep asking questions until you have a precise idea what your job is.

2.    Cover the background first

If you’re briefing someone, assume they know nothing about you. A quick summary of what you do and why you’re undertaking a particular project will help your supplier to establish a feel for your company, and potentially help them nail those intangibles everyone struggles to articulate.

It may also inspire a completely different solution than the one you’d imagined. A client recently asked us to run a series of advertorials at a huge cost, but once we discovered exactly what he wanted to achieve we found a much more effective solution that came in at less than half the original budget.

3.    Avoid ‘buzz’ words

We all use them,they make us sound like we know what we’re talking about, but they don’t mean anything specific. Can anyone picture what a “brand-consistent, contemporary and impactful design to engage a niche target audience” would actually look like?

Besides, ‘contemporary’ to a graphic designer may not match what an accountant perceives as contemporary. By all means agree on ‘contemporary’, but find specific examples that display the characteristics you’re looking for, like someone else’s brochure, an article in a magazine or a website.

4.    Refer back to the brief

You’ve gone to the trouble of agreeing on a brief, so write it down and make sure those involved each have a copy. At each milestone of the project, check progress against the brief and make sure you’re still on track.

If you’ve agreed in your brief that you need to consistently reinforce the fact that you’re a) open for longer than anyone else and b) have a wider range of services / products, make sure you regularly crosscheck your project against these points.

Recapping:

1.         Take responsibility for the brief – both the supplier and client should contribute.

2.         Cover the backgroundfirst – establish some context and you’ll see a better result.

3.         Avoid ‘buzz’ words – be specific in your brief.

4.         Refer back to the brief – you’ve established these rules, so make sure you follow them.

Duncan Watts is a Business Consultant at The 20/20 Group in Cairns.