Why you should write a brief (for yourself)

TL;DR – counterintuitively, brief writing is possibly the most productive and creative phase of any new project – even if you are writing it for yourself. As the infamous ad man David Ogilvy wrote “give me the freedom of a tight brief”.

Working on your own means that you’ll wear a lot of hats. But it can be a mistake to wear multiple hats simultaneously or just reach for your favorite one every time. The hat you wear will vastly change the way you approach a problem or opportunity and the lens through which you see it.

In some cases, you may have to become your own worst enemy and don hats that are least comfortable - but most appropriate.

If you have ever worked in a creative or problem-solving capacity, you will recognize the danger signs when a client says, ‘I’ll know a good solution when I see it’. This is essentially an admission that they cannot define the desired result or how to judge it if they do. Working in this way is a recipe for frustration and stress. Don’t be your own worst client.

For context – I co-founded a small consulting firm where we use open innovation and our creative crowd sourcing platform to deliver Fortune 500 companies’ fresh concepts and ideas (think Nestle, Unilever, Heinz and in new product development, comms, activation's etc). It’s not strictly SaaS – there’s a lot of relationship building and direct sales. These companies are giants, slow and bureaucratic. But you don’t get to be a billion-dollar business by accident. They know how to brief and put great resource into it.

You are fast, nimble and can pivot on the spot. Nevertheless – a good briefing document can be a wise time investment.

When hunting for or creating early-stage ideas - a recommendation is to remove your maker hat and don a ‘marketing director’ hat. Now you don’t ‘care’ about the making – only the objective.

This PROCESS will force you to look at the opportunity more holistically and will almost certainly reveal pros and cons much faster than any other method and certainly before anything needs to be built.

It doesn’t have to be long. After all, you are writing it for you, but it does have to contain certain ingredients. You can always develop it and add more detail as you require.

The important thing: you are NOT trying to solve the problem or do the work here. You are defining the possible user problem, what the ideal solution will achieve and for whom. You have permission to be ambitious. When you put your building hat back on - that is when you try to solve it.

For example - a confectionery company looking to launch a new chocolate bar will have great insight on their target customers; their ‘tensions’, use case or demand moments. Bearing in mind this is a candy bar – they’ll ask ‘what job’ this candy bar will do for the customer. What will trigger them to buy it, consume it, who might they be with when they eat it, how will they feel, what other options do they have? If you’ve ever wondered how all the branded, packaged food got into your cupboards it’s because they know who you are and what you want.

People often make the mistake of having a product idea first and then try to fit it to a problem or user later. A good brief will let you know where you are going and how to judge if you’re headed in the right direction.

While writing, you may need to put on a research hat on. The purpose of research is to find the truth – not your desired result. Desk research or some friendly conversations might do initially and to validate your assumptions.

Here are the absolute bare bones – you could get this on 1-2 pages:

• A very short intro. Provide the overall context so someone else could understand it.
• It should detail the ‘problem’ you have identified concisely and ideally on practical and emotional levels. You should be able to explain the ‘tension’ or pain the customer feels.
• It should detail the objective i.e. what the solution will do for them / the end benefit. How it will make them feel.
• Customer Profile: It should detail the target customer; you can’t have too much information on your target customer(s). Think basic demographics, possible scale, but especially psychographics – what do they believe, attitudes, aspirations? A simple user persona can be a quick way to do it.
• Where do they hang out, get information, who do they trust? This will reveal the channels and where you’ll find and market to them.
• It can outline some parameters, or known hard restrictions i.e. a tech stack you are able to use – but not necessarily how it will do it.
• Depending on your area it may be wise to specify the business model and price limitations.

With the above you should know what problem you are solving, for who and how to judge if fulfills their needs or not. If you find the brief process extremely hard it is probably because you don’t have enough information or an incomplete idea of what you’re trying to do. That is its own feedback.

Now you have a brief – put your maker hat back on and try to solve it with a great product.