The briefing or brief is a document that serves to develop a first proposal definition of the project we want to carry out. All companies use this document as a first step in presenting an idea.
It has two main functions. A strategic function to define the project to be carried out. The other function is consensus and information sharing both with the client and with the work team.
Defining the project normally begins with identifying the problem to be solved. As the project progresses, it is normal for the content of the briefing to be modified.
Contents and structure
- Project summary
- Business objectives
- User goals
- User experience
- Law
- Competitive advantage / Value proposition
- Restrictions (technical and business)
- Evaluation measures
- Scope
- Priorities
The structure of the briefing can be modified and adapted to each project. You can choose the parts that suit you best, but keep in mind that the more complete the better. We can add other points such as the budget, delivery time, among others.
To begin, we must make a summary, an introduction to the project making a brief description (one paragraph will be enough), continuing with the objectives to be achieved, the motivations and the aspects that we want to specify.
The main objectives of the Briefing
There are two types of objectives, those of the business and those of the user. Let's start with our objectives, those of the business. We must clarify the reason for the project and what strategy we follow, as this will allow us to guide design decisions towards it.
On the other hand, the user's goals may be somewhat different from ours. You have to make your goals, needs, wishes and limitations explicit.
If we talk in web termsWe must analyze the user experience (UX), that is, determine the customer's needs and their behavior in front of a site.
Another point to analyze is our competition, investigate their situation in the market, their strategies and what competitive advantages or value proposition we have over them. One document that focuses on competition is the benchmarkingwe'll talk about it more in depth in another post. As we have mentioned previously, our value proposition will be key to differentiate ourselves from the rest. We must take into account our strengths, but also our restrictions. We must evaluate and identify if there are concepts that cannot be developed and make a realistic project.
Finally, it is interesting to mark the scope of the project, our priorities. This last point will be of great help to us to focus on our objectives