Essay

The brief is the deliverable

Most engagements fail before any work is made. A defence of spending a quarter of the budget on the question.

6 min · Lisbon

A brief that names the wrong problem cannot be rescued by good execution; it can only be executed well in the wrong direction, expensively and on time.

We now write the brief as a paid phase with its own sign-off, and we have lost work over it. The engagements that survive that conversation finish faster than the ones that skip it, which is the argument we make and the only one that lands.

The test is simple. If the client's team can argue with the brief, it says something. If everyone nods, it says nothing yet.

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