Tag: LivingBrief

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How to resuscitate a brief — stage 2

The second way to breathe life into a design brief is to remind ourselves that it was never as complete as it originally sounded.

We do this by exploring the Five Elements of a Design Brief:

  • The explicit – what is actually written.
  • The implicit – what is meant by what is written
  • The assumed – what is assumed in the writing and in the reading. 
  • The missing – what the brief writer forgot to tell you. 
  • The unknown – what the writer didn’t include in the brief because they hadn’t realised they wanted it yet.

In practice, read the brief aloud, slowly. For each sentence, ask:

  • What is explicit here?
  • What is implicit?
  • What is assumed?
  • What is missing?
  • What might be unknown?

The questions test both our understanding of the brief, and also whether we have the right requirements. And open to the door evolving the brief. 

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How to resuscitate a design brief – stage 1

Design briefs become lifeless when we treat them as fixed, and unchanging.

We bring life to them when we allow them to evolve.

The first stage is to make your design brief a live, editable document (with changes tracked if necessary).

The brief should prompt questions – write those down on the brief.

New requirements will be discovered – add those in so they don’t get lost.

New possibilities for what you want emerge – note these down too.

Gather the people who care about the brief to review these changes, challenge or approve them.

A living brief is one that is being worked on.

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Is your brief dead?

You are midway through a project. Ask yourself, has my design brief changed, or has it stayed the same.

If it hasn’t changed, then you should check if your design brief is very nearly, or very actually, dead.

A lifeless brief breathes no life into the design process

A brief without a pulse clings to its original constraints without shifting the boundaries.

An ex-brief is one that looks nothing like what you are working on.

A stiff brief is unmoved by new discoveries made during the design process.

A deceased brief ceases to be of any use.

If you suspect these symptoms then your brief needs urgent resuscitation. Because in design, a healthy brief is alive.

(It is possible that you brief may just be resting, in which case you need to wake it up).

[With apologies to Monty Python’s “Dead Parrot” sketch]

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The living brief

This week, I’ve been updating and consolidating my writing on design briefs. The design brief is a fundamental component of the design process, and it is a core topic in our design teaching.

But I realise in gathering together my writing that there is an idea I have been dancing around without naming it.

A design brief is not something that is static that we define at the start of a project. It is something that evolves, and grows as part of the design process.

I’ve started to call this the Living Brief. And you can read all about it here.