It’s THIS, Not That.
I recently asked a group of product professionals (all from leading brands): “What is your experience with product briefs?”
“Not all briefs are created equal 🙂”
“Lots of bad ones.”
“Challenging to write season after season”
“Incomplete and vague”
“Thoughtfulness in answers is often lacking”
“Hard to make a good one”
A brief is just a document, right? How hard can that be?
It’s a process, not a document.
Because briefs are the findings of a process. An empathetic process of understanding what your customer needs, desires, and feels. This is what I call the SEE-ing phase.
Yet this process is not etched deeply into most organizations. Instead, the natural reflex is to quickly reach for data points, price tiering, and demographics. And call it done.
This is a big mistake. You can’t do this in the AI era. Your competitors will easily copy your forms, features, and functions. How will you stand out then?
You can do it, here’s a how-to series.
You need to go deeper. Commit to a human process and empathize with your customer to find their ‘why’. Only then can you solve their real problems and help them achieve their goals.
This doesn’t need to be hard, or expensive. In fact, I’ve done it in a half-day exercise. From research to insights. From uncertain to brief in less than 4 hours.
You can do this too. Check out my short video series that shows how I did it. Apply it now to your next season.
