Powerful, like a DIY Solar Death Ray…

FOCUSING ENERGY IS POWERFUL. Remember burning paper with a looking glass? Today, a DIY parabolic mylar blanket hack can harness the sun to the power of 10,000.

This is what a good product brief does for a product team.

Yet, I have to come clean. As a designer, most product briefs I’ve encountered are terrible. So, I tended to create my own at the start of the design process.

There I said it. That feels better.

But this is the wrong approach. A better way is to focus the product team’s effort around an agreement — or product brief.

Why? We need a shared measure of success. And since every team has multiple stakeholders, we need their input at the beginning. Design thinking encourages this.

It measures success from the POV of user, environment, business, design, and development. Among the filters, desirability, feasibility, and viability are prime considerations.

At this stage, we are capturing the problem in clear terms, not the solution.

And, one team function must facilitate this process. Depending on your culture, it’s likely product marketing or product design. Yet I believe it is best for design to lead here. They are impacted most by incomplete input.

The agreement is now complete. It’s time for the creatives to have fun and freely explore concepts! The creative process is boosted by less ambiguity, confusion, and wasted energy.

Contrary to convention, a good brief enables powerful creativity, not less. A lot like a backyard Solar Death Ray to a bit of sunlight!