I can’t actually recall a single client that has provided a clean, well-structured and detailed brief to me over the years. I’ve had Word documents, handwritten notes…, and even a bar napkin written in pink crayon! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a few not-so-bad briefs – but I always found them lacking obvious details that really should have been there from the start.
As a project manager, my job includes understanding the client’s requirements, goals, constraints, stakeholders and more. So when a client gives me a brief, it’s usually followed by phone calls, zoom meetings, and potentially face-to-face workshops. I do all of this to extract all the juicy details that will ultimately lead me to deliver a successful project. Very few clients seem to be interested in the details; they only focus on the result, and even that can be a vague description of an unrealistic fantasy creature.
Inevitably, clients expect the project manager to fill in the blanks of their brief, which results in initial documentation and a plan for the project to kick off.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, with the advent of highly accessible AI tools like ChatGPT, clients are now able to feed their project briefs to their own personal assistants and treat them like they were a vendor. Asking it questions like.. “how much would this project cost, please include a breakdown of the major costs”. This is a great way to gain insights into the potential big-ticket costs of your project before you send it out to tender.
Another example would be feeding an AI your brief and asking it to give you advice on how to market your product. An incomplete brief will likely result in some very generic marketing advice that is bound to send you down the wrong rabbit hole.
The answers given by an AI are only as good as the quality of the question and data, i.e. the project brief. There is an expression in computer science that I think is very apt…
“Garbage in, Garbage out”
The expression stems from software design where if you feed a computer program insufficient or incorrect data that it then processes, the resulting data is essentially garbage. This is why a programmer writes specific code to control errors and validate data to a pre-determined standard. That pre-determined standard is analogous to a project brief in this case.
This is why everyone can no longer skimp on the quality of their briefs or any other project documentation for that matter. Without the available details, AI will not be as reliable or valuable to you as a project assistant or other team member.
Being the meticulous project manager I am, my statements of work, project specifications, proposals, etc, all contain thought-out, structured and detailed information. I also make a point to keep things succinct. I pass all my project docs to my AI so I can ask it questions and have it assist me at every stage of the project. From design, development, and delivery, the AI has a detailed and contextual understanding of my project scope, process, target audience, team members, budget, timeline and everything else!
It’s obvious to most people, I think, that AI is fundamentally changing the way we do our jobs across all industries to some degree. It has become more important that people use their brains to think about what they are trying to achieve on their projects so that they can document the details – not just for other humans, but so AI can do its job correctly.
If you want your AI to be a really knowledgeable team member on your project that makes many mundane tasks disappear, make sure you make your briefs well thought out, comprehensive and structured. Take your time, use your head, and write down all the info and really think about all the aspects of your project.
Your AI will thank you for a well-thought-out and comprehensive brief.
