Why good work starts with a clear brief
How often are you asked to deliver something, only to realise it’s not entirely clear what is being asked?
It’s a familiar situation, and one that comes up more often than we might want to admit.
A request that comes in sounding straightforward. Something to deliver, produce, or action. Naturally, you say yes. Yet the moment you try to act upon it, it becomes harder to define. Much like trying to hold water in your hands, it slips through the moment you try to gather it.
At that point and before any real progress can be made, you are no longer delivering work but trying to reverse-engineer the question.
So, is this a challenge of communication or definition?
Where ambiguity comes from
Ambiguity is usually a signal.
A sign that something hasn’t been fully thought through. A direction or vision exists, sure, but it has been neither formulated nor articulated clearly. Assumptions are being made, but not shared. Context? Often missing or partially formed.
This is where the impact is felt.
When the input isn’t clear, the output becomes a guessing game.
How, then, can anyone be expected to deliver something that aligns with a vague ambiguity?
Because the moment something moves from being an idea in one person’s head to a task for someone else, it needs to be translated. Made clear. Made usable.
I can almost guarantee that at some point in your day, your month, or across your career, you will be asked to deliver something that isn’t fully formed.
Marketing: “We are expected to communicate something that isn’t fully defined.”
Product managers: “We have a vague direction, but still have to turn it into a roadmap.”
Agencies: “We have a brief, but it isn’t really a brief.”
This is a shared pattern. One that is costing all of us time, effort, and effectiveness.
Why we move anyway
This isn’t limited to a single type of interaction.
It shows up in how projects are briefed. In how meetings are set up and run. In how direction is given. And increasingly, in how we interact with technology.
The principle itself is rather consistent.
The quality of what comes out is shaped by the quality of what goes in.
When it comes to AI, this has become visible. A vague prompt produces a vague response. A well-structured input, on the other hand, produces something far more useful.
That same dynamic, though, has always existed when working with people. The difference is that people compensate. They interpret, fill in the gaps. They try to make something work.
That is, until at some point, the misalignment rears its head.
Now, there will always be some level of ambiguity; you cannot proclaim to preempt or define every single angle or detail. That is part of the process. But there should always be enough context to make it understandable and actionable.
A clear sense of what is being worked towards. Who is it for? What does success look like? What are the boundaries within which decisions can be made?
Without any of that, all that is left is a piece of work that is open to interpretation.
It is this very interpretation that allows entire projects to shift and creep into something else.
Perhaps then, a more useful starting point is to pause and ask a different question.
Not “what needs to be done?” but:
What are we actually trying to achieve?
Who is this for?
What needs to change as a result?
Just as importantly, what do we want others to think, feel or do differently? Not just in the work itself, but in how it is experienced and what it leads to.
If those answers aren’t clear, the results won’t be either.
The impact of getting it right
More often than not, the biggest barrier to good work is not the capability of the people delivering it, nor the tools being leveraged to facilitate it. It’s in how well what is being asked has been thought through, articulated, and understood.
When something is handed over, the quality of what follows is shaped by what was given at the start. When the brief is vague or open to interpretation, the consequences tend to show up later.
In time spent revisiting decisions. In poor results. A product that doesn’t meet the needs of the market. Work that doesn’t land. Outcomes that feel slightly off, even when the effort behind them is solid.
Rubbish in, rubbish out isn’t limited to machines.
Uncertainty will not be entirely removed by being clear in what we ask for. It is, however, a pretty good start. It’s about making something understandable enough for someone else to act on with confidence and without the guesswork.
Be as clear in what you ask for as you expect others to be in what they deliver.
If that feels difficult, it is usually a sign that more thinking is needed before the work begins.
When marketing in your organisation feels busy but not effective, you are not alone. There is usually a deeper challenge in how marketing is being understood.
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