Every brief carries assumptions. Someone has already decided what the problem is, who has it, and roughly what the answer looks like. That’s useful: it gives a team a place to start. But it’s a starting point, not a fact.
Before a team commits, I check that the brief targets the real source of value. The bigger opportunity is often next to the one that was asked for.
What I look for
- Who actually feels the problem? The person who wrote the brief is rarely the person who lives with it every day.
- What would success look like in numbers? If no one can say, agree on that first.
- What is the brief quietly ruling out? The constraints nobody wrote down are often where the opportunity is.
Why it matters
You spend on the right problem, not the first one named. And when you can’t test an assumption by asking, you can often test it by building.
Related: Product leadership · Innovation