Cognition #20: How to give perfect briefs that multiply the outcome?

Hey heyy! Welcome back!!

Took a couple of weeks off. The first was for my birthday, and the second, for Diwali.

Good to be back again. Happy Diwali, guys! Hope you had a great festival.

If you've read my issues or tweets in the last 45 days or so, you can assume that I've hired a writer as I was speaking more about team building, the benefits of hiring, etc.

This issue is no different.

Today's newsletter is about how you communicate with your team while briefing them about projects—not to establish good communication or comfortable systems but to multiply the quality of outcomes.

At some stage in your freelancing career, you will...

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At some stage in your freelancing career, you will start outsourcing your work or will build a team, which means you'll potentially be a client to another freelancer, giving briefs to them.

Here is the thing about briefs: We always crave good briefs and rant over our clients for not giving us enough information, but most of us do the same when we are put in the position to provide briefs.

With clients, it is in a way understandable because they are not writers, and they don't know what all you need as a writer.

But if you are a writer hiring a writer; a designer hiring a designer; or a coder hiring a coder, you know exactly what the other person needs to produce the best output.

Yet we fail to give them the ideal brief.

Remember: It's not about your hire suffering to comprehend information. You are not doing it to make them feel comfortable. It's about you extracting the desired outcome from the person you hired to do the job.

So here we go!

Welcome to Cognition #20!

Today, we discuss 10 things that you can include in your briefs to multiply the quality of output.

PS: I am a writer. I hire writers. I gave the following suggestions from a writer's perspective. You can understand what I mean and tweak it to your profession accordingly.

Also, I'm still fresher with my experience in managing a team. So I researched how the freelancers I know give briefs and analyzed the briefs I gave and received so far.

Here is what I learned.

1. Start with the obvious

Give basic details like

• Word count (Number of slides, if carousel)

• 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person perspective

• US or UK English

• Topic, keywords, objective, etc.

2. Basic Structure

Providing structure is optional. You can leave it to your team if you trust they'll develop a quality structure.

But if you think your involvement is needed or you have better insights on what your client expects, giving a basic structure or outline puts you in sync with your team.

Example of a basic structure:

Introduction: Start with [Components you want to include]

H1: What is [topic]?

H2: Types of [topic] + [More inputs/specifications]

H3: Pros and Cons of [topic]

Conclude with [Things you want to highlight]

The difference I want you to note is you're not just giving a structure with headings here, you are specifically mentioning what you need under each section.

This makes your team understand what is important for you and what isn't.

3. Define Approach

One of my favourite parts of my briefs is the Ask Questions Like section.

I've seen many clients give briefs mentioning things like 'Write insightful content.'

The problem is writers don't really know what insightful means to you.

So rather than letting writers assume the meaning, you give mock questions whose answers might sound insightful to you.

Here's how I do it:

If I have to give a brief for a social media post highlighting why it is necessary to check lung health regularly at home, my Ask Questions Like section would be:

• Why is it important to regularly check lung health at home?

• What are the benefits of doing so?

• What are the consequences of not regularly checking lung capacity/health?

The advantage? It sets the approach for your writers.

They understand what kind of questions you're looking answers for and how deep you want them to go with the research.

PS: Your writers might misunderstand Answer Questions Like as the only questions to answer. The sole purpose of questions is to set the approach. Make it very clear.

4. Dos and Don'ts

I feel it's pretty handy.

Don't you think it is important for writers to know what not to do as much as what they need to do?

Dos and Don'ts do exactly that—They help your writers understand what is 'good' for you or what is a 'Big No No' from your end.

The best part of Dos and Don't in the brief?

You have what exactly you want and what you definitely don't want in the first draft itself. It eliminates all unnecessary and higher rounds of edits, giving more time to dive deep and exponentially improve the first draft.

5. Add References

Again, works like magic.

If you can't tell, 'This is what I want', show them what you want.

If you say you need a conversational tone, find 2-3 blogs that you feel have a conversational tone and add them as referral links.

As simple as that.

You can even highlight a part of the blog and mention this is how I want it.

References are the easiest and most effective method to clarify what you seek.

6. Formatting preferences

I personally feel formatting is subjective.

What looks like neat formatting to one might look clumsy to another.

So if you are aware of your formatting preferences, it's always best to list them.

Something like this:

• Don't use more than 5 sentences in a paragraph

• Prefer numbered lists over bullets (Irony is I'm using bullets now, lol)

• Use shorter sentences often

You can even mention indentation, line spacing, font, paragraph spacing, etc., if you look to maintain a standardized format.

7. Screening with tools

Tools make life simpler if used correctly.

You can ask your writers to screen their work using tools to eliminate basic errors.

Example:

• Use Grammarly Premium and make sure all the grammatical errors are corrected. Check for conciseness and passive voice too.

• Use Hemingway Editor to ensure no lines are marked in Red (difficult to read) and green (passive voice).

It's important that you trust these tools and believe that they make your content better.

If you feel the tools are not adding value, you need not mention them in the briefs or ask your writers to use them.

8. Stepwise approvals

Step wise approvals help you eliminate unnecessary changes as early as possible.

If I ask someone to write a blog, I ask them to give me a basic outline with headings and what are looking to include in each of the headings.

This helps me remove the unnecessary content and introduce new topics if needed.

Saves my time and my writer's time.

Stepwise approval looks like:

Step 1: Approve the outline

Step 2: Do screening using tools

Step 3: Approving the first draft

9. Add personal notes/preferences

Perspectives are similar to formatting styles—They are unique and subjective.

Some think giving analogies from different but relatable domains is a great perspective. Others think giving analogies from the same technical realm is necessary.

Or some think analogies are fantastic, while others believe stats are sexy.

None of them is wrong. Or right.

It's just different perspectives.

So if you feel your client requires or asks for a particular perspective, it is wise to mention it in the brief.

Example:

Don't throw a lot of stats or numbers. Although some basic stats occasionally are fine, try to use more analogies to make readers relate to [topic].

10. Give Freedom

It is essential to be specific and mention exactly what you need and don't need for your content.

At the same time, it is equally vital not to impose all your thoughts on your team.

They have perspectives, working style, approaches, and thinking process of their own, which is unique to them. Respect that.

You hired them because you thought they were good at something. So give them that freedom to express their talent in the best way they can.

Don't just think you are giving freedom to them. Tell them clearly that they have the freedom to go out of the box.

I do this at the end of all the briefs I give:

PS: Feel free to add whatever information you feel is necessary and relevant. You have the freedom to alter the structure and content as you think is the best.

And that's a wrap!

I keep these ten factors in check while briefing my writer.

Before we move to the non-technical segment, I'd like to end the technical part with a tweet 👇🏻

That's it. That's the tweet.

ALSO:

If you wish to learn more about how I give briefs in real-time, you can reply to this email, and I'll share any of the briefs I gave to my writer.

Non-Technical aka Fun Segment

Favourite quote from a book

(Originally tweeted by Naval)

The quote is obvious, isn't it?

Why would you want to work with someone who does not add value to at least one aspect of your life?

My inclination is always towards meeting interesting people and doing sexy work.

Not always do you have the freedom to choose people who you want to work with or walk away from the people who you feel aren't worthy of your presence or time, but on a day it's possible, it is wise to take that step—for nothing else but your growth and peace.

Movies/Shows I loved recently

I watched Maanagaram this week, and I loved the writing + character development throughout the story.

It's an action thriller and pretty engaging.

Originally made in Tamil (from the director of the recent blockbuster, Vikram). I watched it in Telugu.

It's available on YouTube for FREE, and here is the link to the trailer. 👇🏻

Tweets I loved

Blog I loved

Comparison anxiety is something all of face at some point in our lives. This blog gives basic introduction to comparison anxiety, providing the information that helps you get more self-aware.

Comparison anxiety: How to stop comparing yourself to others — nesslabs.com Systematically comparing ourselves to others can make us feel less capable. To avoid comparison anxiety, it’s helpful to be aware of how assessing our success based on a subjective view of how we compare to others may lead to unnecessary stress and poor mental health.

Song I’m listening to on a loop

I'm in mood for some ARR magic and Tere Bina is ❤️❤️❤️.

Cognition #20 ends here.

I'm happy we are at 20 editions! 20 QUALITY editions!

This is a personal achievement for many reasons. I'll share them with you someday.

I hope this issue provided you value.

If it did, I request you to post about it on your socials. It'd mean the world to me.

I'll see you next week!

Take care, stay safe, and give good briefs!

Love,

Vikra Vardhan

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