Crafting Concise Project Briefs

How To Communicate At Executive Altitude. You're in an exec committee meeting. This is your biggest update in six months. A project you've lived and breathed - late nights, stakeholder pressure, real complexity. This meeting matters. The way you present this can change how you're seen. Now here's what usually happens to high performers at this moment. 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟭: 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗱. You walk them through the work. The steps, the decisions, the fixes, the effort. You finish… and your exec sponsor nods: "Thanks." Next agenda item. No recognition. Not because the work wasn't impressive. Because they didn't hear what matters at their level. 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟮: 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗽. You keep it short: “The rollout is complete. Early feedback has been positive." Your executive pauses. "Positive how? What improved? What risk is still open?" And now you're scrambling - there's a lot of detail, and you don't know where to start. So you start everywhere. Context. Then steps. Then exceptions. Then blockers. Then workarounds. A minute in, your execs look lost. Because you're giving them information without a clear point. That's the real issue: You're not struggling to communicate. You're struggling to communicate at executive altitude. In exec rooms, you need to be able to do two things at once: • be clear enough that they trust the outcome • concise enough that they stay with you And the difference is simple: Too vague = they can't evaluate you Too detailed = they can't follow you Right altitude = they can see impact, trust your thinking, and ask for depth • - - Here are 5 pointers to make your next high-stakes update land well. 1. 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝗻𝗲-𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 Ask yourself: "If they need to remember one detail, what should it be?" Say it first. 2. 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 "𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲" 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 Executives can't act on adjectives. They need numbers. • Customer satisfaction up from 3.8 to 4.4 • Avoiding €500K in rework costs • Profits up by 15% 3. 𝗔𝗱𝗱 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘀 "𝘀𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁?" Tie results to business levers they care about. "We can handle 1900 more transactions per week without adding headcount." 4. 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗵, 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗱𝘂𝗺𝗽 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗵 Give a clear path to go deeper without flooding. "Two key decisions got us here. I can walk you through them, or go straight to the next steps. Which do you prefer?" 5. 𝗡𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘀𝗸 Executives scan for what could go wrong and what you need. "One risk to flag is X, mitigating by Y. Decision we need today is Z." • - - This is how you win in senior rooms. You're not there to prove you worked hard. You're there to make it easy for leaders to trust your thinking, see your impact, and back you for bigger opportunities. Your work has value. This is how you make sure the room feels it.

I’ve had the same conversation with at least five different executives over the last two weeks. Each one was getting ready for a big presentation (board meetings, investor briefings, annual reviews... tis the season) and each one was wrestling with the same thing: how to make sure the message lands in the room. I've been doing this work for over 20 years, and every year I watch the same trend in my EOY presentation-prep coaching sessions: leaders starting from what THEY know, instead of what the room NEEDS to hear. That shift...orienting from your knowledge to their perspective...is what separates a good communicator from a great one. Why does this matter? Because when you lead with everything you know, the story becomes dense. It’s clear to you, but not to them. When you start with what your audience needs, your message becomes easier to follow, easier to remember, and easier to act on. Here’s how that looks in practice: >>> Start with the “so what.” Instead of walking through your logic step by step, open with your conclusion. “There are three companies we should consider. Here’s why each matters.” You’ve just given the room a roadmap. Now they know what they’re listening for. >>> Keep it short. Long answers often come from wanting to sound thorough. But in a boardroom, shorter answers read as control. Half the words, twice the confidence. If someone wants more detail, let them ask for it. >>> Don’t let your slides do the thinking for you. Frame the key point before you show what’s on the page. “There’s a lot here, but two things I want to highlight…” That helps your audience follow you, not your deck. >>> Treat questions as part of the conversation, not as tests. You don’t need to have a perfect answer. Your goal is to keep the room engaged and moving toward your outcome. If you’re unsure what they want, clarify: “Would you like me to speak to X or Y?” That one sentence signals that you’re thinking WITH them, not performing FOR them. Remember: the goal isn’t to prove what you know. It’s to curate what the audience needs to understand, so they walk away able to REPEAT your key points and motivated to ACT on them.

Most brilliant ideas die not because they’re bad, but because they’re pitched wrong. And that collapse usually happens in the first 90 seconds. A 2023 McKinsey study found that senior leaders make decisions up to 5x faster when information is presented with clarity and relevance rather than sequence and storytelling. And neuroscience backs this up. Our prefrontal cortex, the part involved in complex decision-making, has limited working-memory capacity (about 3–4 chunks of information at a time). If your pitch starts with a long background story, you overwhelm the very system you’re trying to engage. You feel you have no influence? Let’s fix that. 𝟭. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 Executives process outcomes first, explanations second. Open with: “The decision I’m asking you to make today is…” This immediately reduces cognitive load and boosts listener retention by up to 30%, according to research. 𝟮. 𝗔𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗿 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗮 𝗶𝗻 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 Executives listen for impact drivers (P&L, risk, timing, strategic alignment, reputation…) If your idea doesn’t connect to their priorities, it becomes noise. 𝟯. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮 𝟯-𝗟𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝗡𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 Layer 1 The One Sentence Your idea in 12 words. If you can’t explain it simply, it’s not clear, and the brain can’t store it. Layer 2 The Value State the pain and the outcome. One slide. One paragraph. Keep it simple and straightforward. Layer 3 The Proof Pilot data, customer insight, small wins… you need facts that make the idea tangible. And remember... people trust a message more when it includes a concrete marker of progress. 𝟰. 𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 Senior leaders don’t buy ideas. They buy safe momentum. Close with: “The smallest low-risk step we can take is…” Micro-commitments trigger the brain’s preference for loss avoidance. We’re more willing to start small because the perceived threat is low. And it goes without saying that you always need to prepare for objections. Executives consistently push on cost, risk, and timing. When you proactively address these, you show confidence and reduce perceived uncertainty. Common mistakes that people make (that kill a pitch)? - Starting with a long narrative instead of the decision - Explaining the problem in painful detail - Using vague verbs such as “improve,” “optimize,” “enhance” - Not making an explicit ask - Pitching to be liked instead of aligned - Having no clue of the company’s priorities And a small trick before you enter the room to enhance your influence… Ask yourself: “What do I want them to feel?” Your intention shapes your tone and tone shapes the room.   Ready? GO!

Project managers need to speak the language of executives Here's how to make them listen: ✅ Start with the bottom line They don't need the whole story up front, give them the hook. Start with critical info first. → Is the project on track? → Any risks they should know about? → What specific decisions/actions are needed from them? ✅ Frame everything around business impact Executives care about ROI, strategy, and outcomes. Translate your updates to business value. → "We need to adjust the timeline by X days, which will impact Y revenue." → "We're requesting X resources, which will cost Y amount but save Z time." ✅ Use visuals + be concise Execs love to see what's needed. Simple slides or dashboards speak louder than paragraphs of text. → Use things like traffic-light statuses → Include key metrics in bold (ex: budget used, % complete, etc.) → Add in timelines and charts to drive clarity ✅ Anticipate their questions Think like a boss ie: "what's next?" or "what's at risk?" Prepare answers by asking yourself key questions before. → What decisions do we need from them? → What are the biggest risks/impacts + mitigation strategy? → How does this fit into broader goals/bigger picture? ✅ Know when to shut up Be direct, answer their questions, and stay high-level. If they need more detail, they'll ask. → Empower them to act → Don't overwhelm them with data → Keep your asks specific When working with executives, you need to speak in outcomes, not details. Use visuals. Tie your updates to business value. Focus on what THEY need to know. Not only does this level you up as a PM, it makes you a strategic partner that execs trust. PS: what's your go-to strategy to engage key executives? 🤙

The creative brief is the most underrated document in our business. And most of them are terrible. I've seen thousands of briefs over 30 years. Award-winning briefs and briefs that should never have left the building. Here's what separates them: 01 - A bad brief tells the creative team what to make. A great brief tells them what problem to solve and trusts them to find the answer. 02 - A bad brief has six objectives. A great brief has one. If everything is important, nothing is. 03 - A bad brief describes the audience as a demographic. A great brief describes them as a human being in a specific moment, feeling a specific thing. 04 - A bad brief is written by committee. A great brief is owned by one person willing to defend every word in it. 05 - A bad brief asks for something safe. A great brief gives the creative team permission to surprise you. The best creative work I've ever seen didn't start in a studio. It started in a room where someone wrote a brief that was brave enough to demand something extraordinary. You can't get great creative output from a mediocre brief. It's not possible. What's the worst brief you've ever been given or written? #Advertising #CreativeStrategy #BriefWriting #Design #BrandBuilding #CreativeLeadership The One Club for Creativity

“Must have x years of experience…” Years of experience is often a subjective requirement. If you look at it at face value, you’re correlating time in a job with competency. And sure, in many cases, the time spent working in a certain career is critical to gain exposure and build experience. Yet, by rigidly sticking to this measure, you’ll miss out on excellent talent. People like those who grow and achieve more in two years than most in their industry do in five. And that’s why, as recruiters, it’s our job to dig deeper. We need to look at the context of that experience: ➟ Where has that experience developed? Start-ups, high-growth organisations, established brands, multinational organisations? ➟ What was the team structure? ➟ What has the culture of learning and development been like? ➟ How many opportunities for growth were they exposed to? Then, to identify high performers, you’ll want to look at: ➤ Achievements and promotions received ➤ The scope and scale of projects delivered ➤ Their impact - financial, time, customer impressions, etc. With this information, you can push back against the black-and-white ‘years of experience’ argument. This doesn’t have to be after a recruitment process has started, either. You can challenge these assumptions in the job briefing, too. Let’s say you’ve received a Talent Acquisition Leader job description, which states that the individual needs ‘10+ years of experience’. In the job briefing, you can ask the following: “If I found someone with only 8 years of experience but meets all other requirements and has delivered [x achievements / y impact], is it worth putting them in front of you?” Most hiring managers will respond, "Absolutely, we’d want to see them.” Asking deeper questions about a candidate's experience allows us to break the mould of conventional recruitment. We can present hiring managers with talent that surpasses expectations, not just in years, but in value and impact. #recruitment #sourcing 

Treat strong candidates like 10-day options. A Head of Talent called me after a candidate disappeared on day 18. “She was right there,” he said. “Everyone liked her. Now I have to explain why the role is still open.” The candidate hadn’t disappeared. She’d accepted another offer while his team tried to find space for a final interview. Nobody had done anything unreasonable. One interviewer was away. Feedback came in late. The debrief moved from Thursday to Tuesday. Then day 10 became day 18, and the candidate was gone. This is the quiet problem behind a lot of rising time-to-fill. Strong candidates have a shelf life measured in days. An open-ended hiring process silently trades the person you want for whoever is still available when you finally decide. So I told him to treat every strong candidate like a 10-day option. The clock starts at the 1st interview. Every remaining interview, the debrief, and the offer decision must fit inside it. Here’s how to make that work without rushing the decision. 1. Book the whole path after the 1st interview. If they’re worth moving forward, hold every remaining interview and the debrief before people wander back to their calendars. You can cancel a meeting in seconds. Finding 5 diaries again can cost a week. 2. Give every interview one job. Write down the one question each person needs to answer. If 2 interviews are testing the same thing, remove one. More conversations don’t always produce more certainty. 3. Set the decision date before the next interview. Not “we’ll discuss after everyone meets them.” Pick the day. Whoever owns the hire knows they must decide with the evidence available by then. 4. Make day 10 the limit, not the target. Aim to decide by day 7 or 8. That leaves time for a delayed interview, a reference call, or whoever approves the offer being hard to reach. And if the team wants another round, ask one question: “What exactly will we know after this interview that we don’t know now?” If nobody can answer in one sentence, don’t add it. Fast hiring isn’t careless hiring. You’re asking the same useful questions, gathering the same evidence, and making the same decision. You’re just removing the empty days between each step. That’s how deciding faster gets you better hires, not worse ones. Because by day 20, you’re often no longer choosing the strongest candidate. You’re choosing from the people who are still waiting.

Briefs should be… well… brief. I wrote my fair share of really shitty briefs. I still remember the first one. I think it was like 20 pages long. And I got home really proud thinking that my brief was able to answer any question the agency may have had. Well, little I knew that most likely no one ever read that brief 😂 The quote from Mark Twain was repeated multiple times to me by my former boss, mentor and friend Steve Miles. And it’s so so so true. It’s really hard to write a concise, to the point and insightful brief. To do that you need to know what is the one most important thing to communicate. And leave out the temptation of adding a laundry list of things. And believe me: It is indeed very tempting to ask for more and more and more. The issue is that the more you put in, the less consumers will take out (and I will illustrate that with data in a future post). And if the creative team cannot put their finger on the one thing that they need to communicate (and understand the insight/ tension behind it), chances are you will get average creative. The best work I had the chance to be part of had a very simple, unforgettable, one line sort of brief. “Let’s make women feel more beautiful” triggered Dove Real Beauty Sketches. “Our food is not crap” triggered Moldy Whopper. “Play with fire” was the brief behind Burning Stores. That’s the thing. I still remember all of them. And so does the creative team. My first ever 20 page brief? Can’t remember what was in there. #Advertising #Creativity #Marketing

CFOs bring three numbers and one decision. HR can, too. I used to walk into executive meetings with 20 slides. Turnover trends. Engagement scores. Headcount projections. Comp benchmarks. I thought I was being thorough. What I was actually being was forgettable. Because executives don't want to understand all the work that went into your analysis. They want to understand the decision that needs to be made. Think about how your CFO presents. They don't walk through every journal entry. They bring context, options, and a recommendation. They make it easy for the room to say yes or no. HR can do the same. I learned to compress my 20-slide decks into a simple structure: 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁 — What's happening and why it matters now. 𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 — Two or three paths forward. 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲-𝗼𝗳𝗳𝘀 — What we gain and give up with each. 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 — What I think we should do and why. 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗸 𝗶𝗳 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 — What happens if we wait. One page. One decision. That's it. For HR leaders, this is the difference between being invited to "share a quick HR update" and being the person the CEO looks at when the room gets stuck. Your research matters. Your data matters. But in an executive meeting, what matters most is helping leaders decide. Replace "here's what we did" with "here's the decision I need from you." What's your approach to presenting to executives?

Not getting the right calibre of candidates? Is your briefing process the issue? Increasingly we are hearing from clients that they are struggling to fill roles that have been open for long periods of time, despite having perhaps worked with other agencies and their internal talent team-and after having some in depth conversations we concluded that in many instances the challenges started with the job brief itself. When you work with a recruitment agency, their job is not just to “make placements”, we see our role as project managing this process through to successful completion. A job brief serves as the starting point of this project, where we align on not only what you need, but how we’re going to successfully deliver that for you and an opportunity for us to offer our specialist market insights and anticipate potential challenges and without this “kick off” meeting, we are not operating to the best of our ability. Often we receive a JD and are asked to start sourcing- but the JD is only a part of the job brief process…. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚 𝐣𝐨𝐛 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐉𝐃: 💡What problem are you trying to solve? The JD gives a list of the responsibilities but doesn’t explain the broader situation within your Supply Chain or Procurement function 🤝Cultural Fit – not just company -your team specifically, how do they work, and interact, what soft skills are you missing from your team that you need now or in the future? 🔼Progression – What’s the next steps for this role, half the attraction is about what’s next, how can someone develop and grow How will we sell your role to the people you want? So often hiring managers have not really thought about this question 📈Market insights – Is what you need possible, does it actually exist? If not what works within your budget or what skills are there out there in the market 🗣How are we going to manage this process? How many CVs do you like to see? How many people do you want to see an interview? Who is involved in the interviews and how many will there be? This helps us set realistic expectations for potential candidates and identify any bottle necks in the process We understand these conversations take more time than just firing out a JD, but consider how much time you can save in the long run by having a clear hiring strategy, aligned timelines and goals and ultimately all parties working to achieve the shared objective of finding the right person for the right role in your business. If you're struggling with a role – we have regularly used the above process and search strategy to successfully fill roles that had been open for 9 months+ with multiple agencies...could it be time to re-think your briefing process? If you have hiring plans across Supply Chain, Procurement and Manufacturing and would like to find out more about our approach please feel free to reach out- caroline.crotty@pod-talent.com.