Briefing the Bicycle Way

Here at Bicycle HQ, we’ve been pondering the briefing process and speaking to the best strategic minds in the agency to redefine the way we brief.

This journey was formed out of a frustration with how client briefs were landing on our desks - often lacking clarity on the overarching business problem, objective and desired outcome.

Typically, this is a result of multiple stakeholders - fearful of leaving any information out - using the document as a ‘brain dumping’ exercise; however, this only serves to complicate the brief, and block productivity, as the agency wastes valuable time untangling the brief.

So, we looked at ourselves and reflected upon our own role in supporting our clients with getting the brief right.

And ‘Briefing the Bicycle Way’ was born.

Now, we start with an all-important pre-briefing probing session where we bring together the key client decision-makers and stakeholders involved in the brief.

The goal here is to have a face-to-face session where we can facilitate open, collaborative and transformational discussion in the room before any formal briefing actually happens. 

Our role in the session is to ask the questions that get our clients talking - creating space for discussion and debate on the business problem at hand, as well as what success looks like. We can then come away with a shared vision on the key business objectives and desired outcomes that the brief needs to solve.

We ran a pre-briefing probing session for a client recently, where we brought in their CEO, CCO and CFO and probed them on their macro priorities and problems. Throughout the session, we gained invaluable insight into why they set the business up and where they want to get to at a collective level. 

Given we were able to get properly under the skin of their business, we came away from that session with a clear understanding of the business need at the heart of the brief - before a briefing template had even landed in their inboxes. 

As well as introducing this session as a prerequisite to briefing, we’ve also created a shiny new briefing doc that’s deliberately designed to be simple and concise. 

Here, we ask the bigger questions like “What do you need this brief to solve?”, “What customer behaviour do you need to change?” and “Why would they buy you?”. Essentially, we get straight to the point and cut out the opportunity for fluff.