Writing Briefs That Capture Stakeholder Attention

Let’s be honest — most Business Requirement Documents (BRDs) are boring to read. From my experience, what I have learned is - a good BRD is not about length, it’s about clarity. Here are a few practical lessons (and battle scars) that helped me write BRDs: 1️⃣ 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 “𝐖𝐡𝐲”, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 “𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭” Before listing requirements, make sure you’ve answered one thing clearly — 👉 Why does this project even exist? Example: Instead of saying “We need a new payment module”, write — “Customers are dropping off at checkout due to failed card transactions. The new payment module aims to reduce failure rate by 25%.” Now the reader knows the purpose, not just the feature. 2️⃣ 𝐓𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐚 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲, 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐃𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 Use simple sections that flow logically: 👉 Business Problem 👉 Objectives 👉 Stakeholders 👉 Scope (In and Out) 👉 Functional & Non-Functional Requirements 👉 Dependencies 👉 Risks Each section should answer a stakeholder’s question. For example, “Scope” answers — what are we building (and what are we not)? Keep your reader oriented. 3️⃣ 𝐊𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐑𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 Never write vague requirements like — ❌ “The system should be user-friendly.” ✅ “The system should allow users to submit a form in less than 3 clicks.” If QA can’t test it, it’s not a good requirement. 4️⃣ 𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥-𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐄𝐱𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐬 If you’re describing a workflow, include a small diagram or wireframe. If you’re defining data, include a field table. A visual breaks monotony and builds shared understanding instantly. 5️⃣ 𝐀𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐩𝐲-𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐞 Every BRD should reflect the voice of that business — not the last project you worked on. Change the language, the examples, and the KPIs to suit your stakeholder’s context. 6️⃣ 𝐕𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 You’ll thank yourself later when you have to compare V1.2 with V1.4. A simple version control and approval table saves chaos when sign-offs start flying around. 7️⃣ 𝐄𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 End your BRD with a crisp statement like — “Once implemented, this feature will reduce manual effort by 30%, improve data accuracy, and cut processing time from 2 days to 4 hours.” That’s the line that gets executives to nod. If your BRD can’t be understood by someone outside the project in 10 minutes, rewrite it. Because clarity is the ultimate sign of good business analysis. Download sample documentation for FREE from the drive: https://lnkd.in/ectcJTH4 BA Helpline

What I learnt the hard way about writing influencer briefs 👀 No one else cared about them as much as I did. Harsh? Maybe. True? Definitely. Here’s the problem: Brands who send creators (and their agents) never-ending-slide-decks stuffed with brand vision, campaign context, KPIs, tone of voice, and more. It feels thorough, but in reality, the core message often gets buried under text bulk and over-explaining. I’ve been guilty of this myself. Hours spent perfecting every word choice, adding layers of context that felt essential, but overwhelming (and sometimes confusing), for the person on the other end. Even today, I still see briefs like the one in my slideshow circulating (😭). They’re heavy, uninspiring, and often suppress creativity instead of sparking it. Psychology backs this up: 💡 Information overload makes it harder to prioritise what’s important. 💡 Paradox of choice shows us that more options often make decisions harder, not easier. Creators are operating in fast-paced environments, competing for attention. Recruiters are pitching roles in 2-minute Loom videos. If you’re asking for creativity, you need to meet them in the same spirit. Guide on best practices and strategic frameworks, but ensure the core of your brand shines through in a simple, clear-cut way. My recommendation for briefs that actually work: 📲 A short TikTok esque video: deliverables, vibe, do’s/don’ts. 📄 A one-pager/Notion: clear, to the point, starting with overview, deliverables, non-negotiables. 📷 A moodboard: bring the creative direction to life visually 🤝🏼 Make it collaborative: share a Pinterest board, jump on a 15-minute vibe check call. Pressure-test: if your core message and brand can’t fit in 5 slides, it’s probably too much. For complex industries like health or fintech, extra detail is valid, but that makes it even more important to cut jargon and put clear do’s and don’ts front and center. Every brand’s process will differ, but it’s worth asking: is your brief actually doing its job? A brief is the first touchpoint with a creator. It’s your chance to inspire, not bore. 👀 If you’ve ever sent an influencer brief or received one yourself - what are your thoughts on this?

Project managers, your stakeholder's time is your budget Every email. Every slide deck. Every meeting invite. It all costs them attention. And just like money, attention is limited. If you flood them with noise, you dilute your influence. If you curate with intention, you build trust. Protect your stakeholders' attention while maximizing your impact. Here's how: ✅ Cut the fluff Status updates should not be a novel. Get to the point in the first sentence. What's changed, what's next, what's needed. Give more detail below if they want to get more context (optional). ✅ Match the medium to the message Not every update needs a meeting. Not every decision needs a 20-slide deck. Right-size your communication to boost value. ✅ Give them the headline, not the transcript Execs don't have time to sift through details. Give them the distilled version that helps them act. Tip: tailor your communication to each leader based on what they need to know. ✅ Use their language Translate team jargon into terms they care about. Risk, cost, value, timeline, next steps. ✅ End with clarity Every touchpoint should answer: "what do you need from me?" If nothing, say that too (and cancel the touchpoint). Protect your stakeholders' attention. So that you can earn more of it. 🤙

If you struggle to keep content structured and strategic with stakeholders, this is what I do 👇 Because "we need to communicate" is not a brief and jumping straight into drafting without pushing back is how we end up producing content nobody needed. The hard part is slowing things down when stakeholders are breathing down your neck and urgency is the default setting. So use a simple brief to show up as a strategic partner, not just someone who executes. 1. 𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞 🎯 What are we actually trying to achieve? What do people need to understand, feel, or do after reading this? What behavior do we want to drive? Why now? 2. 𝐀𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 👥 Who is this really for? What do they already believe and what might block them? 3. 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 ⏰ When does this need to go out? Is it truly urgent or just last-minute? 4. 𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐧-𝐨𝐟𝐟 ✅ Who reviews and approves? How many people are involved in the approval process? 5. 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 🧭 Which business priority does this support? This brief helps me challenge assumptions, connect initiatives to strategy, and protect the quality of the work. If we can't answer these questions, we should probably ask whether to communicate at all. 🤷♀️

Long reports overwhelm. One-pagers persuade. I’ve been experimenting with one-pagers as my main way of sharing research findings and design recommendations. And honestly they’ve been a game changer for getting buy-in. Why they work: *They’re scannable → busy stakeholders can grasp the key message in minutes. *They focus on decisions → less “what we did,” more “what you need to do.” *They’re memorable → people can actually recall the insights later. Here’s the simple structure I use in my one-pagers:
 → Project headline (what this is about, in plain language)
 → Goals & KPIs (tie it to impact)
 → The insight (supported by 1–2 visuals or quotes, not paragraphs)
 → The recommendation (clear, actionable, and strong) That’s it. Add personality, make it visual, and suddenly stakeholders aren’t just reading they’re engaging. Later in this series I’ll share a free Figma template of these one-pagers so you can try them out for yourself. If you had to boil your last project down to just one page, what would you keep in and what would you cut?

One vague email triggered 48 hours of chaos. A junior manager sent this: "Please review the attached changes." No context. No timeframes. No actions. What followed? → 4 emergency meetings → 1 missed deadline → Thousands in costs → Confused clients and stressed teams I pulled him aside and gave him a simple framework, one that saved his career. Want to write messages that drive real action? Here’s the system I teach clients to influence stakeholders and get instant clarity: 1. The 5-Second Setup ↳ Clarify your goal ↳ Understand your reader ↳ Define the core issue ↳ Set timelines ↳ State required actions 2. Structure for Impact ↳ Start with the main point ↳ Use spacing to guide reading ↳ Break down complex ideas ↳ Focus on one topic ↳ Add context for clarity 3. Polish for Persuasion ↳ Use plain language ↳ Mirror the recipient’s tone ↳ Ditch unnecessary jargon ↳ End with a strong CTA ↳ Reread for clarity and flow I always tell my clients: The best messages aren’t just read, they’re acted upon. That manager? His next message got immediate buy-in from the leadership team. What’s your #1 tip for writing clear, persuasive messages? Drop it below 👇 ---- ♻️ Repost to inspire  🔔 Follow Renata Heranova 📩 Subscribe: https://lnkd.in/ePsgNQHh

My CFO was skimming his phone. We as Procurement already had over-delivered and I was the sacrificial lamb just there to read him the numbers. It was relatively early in my career but I was confident we had hit targets, got the buy-in & ran the process right. I was just there to get sign-off. I thought the numbers would speak for themselves.... but they didn’t quite. He nodded, once. Maybe twice? Then asked: “What's the commercial impact?” I started talking about stakeholder scoring, supplier feedback, operational alignment. He looked past me and that meeting went nowhere. My heart sank. So I scheduled a follow-up and changed the deck. It was still the same project. Same results. But I adapted my language. - £180K cut in manual admin - £2M secured in repeat business - £800K in risk exposure avoided - 12-week acceleration on product launch When I showed that version... ...he stopped scrolling. He actually looked up at me and then leaned in. “Now we’re talking,” he said. And we were. At that moment I had the biggest realisation of my career. Procurement gets in the room. But it's the black and white numbers that get the attention. Not just savings or compliance, but real Impact. Let me give you some examples of what I mean: Instead of: “We automated intake.” Say: “We freed up 6FTEs across the business.” Instead of: “Stakeholders rated us 9.4/10.” Say: “Referrals unlocked £1.5M in new pipeline.” Instead of: “We reworked the RFP.” Say: “We got to contract 3 months faster.” I didn’t change the work, but HOW I told the story. And in the boardroom.... Story is everything. ------ P.S. If you found this useful, I write a newsletter called The Procurement Blueprint. One good idea. One free resource. Every other week. Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/eg5C2b5i if you fancy it.

One of the most common (and costly) mistakes I see in data teams isn’t technical… It’s misunderstanding the brief. A stakeholder asks for something. The analyst interprets it slightly differently. Work gets delivered… and it’s not what was expected. Now you’re stuck in cycles of: “Is this what you meant?” “No, I meant this…” And before you know it: Timelines slip, stakeholders lose confidence, and the project starts to unravel I’ve seen this happen so many times that I built a simple process to eliminate it. Here’s what works: 1. Clarify everything upfront Never assume definitions are shared. “Customer”, “visitor”, “product” - these can mean very different things to different people. Ask questions. Be precise. 2. Translate the brief into your language Once you understand it, replay it back clearly: What you’re delivering. What it includes (and doesn’t include) 3. Put it in writing (this is critical) Send an email summarising: Your understanding, delivery timelines, any dependencies or constraints and get explicit confirmation. 4. Set expectations early If it will take 5 days, say 5 days. If you’re busy, say when it will realistically be delivered. No surprises. This might feel formal. It might feel like extra work, but in practice, it does three things: 1. Prevents rework 2. Protects you from scope creep 3. Builds trust with stakeholders Then if something does get challenged later, you have a clear reference point. Good analysts don’t just work with data, they manage ambiguity, translate requirements, and communicate with precision. That’s often the difference between someone who delivers work… …and someone who gets promoted. How do you handle unclear briefs or shifting stakeholder expectations? If you prefer, there is a video I created on this topic covering the same issues --> https://lnkd.in/ezvEWT2a

Your evaluation was rigorous. Your report killed it. You designed the methodology carefully. You interrogated the findings until you were confident they were right. Then you wrote a 80-page document. It buried the most important finding on page 34, and.. submitted it to a stakeholder who read the executive summary on a flight and never opened it again. The evaluation was good. The report undid it. And this isn't a personal failing. It's a sector-wide one. The development sector produces thousands of evaluation reports every year. Most of them change nothing. The writing is why. Not the data. Not the methodology. Not the sampling strategy or the theory of change. The writing. 𝗖𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗲. 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴. 𝗣𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘁𝘄𝗼, 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘇𝗲𝗿𝗼. They're dense where they should be direct. Cautious where they should be bold. Written to demonstrate expertise rather than to communicate it. And the people who needed to act on the findings... the minister skimming between meetings, the programme manager already stretched thin, the donor trying to decide whether to renew, they encountered a wall of jargon, a forest of tables, and a recommendation section so hedged and generalised it could apply to any programme anywhere. So they didn't act. Or they acted on instinct instead of evidence. Because the report didn't give them a choice. Here's how to do better... 1. Write for a real audience, not an abstract one ↳ Not “stakeholders” ↳ The specific person who will use this ↳ The minister with 5 minutes ↳ The programme manager under pressure ↳ The donor deciding on funding If you don’t know who you’re writing for, you’ll default to writing for yourself. 2. Start with the decision, not the methodology ↳ What needs to change because of this report? Write to that. 3. Lead with the answer ↳ Don’t make people work for the insight Page 1 should tell them what matters 4. Design for use, not submission ↳ A report is not the final product A decision is ---- Want insights like this directly in your inbox? Sign up for my mailing list. It's FREE! 👉 https://lnkd.in/ec8mqV2M

Every audit finding has a story to tell. The question is: are you writing it like one? Too often, I see findings presented as disconnected facts - with no real flow and no real insight. Technically correct, but forgettable. Stakeholders skim, nod politely, and move on without engaging and embracing action. But when you frame a finding as a short, clear story, everything changes. Root cause explains why it happened. Risk shows what’s at stake. Impact makes it real. And action shows the way forward. That’s when your stakeholders lean in. Because humans don’t connect to checklists - they connect to stories. And stories are what drive decisions. I’ve coached teams through this shift, and the difference is dramatic: sharper reports, faster buy-in, and less back-and-forth. All because the message was framed as a narrative that mattered. 👉 Does your writing read like a story, or just a checklist? #InternalAudit #AuditReportWriting #AuditCommunication #AuditReady #ImpactInfluenceInspire