“We want something like Booking, but for our industry” — a brief that guarantees the three quotes you receive will be incomparable and all of them wrong. A good brief is half a page and five parts.
The five parts of a good brief
1. The problem in one sentence: who loses time or money, and where. 2. Today's state: how it is handled now, spreadsheets and workarounds included. 3. Success in numbers: “an order goes through without a phone call”, “processing drops from 3 days to 3 hours”. 4. Constraints: systems to integrate with, deadlines, a budget band. 5. What is NOT included: one sentence that prevents half of all misunderstandings.
What does not belong in a brief
Technology choices (“we want it in React”) — you are buying an outcome, not a framework. Finished screens from Canva — they block better solutions. And a budget of “we'll see from the offers”: without a band you will get quotes from €8k to €200k and learn nothing.
With a brief like this you can collect three comparable quotes in a week. Or drop it into our calculator and have a price band in sixty seconds — the brief stays useful either way, you will need it in discovery.