Belief System Analysis · Updated on .
A communications consulting brief should describe the situation to be changed, the expected decisions and the criteria for evaluating the response. Asking for a strategy, content and visibility without specifying the issue produces proposals that are difficult to compare. The quality of the consultation begins with the quality of the problem posed.
The brief should not dictate the recommendation. It must establish the ground: what is established, what remains open, the people concerned, the resources available and the conditions for success. This framework allows a board to challenge an assumption without artificially going outside the scope.
Start from a situation, not a list of formats
“We need a campaign” is a request for a device. “Our partners do not understand the evolution of our role and this blocks several discussions” is a communication problem. The second statement opens the possibility of a more relevant response: clarification of the offer, maintenance of relationships, explanatory content or targeted speaking.
The document must specify the available indices. Is it feedback from interviews, recurring questions, a drop observed in an indicator or an intuition of direction? These levels of proof are not equivalent. Exposing uncertainty helps the council to propose a proportionate diagnostic phase, rather than building certainty on an impression.
Make real constraints visible
The constraints are not limited to the budget. They concern the available time of managers, access to experts, validation circuits, languages, data and commitments already made. A communications schedule may be unworkable if the operational decisions on which it depends are not made.
Specifying these elements does not diminish the ambition. This makes it possible to distinguish an immediately feasible project from a conditional project. The brief may ask candidates to indicate their dependencies: information to obtain, necessary availability, steps to validate. The comparison will then focus on the feasibility of the advice as much as on the presentation of the idea.
Describe the expected work
For a reputation mission, asking for a map of the issues, a method for qualifying evidence and decision options is more precise than asking for a “360-degree strategy”. For a leadership speaking mission, specifying the maintenance, documentation and preparation work is more useful than a quantity of publications.
Deliverables must have a use. Who will read the note? What meeting will she prepare? Who will maintain the device once the mission is completed? The logic of AMEC, which distinguishes objectives and observable results, helps to explain this chain without transforming each action into a quantified commercial promise. [1]
An evidence-based comparison grid
The communications department can evaluate the understanding of the problem, the relevance of the method, the team actually mobilized and the conditions of collaboration. A client reference is only enlightening if the mission carried out, the role of the candidate and the transferable lessons are described.
In an illustrative situation, two councils offer the same number of workshops. The first does not specify participants or expected output. The second explains that the workshop must arbitrate three narrative tensions and result in a validated message architecture. The quantities are identical; the proposed work is not. The grid should allow this difference to be seen, then the cost to be discussed.
Establish the working relationship from the consultation
A good brief sets out how disagreements, new requests and sensitive subjects will be handled. It does not assume that an initial validation will be sufficient throughout the mission. A regular point of arbitration and clearly assigned responsibility make the collaboration more understandable.
The final test consists of asking a person outside the project to reformulate the issue, the expected decision and the limits. If she cannot do this, the brief needs to be reworked. The consultation serves to choose a judgment and execution partner. It will be more useful if the candidates respond to the same problem, with understandable means and commitments.