Practical manual
Set the result, responsibilities, schedule, and checks for completion.
Project planning steps Business Advisor vs Consultant: How the Roles Differ
Write down the result you need, the work included, who is responsible, and how you will check completion. Use the same brief whether your team does the work or you hire someone.
Choose who can approve the scope and resolve changes.
Describe what should be different when the project is finished.
Make constraints visible before agreeing the work.
Check that the people doing the work can access what they need.
State the situation, the intended result, and what is outside the project. Include relevant evidence rather than assuming the cause is already known.
Break the project into tasks. Give each task a responsible person, a date, and any dependency on another task.
Describe the documents, systems, decisions, or other work that must be provided. Explain who will use them.
Write how you will check the work and who can accept it. Agree how problems found during review will be handled.
Check the work at agreed points. Record changes to scope, cost, responsibility, or timing before treating them as agreed.
Review the completion checks. Hand over the files, access, and responsibilities needed for use. If the project no longer makes sense, record why it should change or stop.
Illustrative filled brief
Imagine a company proposing automated follow-up because few enquiries become orders. First establish whether missed follow-up is the problem. This example is a planning exercise, not a client case.
Find where recent enquiries stop progressing. The owner sponsors the work; the sales lead supplies records. Rebuilding the website or buying automation is outside this first investigation.
A scoped contributor reviews a defined set of enquiries with the sales lead: customer fit, response, next action and reason lost. Agree access, review date and handling of customer information before starting.
An enquiry-by-enquiry record for the sales lead, evidence gaps for follow-up, and a short options note for the owner. Separate recorded facts from assumptions about why a customer stopped responding.
The sales lead can trace every finding to its record. The owner can see what remains unknown and accept the next test. More sales are not the completion test for this investigation.
Change request: suppose responses were prompt, but most enquiries were outside the service area. Pause the automation proposal. Ask the sponsor to approve a separate review of targeting and enquiry qualification, with its own work, cost and acceptance check.
If the project depends on customer demand, use these commercial due diligence questions to record the evidence and what remains unknown.
Keep the company decision with the sponsor. Agree what an outside contributor investigates or delivers. Business consulting can cover that assignment without requiring the company to know the answer before hiring.
The brief, work plan, deliverables, and completion checks.
Read more →Explain the work so suppliers can respond to the same requirements.
Read more →Four review questions and an illustrative project decision.
Read more →A clear brief does not replace specialist investigation or delivery expertise. A consultant can help define the problem as well as complete agreed work. Choose the help based on the work and the qualifications it requires.
Business Advisor vs Consultant: How the Roles DifferOne-to-one business work with Stan is $1,500/month. Every two weeks, month to month.
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