Task brief builder
Answer five questions. Get a task brief that nobody has to ask you about.
Why five questions
Rework almost always starts with a missing answer to one of these five. The person doing the work guesses. The guess is reasonable. It is still not what you meant.
Two minutes answering these questions saves the hour it takes to explain, redo, and re-review.
Example
What you typed:
- A short email to all customers about the new verification step.
- All current customers. It goes out from the support address.
- What changes, what they need to do the first time, the start date (June 3), and a link to the help article.
- Do not mention the pricing change. Do not promise phone support.
- Draft to Dana by Thursday noon. Dana approves. Send Friday.
What the builder made:
Task: Customer email about the new verification step
Result: A short email, sent from support@, telling all current customers about the new verification step.
For: All current customers.
Must include: what is changing; what to do the first time they log in; the start date, June 3; a link to the help article.
Must not: mention the pricing change, or promise phone support.
Draft due: Thursday 12:00pm to Dana. Approver: Dana. Send: Friday.
Done means: a customer who reads it knows what changes, what to do, and when.
Tips
- Write the result as a thing, not an activity. "A flyer" is a result. "Work on the flyer" is not.
- If you do not know the answer to question 3, you are not ready to hand this over. Find out first.
- A new hire needs more under "must include" than a senior teammate.
Make the brief part of the task
In M-Tracker, press Create as task and the brief becomes the task. The files and links sit with it. When the work is done, M-Tracker compares the work with this brief and shows the person what is missing before you see it. You can also speak a brief out loud with voice dictation and tidy it up.
Start free · Check a brief you already wrote
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Work you can trust, without redoing it.
Your team gets feedback before work reaches you, or your client.
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