Clarity

What this looks like

Clarity means a client should be able to hand our final document to a new hire and have them understand the decision without a follow-up call. A brand strategy document that reads like eight consultants each wrote a paragraph gets sent back for a single voice and a single argument. A website scope that says "modern, clean design" gets rejected too, because that phrase means nothing you can build against or sign off on. We write "three primary actions above the fold, one typeface, no stock photography" instead, because a sentence you can disagree with is worth more than one everyone nods at. If a client cannot repeat our recommendation back to us in their own words by the end of a workshop, the workshop has not worked, however good the slides looked.

Across the framework

• 02DefineThis is where the definition of done gets written for every phase that follows. If the brief for design or build is vague here, no amount of polish later fixes the ambiguity, it only hides it.
• 04BuildSpecifications handed to designers and developers have to be unambiguous enough that two different people would build the same thing from them, not open to interpretation on the day.
• 05LaunchThis is where clarity matters most, because launch is the first moment the client operates without us in the room. If they cannot explain the decision to their own team, board or customers in plain language, we have not actually finished the job.