6 Questions That Should Live At The Top Of Every Brief
Most briefs we receive answer three things — what, where, and how much. The good ones answer something else first. Here are the six questions we put to every brief before we agree to work on it.
Most briefs we receive answer three things: what, where, and how much. The good ones answer something else first.
At Mochi Collective, before we agree to work on an event, community programme, wellness retreat, or brand activation in Singapore or across Southeast Asia, we run the brief through six questions. Not as a formality — as a filter. If the top of the brief can't answer them, the design underneath won't hold. Every scope creep, every last-minute pivot, every "did that actually work?" post-mortem is downstream of a top-of-brief that never got sharp.
Here they are. Use them on your next brief before you send it to anyone.
The six questions, in order:
- What do you want people to feel when they walk out?
- Who specifically should care that this happened?
- What's the one sentence the right people will say to each other on Monday?
- Which decision should this make easier to make next?
- What's the smallest version of this that would still work?
- How will you know — six weeks from now — that it worked?
1. What do you want people to feel when they walk out?
The brief usually says what you want them to know. That's a different question. Feeling is what they actually remember, and it's the only lens that survives the walk to the Grab home.
Until this answer exists, every other decision — the space, the flow, the details — is guesswork. And it can't be answered generically. "Excited" is not an answer. "Reassured that we're a partner they can commit budget to" is. "Understood, for the first time, by their own company" is. The more specific the feeling, the more specific the design decisions become.
2. Who specifically should care that this happened?
"Stakeholders" is not an answer. Three names — or titles — is.
Write them down. The room is designed for those three, even if 500 people walk through it. Design for job titles when you don't know the individuals; design for names when you do. Either way, the goal is to shrink the audience question from "500 attendees" to a tight, opinionated three. You'll be surprised how many downstream decisions get easier once you have the list.
3. What's the one sentence the right people will say to each other on Monday?
This is the only metric that survives the week.
If you can write the sentence in advance, you can design the experience that makes them say it. The catering, the timings, the moments — every element earns its place by whether it contributes to that sentence being uttered on Monday morning, unprompted.
If you can't write the sentence, you don't have a brief. You have a date on the calendar. There's a real difference.
4. Which decision should this make easier to make next?
Every brief ladders to a strategic or commercial moment downstream — a deal, a hire, a campaign, a renewal, a retention. Naming the next decision unlocks the budget conversation, because now the programme isn't a cost — it's a setup.
This is also the question that turns a "nice to have" event into a "must-do" business investment. Finance teams don't argue with events that lubricate specific downstream decisions. They will argue with events that don't name one.
5. What's the smallest version of this that would still work?
Most briefs over-scope by 40%. It's not a design failure — it's habit, expectation, and budget filler.
Ask this question honestly and you'll surface which elements are load-bearing (drop them and the experience collapses) and which are decoration (drop them and nobody notices). The load-bearing pieces deserve full craft. The decoration is where scope creep dies quietly and everyone leaves happier.
6. How will you know — six weeks from now — that it worked?
If the success criteria can't survive past the initial buzz, they weren't success criteria. They were vibes.
Write down what you'll measure — recall, behaviour, pipeline — before the experience runs, so the readout writes itself afterwards. This is where our Impact Measurement practice does its heaviest lifting. Even a rough version of this question at the top of the brief keeps everyone honest.
The pattern
Notice what these six questions have in common: they all live before the what. They're about intent, audience, outcome, and evidence — not budget, venue, or run-of-show. Get these right at the top of the brief, and the design underneath more or less writes itself. Get them wrong, and no amount of production polish will save the room.
We say to every client who takes on Mochi: make it worth talking about. These are the six questions we ask them, and ourselves, every time.
Ready to try this on your own brief?
We're running free 30-minute Brief Diagnostic conversations throughout July.
Whether you're planning an event, a community programme, a wellness retreat, or a brand activation, we'll put these six questions to what you're building and tell you honestly whether the brief can land, where it's weak, and what to sharpen before you commit budget.
Book yours: zcal.co/mochicollective/discovery
No deck. No pitch. Just your brief and an honest read.
Related reading:
- The First 10 Minutes We Spend On A Brief — behind the process
- 5 Red Flags We Spot In Event Briefs — what "not ready" looks like
Mochi Collective — experience design and event curation in Singapore. Events, community programmes, wellness retreats, brand activations.