Instead of more design sprints, how about we actually get the brief right?

A design sprint has become one of those phrases that sounds productive before anyone has really interrogated what it means. It’s expensive by design, and it suggests momentum, efficiency, collaboration and decisiveness. It promises somehow collapsing weeks of thinking into a few focused days, with ideas on the wall and a clear direction at the end of it. Or no clear direction(?!) and a whole lot of mid ideas.

For clients under pressure, that can be deeply appealing. For agencies and freelancers, it can feel like a practical way to respond to a tight timeline without saying no to the opportunity. On paper, everyone gets what they need: pace, output and the reassuring feeling that the project is moving. But like I said, that’s only on paper.

Most design sprints seem to emerge from one of two client conditions. Either the client believes the brief is simple and they understand it perfectly (🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️), or the client is under enough pressure that urgency has started to masquerade as strategy. Both positions are understandable, but as the creative, you’re walking into a shit storm (excuse my French).

A client might know they need a campaign, a brand refresh, a visual identity, a website, a launch concept or a sharper creative direction. From their side, the output may feel obvious. They can see the gap. They can name the thing they need. They can point to examples of what they like or do not like. But knowing the deliverable is not the same as understanding the problem. A simple output can still sit on top of a complicated set of audience behaviours, stakeholder expectations, brand tensions and business objectives.

The other version is even more common: the timeline is tight, expectations are high and someone senior wants to see progress quickly. In that environment, speed starts to feel like the responsible choice. A design sprint becomes a way to show action. It gives the project a sense of energy and movement. But if the brief has not been properly tested, that energy can become expensive theatre. Everyone is busy, everyone is contributing, everyone is generating possibilities, but the process is still orbiting around an unclear centre. It feels like momentum, but it may only be acceleration. The only time this is really worth taking on is in the event of a tax-time-rush, with ongoing work to follow. But honestly, shoot your shot.

Without a strong, scrutinised brief, a sprint easily becomes a shotgun approach: design in enough directions and hope something lands. One route is bold and graphic. Another is refined and restrained. Another is warm and human. Another is colourful, expressive and full of personality. Another borrows just enough from the client’s references to feel familiar without being too obviously derivative. The exercise quickly shifts from problem-solving to taste-testing, and yet, all of them are… mid?

That is not a strategic process. It is an expensive guessing game with better presentation.

The client responds to what they see, but not necessarily against anything agreed. The agency reads the room, looks for the route with the least resistance, then tries to build rationale around the safest surviving option. This is how creative work becomes a negotiation rather than a recommendation. The strongest idea does not always win. The clearest idea does not always win. Often, the work that survives is the one that makes the fewest people nervous.

It reveals that the stakeholders are not aligned. It reveals that the decision-maker has not properly been involved. It reveals that the audience is loosely understood. It reveals that the business problem has been mistaken for a deliverable. It reveals that no one has agreed what success should look like. By the time these things surface, however, design has already entered the room. Concepts exist. People have opinions. Preferences have formed. The conversation becomes harder to reset because the project has already developed a visual and emotional charge.

This is why I think we should talk less about design sprints and more about briefing sprints.

Not as a bloated discovery phase, not as a three-week strategy process dressed up in new language, and not as an excuse to slow everything down. A briefing sprint is simply a more useful place to apply urgency.

It takes the compressed, collaborative energy we currently reserve for design and applies it to the part of the process that most needs alignment with the client’s needs: the brief.

In practice, it could be fairly straightforward. The client sends the initial brief. The agency/freelancer reverse briefs it, identifying the gaps, contradictions, assumptions and points that need negotiation. A few critical questions are raised early. Some expectations are clarified. Some scope is tightened. Some language is sharpened. Then the right people are invited into the room to discuss it and sign off before creative work begins. No creative has touched the brief yet. No ideas are in the room.

The point is not to invite everyone in so they can all become creative directors. It’s to give every relevant stakeholder the opportunity to ask questions, raise concerns and understand the direction before the project gathers pace. The holy grail of opportunity, if one were to give it a name…

That opportunity matters. If a stakeholder has the power to derail the work later, they should be invited to shape the brief earlier. If they cannot attend, that is their choice. The invitation was extended. The process was made clear. The moment for input was offered. This is where a good contract, scope and approval process become more than admin. They protect the project from late-stage ambiguity and backtracking. They make it clear that alignment was not assumed; it was actively sought. They also give both client and agency something to return to when feedback inevitably becomes subjective.

The value of a briefing sprint is not that it removes all uncertainty, because good creative work will always involve some level of interpretation, instinct and risk. Nor does it mean that design exploration has no place. Sometimes people do need to see something before they understand what they mean (*sigh*). Sometimes a visual territory can unlock language, strategy or ambition that the brief alone could not express. But design exploration is most useful when it has some level of restraint. Without those ‘edges’, the process becomes more about the possibility than the reality. Which is basically like signing up for 30 revisions.

Well, when the feedback becomes personal, it can be hard not to:
“It does not feel right.”
“Can we see another option?”
“It needs more energy.”
“It should feel more premium.”
“It is too far from where we are.”
“It is not different enough.”

None of these reactions are inherently wrong, but they are difficult to act on if the brief has not established what the work is trying to achieve (the famous ‘I told you so’ moment, sorry). You’re left interpreting emotion, taste and internal politics through rounds and rounds of revisions. The client is left wondering why the work is not landing. Both sides become frustrated, even though the real issue may have occurred much earlier. So maybe sprint away? Or sprint back to the brief to hold a crisis meeting and salvage what you can of a brand truth in those email chains.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to craft something insightful, captivating, considered and guiding that ultimately gets used and abused by everyone in the system. The truth is that it doesn’t need to be perfect, but it needs to be limiting.

Think guardrails, not an elevator pitch.

A briefing sprint will never have the same immediate appeal as a wall full of concepts. It will not deliver the dopamine hit of seeing five possible futures for a brand, campaign or identity system by Friday afternoon. But it might prevent the project from becoming a right mess with LOTS of nervous approval moments. It might save the relationship between client and agency, and protect your ego (to some degree) in the process.