How to write a brief a developer can quote from

You don’t need a specification

You need a page that lets someone outside your business understand what you want and why. The technical decisions are the developer’s job.

Seven things to include

1. What your business does, in two sentences.
2. The problem. What is slow, missing or costing you money today?
3. Who will use it. Customers, staff or both? Roughly how many?
4. What it must do. List what a user needs to be able to do: “book an appointment”, “pay online”, “download an invoice”.
5. What exists already. A current website, a spreadsheet, software it has to connect to.
6. Your deadline, and what is driving it.
7. Examples you like, and what you like about them.

What to leave out

• Technology choices, unless there is a real constraint.
• Page-by-page designs. Rough sketches are plenty.
• Nothing about budget is required, but sharing one helps: a developer can tell you what is realistic within it.

An example

We run three physiotherapy clinics. Bookings come in by phone and WhatsApp and are written in a diary, so we double-book and people forget their appointments. We want patients to book and pay a deposit online, get reminders and reschedule by themselves. Reception needs a daily list for each clinic. We have a basic WordPress website. We’d like this live before April, when a fourth clinic opens. We like booking pages that show all the free times on one screen.

That is under a hundred words, and it is enough to quote from after one short call.

Send the same brief to everyone

If you are comparing suppliers, give each of them the same page. Then ask each one what they have left out of their quote. The differences will be clear.