This document is a collection of tips for writing a smart brief for a software development project.

## Introduction

A smart brief is a brief that is written in such a way as to maximize the likelihood that the brief will result in a winning proposal. A winning proposal is a proposal that results in a successful contract with the client. A successful contract is a contract that meets the client’s needs and results in the project being completed on time and on budget. A smart brief should be written in a way that maximizes the probability that the client will choose your proposal over the other proposals that are submitted.

## Writing a Winning Smart Brief

The first step in writing a winning brief is to have a clear idea of what it is that you are trying to accomplish. If you don’t know exactly what you want to accomplish, then it is unlikely that you will be able to write a winning smart brief.

In order to write an effective smart brief, it is important that you have a good understanding of the business problem that your client is trying to solve. The business problem is the problem that needs to be solved in order for your client to achieve their business objectives. For example, if you are writing a brief for an insurance company, then your client’s business problem might be that they want to reduce the number of claims that they have to pay out. If that is the case, then you need to know the following:

1. What is the business objective of the insurance company?

2. What are the business objectives of your client?

3. What business problems does your client need to solve in order to achieve those business objectives?

4. How does your proposal solve those business problems?

5. How will your proposal make your client more money?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then there is a good chance that you won’t be successful in writing the smart brief that you need.

Once you have an understanding of what your client wants to accomplish and how your proposal will help them to accomplish it, then the next step is to figure out how you are going to write your proposal. The best way to do this is to start with the end in mind. What do you want your proposal to look like when it is finished? How will it be structured? What information will be included in the proposal? What will the proposal look like on the client’s website? How is it going to be presented to the client?

You need to answer these questions before you even start writing the proposal. Once you have done this, you will have a much better idea of how to structure your proposal and what information you will need to include in it. If your proposal is structured properly, it will be much easier for the client to read and understand. It will also make it easier for them to make a decision on whether or not to hire you to work on their project. If they can’t understand your proposal, then they are less likely to choose it over the proposals that they receive from the other vendors. This means that they are more likely to hire the vendor that they feel is the best fit for their business problem. This is why it is so important to make sure that you write a well-structured proposal that is easy to understand. If it is difficult to understand, then chances are that your proposal isn’t going to get read and the client is going to choose one of the proposals from the vendors that they already have a relationship with. This will make it much more difficult for you to get the contract that you want.

## Structure Your Proposal

There are several different ways that you can structure a proposal. You can structure it as a traditional proposal, a Gantt chart, or a waterfall chart. There are pros and cons to each of these different types of proposals. It is up to you to decide which one you think will be the most effective for your particular situation. The most important thing to keep in mind when you are deciding which type of proposal to use is that the structure of the proposal needs to make sense to your client. If the client doesn’t understand how the proposal will be structured, they are not going to want to read it and they are also not likely to understand it when they do read it. The structure of your proposal needs be something that they can understand and that they will find easy to follow. It also needs to provide them with all of the information that they need to make an informed decision about hiring you to do the work that they require. You don’t want to give them any more information than they need. You want them to choose you because you are the best vendor for the job, not because you happen to have the most information about the project. You also want to be sure that they don’t have to spend too much time trying to understand the proposal before they are able to make their decision. The more time that they spend trying to figure it out, the less likely they are to choose your bid.

You should also be aware of the fact that not all clients will like the same type of structure for their proposal. Some clients will want to see everything laid out in a traditional format. Others will want you to show them the project in a waterfall format. There is no right or wrong way to present a proposal to a client. You just need to find a way to structure the proposal that makes the most sense to you and that you feel comfortable presenting to your clients. You need to be confident in your ability to present the proposal in the way that you think is best.

## Traditional Proposal Format

A traditional proposal format is the most common way that proposals are written. It consists of a cover page, a table of contents, and an executive summary. The cover page is the first page that the client will see when they open the proposal package. It should include the name of the client, the title of the project, the date that the proposal was written, and the name and contact information of the person that is responsible for the proposal (usually the project manager). It should also include a brief description of what the project is and what the client wants the proposal to do for them. The table of content is the second page in the package and it should include a detailed description of the scope of work that you are proposing to perform. The executive summary should be the third page and it is where you will include the most important information that you have to offer the client. In the executive summary, you should be able to tell the client what you will be doing for them, how much it will cost, how long it will take you to complete the work, what the deliverables will be, and how long the project will take to complete. The last page of the traditional proposal is the signature page.