The Client Brief is the most important input to a Consulting Club session. A well-prepared brief focuses the team on the real problem from minute one; an unprepared brief wastes 20 minutes of clarifying questions that could have been answered in advance.
The Client completes this before the session — ideally the night before, not five minutes before. The brief is read or presented at the opening (10 minutes), and the team should not interrupt until the Client finishes.
Tips for the Client
- Aim for one page. If you can't distill it to one page, the problem hasn't been distilled yet — and that's exactly what the team is here to help with.
- The "core question" field is the hardest and most important. If you can write it in one crisp sentence, the session will be significantly better.
- "What you've already tried" prevents the team from recommending what you've already ruled out.
- Bring a real problem. Sanitized or hypothetical problems produce sanitized feedback. The best sessions happen when the Client has genuine stakes.
Consulting Club — Client Brief
Your name and role
The situation — 3–5 sentences: what's going on, what's changed, why it matters now
The core question — one sentence: what do you actually need the team to help you answer?
What you've already tried — approaches, analyses, or solutions already explored, and why they didn't fully resolve it
What a good outcome looks like — what decision does a good recommendation enable?
Constraints — time, resources, political realities, or out-of-scope items the team should know about
What you're most uncertain about — optional but often the most valuable field: where is your own thinking weakest?
Print this page or fill it in digitally and share with the group before the session.
See the Starter Cases if no one has a live problem to bring.