Brief-to-Board Intake Gate (Delivery)

Brief-to-Board Intake Gate (Delivery)

1. 01

   Require a written brief before any task card is created

   Accept only briefs that name the client, the deliverable, the approver, and the target date. Cards born from Slack threads or verbal asks are the primary source of scope creep on retainer work.

2. 02

   Decompose the brief into tasks with a single named owner each

   Split until every card has one person accountable and an estimate in hours. Shared ownership is the failure mode that turns a two-day asset build into a two-week thread.

3. 03

   Map dependencies and flag the critical path before work starts

   Mark any card that blocks another as a dependency, then confirm the longest chain fits inside the promised delivery window. Tools that store state alongside the work, such as Epiq's Git-native boards, make this chain auditable after the fact.

4. 04

   Set the review checkpoint at the card level, not the project level

   Attach the internal QA step and the client approval step as separate cards so a stalled approval is visible as a stalled task rather than a vague delay.

5. 05

   Log every out-of-brief request as a change card with a scope decision

   Route additions through one intake point and record whether the change is absorbed, billed, or deferred. This is the single control that keeps fixed-fee delivery profitable.

6. 06

   Publish the board state to the client at a fixed weekly cadence

   Send a filtered view showing what moved, what is blocked, and what needs client input. Clients who see the board weekly raise fewer status questions between checkpoints.

7. 07

   Close the loop with a post-delivery reconciliation against the original estimate

   Compare hours logged to hours quoted per card and note where the brief understated the work. Feed that variance into the next brief template.