Commission Better Research by Commissioning Better Questions
Most research projects fail before fieldwork begins: the commissioning question was secretly three questions, the method was chosen by habit, and the sample was whoever was easiest to reach. A commissioning brief forces that thinking upstream — one page where the research question, the method logic, and the population get written down and defended before any budget moves.
Start With the Question, Not the Method
Vague asks — ‘understand our customers’ — become researchable when pushed through the brief’s long text prompts: what decision will this research inform? Who makes that decision? What happens if the answer surprises everyone? A question that cannot name its decision is a reading list, not a study, and the brief exposes that in the first section rather than in the final report.
Method Fit, Chosen Deliberately
A multiple choice gate settles it: attitudes and motivations point qualitative; measurement and comparison point quantitative; most real projects need both in sequence. The brief should record which — and why — so the method survives contact with the steering committee. Methods chosen by habit get defended by habit; methods chosen on paper get defended by argument.
Population and Feasibility, With the Arithmetic Done
Who is in scope, who is out, and how they get reached — then the arithmetic most briefs skip entirely. The sample size calculator turns ‘how many people do we need?’ from a vibe into a figure, and the response rate calculator converts that figure into how many invitations to actually budget for. Feasibility stated at commissioning beats a renegotiated sample in week six.
Existing Evidence and Ethics
Two sections separate professional commissions from amateur ones. First, prior knowledge: a file upload for previous studies and datasets — never re-buy knowledge you already own. Second, the consent frame participants will see, acknowledged by the commissioning client through a legal field so the ethical protocol is agreed before a single respondent is contacted.
Frequently Asked Questions
Academic and commercial clients — same brief?
The questions are identical; the ethics section carries the difference. Everything else — question discipline, method logic, sample arithmetic — is shared craft.
What if the client insists on the wrong method?
Record the instruction and the stated risk in the brief. The document creates the paper trail that protects both the research and the relationship.
How specific should deliverables be?
Format, length, audience, and whether a presentation sits on top — ‘a report’ is where research projects go to disappoint everyone.
When is a brief too thin to quote?
When the decision behind the research is unnamed. Offer a paid scoping phase rather than absorbing the ambiguity for free. Adjacent formats live in the research category and the market-research use case.