Stage: Plan

Before moving onto the next stage, please summarise your activity in the Plan stage here. This document can be expanded, printed and saved as required to provide a record of your work.

The PLAN stage will help you define the type of design you need, prepare a brief and find and select designers. It will guide you on organising a pitch, requesting a proposal and then scoring and feedback procedures. This stage also focuses on your project budget and plan and explains the purpose of a communication strategy and visual identity.

Brief

Have you written your brief?

Yes No

Have you thought about and included within the brief:

	Why you are doing this project?
	What the goals/objectives are?
	Why this project is needed?
	Why you are doing it now?
	What specific outcomes you expect from this project?
	Who you are designing for/who is the target group?
	Who the project stakeholders are?
	What the current and anticipated environment for the results of this project is?
	What the phases of this project are?
	How much time should be allocated for the overall project cost?
	How much will the overall project cost? (Break down per stage if possible)
	Who will approve the final solution?
	What criteria will be used for approval?
	How the solution will be implemented?
	How the results will be measured?
	Is there any legislation that requires you to inform citizens, companies or the public domain at large of changes entailed by the introduction of a new service?

Procurement

What design speciality does your project require?

Are you using internal or external designers or a combination of both?

Use the following checklist to assess the suitability of designers, based on their website:

	Have they worked on similar sized projects to yours?
	Do they have similar types of clients to you?
	Have they worked with any of your competitors, or in your sector?
	Do they have a house style or are they able to produce a varied range of work?
	How much experience do they have? (Is it from other agencies or from clients? I.e. an agency could be new, but owned and staffed by highly experienced senior designers.)
	Do you like their work and the way they talk about it?
	What background information is there? Can you get a feel for who they are?
	Can you get more information if you need to?
	Do they measure what they do? How effective is their work for their clients?
	Have they won any awards? (Especially design or effectiveness awards.)

Now shortlist designers you would like to speak to:

Check the European public contracts procurement directive to identify how many tender participants are required.

Have you scored the pitches and chosen an agency to proceed with?

We recommend that you now follow the instructions in the Pitch Guide to set up meetings with the shortlisted designers.

Have you provided feedback to all agencies that did not get awarded the project?

Yes No

Budget & Project Plan

What budget and time have you allocated to each project stage?

Stage	Budget	Time
Identify
Plan
Reflect
Create
Test
Apply
Report
Project management
Beyond project

Communication Strategy

What are your communication objectives?

Who are your target audiences and what platform/media will you use to communicate with them?

Brand

Are you clear about the branding visual identity of the project?

Is it existing, or will you need to create it?

Describe it here.

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