Stage 1: What decision are you trying to make?

Write one sentence that connects the concern to an actual budget or operating decision.

For example:

We need to decide whether to commission a technical and product-information project because our platform is repeatedly absent from US mid-market shortlists requiring Salesforce integration and enterprise access controls.

That is more useful than “increase our AI visibility score”.

Scope checklist

• Name the economic buyer and the person accountable for the investigation.
• Specify the customer segment, use case and US market being tested.
• Identify the purchase decision: no new spend, monitoring, implementation, supplier selection or renewal.
• Select competitors that sales actually encounters; document why each belongs in the comparison.
• Gather anonymised sales questions, objections and customer research examples.
• Record approved product facts, including their owner and last verification date.
• Name whoever can publish website changes and approve external communications.
• Set a spending ceiling and decision date before requesting proposals.

Stage output: a one-page decision brief and a named implementation owner.

Stop or narrow the project if: nobody can explain the buying question, the intended customer would not reasonably consider the product, or the organisation cannot implement findings. A limited accuracy check may still be worthwhile.