What does a good brief require?
 

Simple question, but I am sure there are plenty of answers. What do you personally consider constitutes an excellent brief?

Relevance?

Do people like "standard" briefs or do they feel Standard constitutes mouth music?

Thanks for any help

MBGA

Briefs, in my experience cover a vast gamut of scenarios, from self-briefing to a fully blown hangar full of people. As such, finding a template is difficult, so indeed is finding the ideal brief for a given sortie.
Preparing the brief (briefing material) is key.
Remember the 5 (or 6) Ps - Proper Planning Prevents etc.
If enough fore thought and preparation goes into the sortie content, then the content of the brief itself can be generated relatively easily - making sure all the relevant people attend the brief and understand what is going on (when and why) is the hard part. That requires a good briefer. A good briefer is (and sounds) knowledgeable and exudes an aura of confidence.

depending on who you are briefing and the amount of people will dictate how you carry it out.
Often times it may take longer as the person you are briefing has never flown before, and vice versa.

Brevity

A good briefing should be like a good SOP:[list=1][*] has a clear and acceptable aim,[*] has a scope that matches its purpose,[*] is precise, leaving no room for doubt about its application in any possible case (no loopholes),[*] is certain to achieve the purpose, without undesirable side effects.[/list=1]
All briefings and procedures must be SMART:
Specific
Measurable,
Achievable,
Relevant, and
Timely

As a Captain of mine told me lately, a good brief is like a ladies' skirt. It should be long enough to cover the essentials but short enough to keep one interested.