Background briefing is about painting a picture that allows AI to see your situation clearly. It's the difference between asking a stranger for directions and asking a local who knows every shortcut.
The SCENE Method for Background Briefing
Situation - What's happening now? Challenges - What problems are you facing? Environment - What's the context/constraints? Needs - What specific help do you require? Expectations - What does success look like?
Example: SCENE in Action
SITUATION: "Our e-commerce site's conversion rate dropped from 3.2% to 1.8% after our recent redesign two weeks ago."
CHALLENGES: "We're losing $$50000/week in revenue. A/B tests show the new design performs worse, but we don't understand why. Customer support tickets haven't increased."
ENVIRONMENT: "Shopify Plus store, selling premium home goods ($200-500 average order), primarily female customers 35-55, 60% mobile traffic. Design was outsourced, internal team lacks deep UX expertise."
NEEDS: "Identify likely causes for conversion drop and provide prioritized fix recommendations we can implement quickly."
EXPECTATIONS: "Get back to at least 2.5% conversion within 2 weeks using our existing team and minimal budget."
The Progressive Disclosure Technique
Don't dump all context at once. Build it progressively:
```text Layer 1: "I need help improving my LinkedIn posts." ↓ Layer 2: "I'm a B2B software sales rep trying to build thought leadership." ↓ Layer 3: "My buyers are IT directors at mid-size companies. Currently getting 100 views per post, want 1000+." ↓ Layer 4: "Here's an example of my current posts: [example]. I post twice weekly, usually about industry trends." ```text Each layer adds depth without overwhelming.