Concept

A summary of what the solution should do

A concept is a single, plain-language description of what the solution does: not the technology, not the business case, just what a user experiences when they use it.

The concept sits between the goal and the build. It is the answer to the question: if this solution existed and worked, what would it actually do? Not how it works under the hood, and not why the organisation wants it, but what a user sees, does, and gets. One clear paragraph is usually enough.

Writing the concept forces a useful kind of honesty. If you cannot describe what the solution does in plain language, you do not know what you are building yet. The concept also reveals where the goal was fuzzier than it looked: if the solution seems to need several paragraphs to explain, the goal probably needs tightening first.

For an AI-assisted solution, the concept should say which part AI handles and which part a human still does. That distinction is easy to skip in the excitement of building, but it matters from the start.

Make it visibleWrite three sentences: what the user does before the solution exists, what they do with the solution, and what is different afterward. Read it aloud to one person who is not already involved and note where they look confused.

Why AI needs this

Each part of your work matters to AI in a specific way. Some of it is context a tool needs before it can help, some of it is work a tool can take on, and some of it is judgment that should stay with you.

Shared reference point

AI cannot hold a mental model of what you intended to build. When you give it the concept explicitly, every follow-on prompt has a shared frame to work within.

Where human work starts

The concept makes clear which steps AI handles and which need a human. That boundary needs to be visible before you automate anything.

A test before you commit

If the concept does not sound useful when you read it back to a real user, the solution is not ready to build yet. Catching that before anything is built saves time.

Questions to explore

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

If you had to explain this to someone unfamiliar with your work in sixty seconds, what would you say the solution does?
Which parts of the solution are AI doing, and which parts still need a human?
Does the concept match the goal, or has it quietly grown into something bigger?
Could you sketch the concept as a simple before-and-after: what changes for the user?
Is the concept something you could build a small version of in a week, or does it need to shrink further?

Readiness traps

A concept written as a feature list or a technology description is not a concept yet: it tells you what it is made of, not what it does for someone.
Describing the concept only to people already close to the project is a readiness trap: if a friendly outsider cannot follow it, the solution is still underspecified.
Skipping the concept step and going straight to building means the goal and the solution drift apart almost immediately, and nobody notices until the result lands.