Structuring a Vague Brief: AI in Textile Manufacturing
Developed a repeatable approach to decomposing ambiguous client briefs into structured, researchable problem statements.
Dhanraj Johari
Senior Analyst at Ken Research
From their time as
Senior Analyst
Ken Research • 2026
Overview
Dhanraj regularly encounters client briefs that are genuinely underspecified, where the client knows they want to understand something but cannot articulate the precise question. His approach to these situations follows a consistent pattern.
The Story
Dhanraj regularly encounters client briefs that are genuinely underspecified, where the client knows they want to understand something but cannot articulate the precise question. His approach to these situations follows a consistent pattern.
When a client asks something like whether AI will change the textile manufacturing industry, Dhanraj's first move is to decompose the industry into its value chain layers: upstream, midstream, and downstream. He maps the emerging AI applications across each layer before attempting to identify which part of the chain the client is actually concerned about.
From that decomposition, he surfaces the critical changes happening at each layer and then returns to the client, or to senior team members, to pressure-test which problem the client is most likely trying to solve. Only once the core question is identified does he proceed to detailed research.
This sequencing prevents wasted effort on the wrong problem and ensures the research output is structured around what the client actually needs to decide, rather than what they initially asked.