Most frustrating software projects trace back to the same root cause: the brief described a solution instead of the problem behind it.
“We need an export-to-Excel button” is a solution. The actual problem might be “our accountant needs this data in a format she can reconcile against invoices” — and if that’s the real need, a scheduled export in a specific format might solve it better than a button anyone can click at any time.
A brief that leads with the problem gives a developer room to suggest something better than what you had in mind, and it surfaces disagreements before code gets written, not at delivery — when a technically correct answer to the wrong question is the worst possible outcome for both sides.
A simple habit fixes most of this: for every request, write one sentence on what happens today without it, and one sentence on what should happen instead. The “how” can be left to whoever’s building it.