According to Kirk 2019The essence of Formulating Your Briefis to identify the context in which your work will be undertaken

According to Kirk (2019),
The essence of Formulating Your Brief
is to identify the context in which your work will be undertaken and then define its aims:
it is the who,
what,
where,
when and how. It could be formal or informal as any
project you think you must make it. This phase is where you create a vision or plan for your work (p.63).
Reference
Kirk, A. (2019). Data Visualisation: A Handbook for Data Driven Design. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Ltd.
Instructors question for class discussion:
Why is it so important to formulate your brief for a data presentation?
Discuss some ways/things you would do to formulate an effective brief.
What are some advantages to your methods? What are some disadvantages?