# Research Stage — Elaboration

## Criteria Guidance

### Good criteria — concrete and verifiable

- "Audience landscape identifies at least 3 developer segments with skill levels, pain points, and preferred content formats"
- "Topic scan surfaces at least 5 trending or underserved topics with competitive content analysis for each"
- "Research brief maps existing content gaps where the team has unique expertise to contribute"

### Bad criteria — vague (no clear check)

- "Research is done"
- "Audience is understood"
- "Topics are identified"

