Simple Project Brief

How to Write a Simple Project Brief: Template & Examples

Your sales team just sold a new project and handed off all the information they have to you on the shared drive. While they put a lot of good stuff in there, it would easily overwhelm your team and stakeholders—and they don’t have that kind of time to spare.

Now it’s up to you to figure out what needs to be pulled out and shared with your team so they understand the project’s most important parts. By doing this, you’ll get them up to speed quickly and allow them to see how they fit into the project.

The perfect place to put those key highlights? A project brief.

Let’s take a closer look at what a project brief is and how it’s used in project management.

What is a project brief?

A project brief is an easy-to-digest document that outlines the critical components of a project for your team and stakeholders. While a project plan details how a project will get done, a project brief defines the who, what, when, where, and why.

As the project manager, you’ll want to create a project brief right at the start of an engagement before your team gathers for an internal kick-off meeting. The length and format—and even the elements you include—will depend on the size and complexity of your project and client.

While you might be tempted to include all the good details you uncover from your sales team in your project brief, this isn’t the place for it. The key is to make it approachable enough for your team and stakeholders to understand without leaving any critical information out.

Challenge yourself to keep it to one page so people will actually want to reference it. After all, any info beyond that is up to you to track, not everyone else.

Project brief vs creative brief

Like a project brief, a creative brief is a document that outlines high-level details of a creative project. It focuses on the strategy and design aspects of the project and may include information about target audiences, competitive differentiation, strategic direction, messaging, and more.

If you’re managing a project that involves creative work, you’ll likely create both documents. The project brief will paint the broad strokes of your entire project, while the creative (or strategic) brief provides more specific direction for the creative portion of your project.

Project brief vs project charter

You might also be wondering about the difference between a project brief and a project charter. Think of your project brief as a high-level summary of the project charter.

A project charter is longer, more formal, and goes into all the extra information you left out of the brief. Its goal is to outline all the project details and secure client approval. While it’s not the official project contract, it often serves as a scope contract between a project manager and their client and is a go-to reference when scope creep happens.

The project brief should align with your project charter but live as an abbreviated, less formal version that seeks to inform vs contract with approvals.

Your project might have both documents or just one. It really depends on what makes sense for your team, process, and project. I personally lean towards fewer documents and pages, but some projects and clients need more formality.

What’s the purpose of a project brief?

The project brief can serve many purposes. Here are 3 reasons a project brief is important in project management:

• It provides information and clarity. Outlining the who, what, when, where, and why of a project gets your team up to speed on the work they’ll soon be involved in. It also clarifies each person’s role in the project and how they can best contribute.
• It establishes a common understanding to mitigate risk and confusion. If you’re not doing a project charter, you can use the project brief as a sort of agreement. Review the brief together to confirm your scope, goals, and more—all while addressing any gray areas and red flags. Getting everyone on the same page helps reduce project risk and avoids wasting time in areas outside the project focus.
• It creates excitement and rallies the teams together. Sharing the project brief in a pre-kick-off meeting allows you to introduce everyone who will be involved in the work and establish a unified vision for the project. This goes a long way towards creating a “We’re all in this together” environment.