A project brief is the page everyone agrees on before a project starts. It is read by the sponsor who pays for it, the team or agency doing the work, and the people the result will change. It answers the questions that otherwise come up in week six: what exactly are we doing, what are we not doing, who decides, when is it done, what does it cost, and how will we know it worked.
This template follows the classic brief: goal, scope, stakeholders, timeline, budget and success metrics, with a RACI letter for each stakeholder. The example above is a brief for a fictional group of nine hotels relaunching its booking site in four languages to win bookings back from travel agencies.
What goes in each section
The headline
The project and its outcome with a date: "Direct bookings to 45% by summer 2027." Under it, the date, the company in one line, the owner, and the fact that reviewers edit this page. Mistake to avoid: naming the deliverable ("new website") instead of the result.
01 · Goal
The numbers that show the problem today, a short "why now" with the deadline that makes it urgent, and one line for done: what a user can do at the end. Mistake to avoid: a goal nobody can check. "Improve the booking experience" cannot fail; "a guest books on a phone in under two minutes" can.
02 · Scope
Small cards for what is in, then larger cards for what is out and why. Out of scope matters more: it is where arguments start. Mistake to avoid: leaving out-of-scope items unwritten because they feel obvious. They will not be obvious to the agency.
03 · Stakeholders
A table of role, name, RACI letter and what each needs from the project. Exactly one person is accountable. Mistake to avoid: two sponsors. When two people can sign off, nobody can.
04 · Timeline
The phases as a flow, then a gantt chart with who does what and the end date as a milestone. Show the work you owe as well as the work you buy: content and translations often slip first. Mistake to avoid: a timeline with no testing phase.
05 · Budget
Each cost, a 10% contingency and who releases it, the total and how fast it pays back. A small chart shows where the money goes. Mistake to avoid: leaving internal costs out because they are not invoiced.
06 · Success metrics
Three or four metrics with today's value, the target and the date. End with the next step: who signs off by when. Mistake to avoid: measuring only delivery (on time, on budget) and never the outcome.
When to write it, and how long it takes
Write the brief before you ask for quotes or staff the team, and get it signed off before work starts. A first draft takes an hour or two; the review is where it gets good. Keep it to one page. For a single product feature, the product brief fits better: it sets an appetite instead of a budget. Once the project runs, track it with a weekly project status report that refers back to the brief's goal and dates.
How to use this template
- In Obsidian: install the free myone.page plugin, run New page from template and pick Project brief.
- With AI: paste meeting notes and the numbers you have into ChatGPT or Claude with the prompt from myone.page/ai, then fix the parts it guessed.
- By hand: copy the Markdown of the example above. It is a plain note.
Where myone.page helps
A brief needs every stakeholder to read it and push back before work starts. Shared as a link, the sponsor, the agency and the hotel managers in the example edit the same page in the browser without Obsidian, and their changes come back into your note, so there is one version of the brief. If your company keeps project documents in Confluence or SharePoint with approval workflows, keep the signed brief there.