Project brief

Every project needs one note that answers the basic questions: why are we doing this, what does done look like, what are we not doing, who is involved, and where is everything? Without it, those answers live in people's heads and drift apart. With it, a new collaborator can get oriented in five minutes and an argument about scope can be settled by pointing at a line.

The two sections that do the most work are the definition of done and the non-goals. A project without a finish line never finishes, and a project without stated non-goals quietly grows until it misses its date.

Keep it to one page. It is a home note that links out to the detail, not the detail itself.

When to use it