Project Brief Template

Project Brief: [Project name]

A project brief is the short pre-initiation document that sets out what a proposed project is for, what it should deliver, roughly how and at what cost, and who will direct it. The project board (or investment committee) uses it to decide whether to spend money on initiation, where the detailed plan and full business case are written. The structure is aligned with the project brief management product of PRINCE2 7 (PeopleCert, 2023) and suits any stage-gated organisation. Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked Example.

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Revision history

The worked example is the fictional Brackwell Vale Housing Trust, a housing association managing 18,500 homes, proposing a Tenant Services Portal to replace its ageing tenant website.

1. Background

[Background]

Example: Tenants can report repairs and check rent only by phone or at an office. The contact centre handles about 210,000 calls a year, and the legacy housing system's tenant module reaches end of vendor support next year. The board's digital strategy asks for self-service for the most common requests.

2. Project definition

2.1 Objectives

2.2 Scope and exclusions

2.3 Constraints and assumptions

2.4 Users and interested parties

[Tenants, contact centre, repairs contractors, finance, IT, regulator if relevant.]

3. Outline business case

Example: Estimated cost 1,000,000 to 1,300,000 EUR. Annual benefit about 255,500 EUR net: 52,500 calls moved to self-service (25% of 210,000) at 4.20 EUR a call is 220,500 EUR, plus 95,000 EUR legacy licence saving, minus 60,000 EUR portal running cost. Indicative payback 3.9 to 5.1 years. Main risks: legacy data quality, tenant digital access, supplier capacity.

4. Project product description

Example: Acceptance criteria include: all current tenancies available in the portal, WCAG 2.2 AA conformance for public pages, payment service compliant with the card industry standard required by the payment provider, and the contact centre trained.

5. Project approach

Proposed stages: [Initiation, then stages for delivery].

Example: Initiation (6 weeks), Design and procurement, Build and migrate, Rollout. Delivery inside stages uses two-week iterations.

6. Project management team

7. Request for initiation

8. Related templates

• Project charter where your organisation authorises projects with a charter
• Project initiation document, the next step
• Business case and Feasibility study
• Stakeholder register

Glossary

• Project mandate: the trigger for the project from corporate, programme or portfolio management.
• Executive: the board member accountable for the business case, often called the sponsor.
• Initiation: the first stage, which plans the project and builds the full business case.
• Project product description: the customer's description of the final product and how it will be accepted.

Standard and licence note

Structure aligned with the project brief management product of PRINCE2 7 (Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2, 7th edition, PeopleCert, 2023). PRINCE2 is cited by name only: no text, tables or figures from the publication are reproduced, and the headings, wording and the fictional Brackwell Vale example are original. Official text: PeopleCert, purchase or licensed access: https://www.peoplecert.org/prince2. PRINCE2 is a registered trademark of PeopleCert. Check the current edition and your organisation's investment rules before use. Template licence: MIT.