Before Sageworx had a Project Brief, we put ten agency briefs side by side.

We compared the questions they asked, spoke with strategists and producers we trusted, and looked for the information that would still matter after kickoff.

We had seen good briefs give teams a clear path forward, but we had also seen what happened when the things everyone agreed on at kickoff slowly disappeared into decks, meeting notes and separate conversations.

So when we started Sageworx, we built the first version of our Project Brief. Then the work started changing it.

One place to start -- and return to.

We curate a cross-functional team around each assignment. The people may change from project to project, but the need doesn’t.

Everyone has to understand why the client called, who the work needs to reach, what problem we are solving and what success looks like.

They also need the practical truth. Where will the work appear? What has already been decided? What can still move? What are the timing, budget and technical realities?

We think of the brief as holding the things we know to be true before we start to think.

The craft starts there.

Before the strategic discussion. Before the creative brainstorm. Before the first idea appears on the page.

Why we call it living.

A brief starts becoming outdated as soon as new information arrives.

A client clarifies something. A constraint appears. An assumption turns out to be wrong. Another part of the organization enters the conversation with something the team didn’t know at kickoff.

If the brief never changes, it becomes a record of what people used to believe.

So we keep ours current.

When we learn something important, we add it. When information changes, we replace it. When an answer is missing, the template helps us see the gap and decide what needs to be investigated.

Living doesn’t mean piling every new note into the document. Someone still has to decide what remains true.

That judgment is part of the craft.

Our full Project Brief covers the context, assignment, audience, objectives, communication, outcomes, mandatories, channels, timing, budget, deliverables, measurement and responsibilities.

But underneath all of that, we have found that every good Project Brief needs to help a team understand at least five things:

The audience. Who are we trying to reach?
The opportunity. Why is this work worth doing now?
The problem. What specifically needs to change?
The channels. Where does the idea have to live and do its job?
The measure of success. What does the work need to accomplish? What do we want the audience to do?

None of those questions is revolutionary.

The value comes from answering them together, keeping the answers in one place, and making sure that place stays true as the project moves.

One source. Different views.

One shared source of truth doesn’t mean every person needs the same information in front of them at every moment.

A producer may return to the Project Brief for deliverables, timing and budget. A strategist may distill it into a sharper Strategic Brief. A creative team may need only the problem, the human truth and a little room to move.

Different views. Same project.

That distinction opens another conversation about what each person really needs from a brief before they can do their best work.

And that’s where we’d like to bring you in.

We’ve linked the version we use below. But it will continue to change as our work does.

The Living Project Brief has been the bedrock of our process since we started Sageworx. Years of clients, teams and assignments have helped us refine it, but its purpose has stayed the same:

Give everyone doing the work one shared source of truth.

We don’t believe it is the only way to brief a project. It’s where the work has brought us.