How to Create the Ultimate Client Project Brief
At the beginning of any project, the most important thing to understand is what the client wants. From this, you can develop a detailed project plan and schedule that guides your team and removes uncertainty – which can be a significant project bottleneck – from your processes and deliver a project your client loves.
What is a client brief?
In essence, it’s the skeleton for the body that is your project plan.
A client brief succinctly outlines the vision of your client. This might include a summary of the project, the deliverables, important milestones, KPIs and, if applicable, the end-user or target audience. Depending on the project, it may also include a description of the company’s brand (a.k.a, its values, message and niche).
Who creates a client brief?
Typically, the client themselves fills out a brief to let your project management team know what they want. However, often project managers work with the client for extra clarity and to aid them in filling out the brief to completion.
Though it may sound like a client brief is the responsibility of the client, presenting the right questions in a template for the client to complete is essential. In other words, the project team should guide every aspect of the brief.
What to Include in the Ultimate Client Project Brief
A comprehensive client project brief will make a detailed project plan – including the schedule, scope, and resource allocation – easier to accomplish and pave the way to create the best possible project for your client.
Here are the 7 sections your client brief should include.
- Overview
- Deliverables
- Key milestones
- Goals and KPIs
- End-User/Target Audience
- Budget
- Branding
An ‘overview’ section in your brief template/questionnaire gives your client the opportunity to outline the vision for their project in their own words.
The overview is a crucial starting point for the project as it clarifies what your client truly wants and provides a reference point to ensure the stated deliverables align with their vision.
Everything your client wants you to deliver – i.e., the deliverables – should be included in this section. If your client wants something made, they must list it here.
Any other add-ons not stipulated here will be considered optional – a.k.a., anything your team thinks would be a stellar addition to the project. Make sure the client’s project priorities come first.
Does your client have specific deadlines the project needs to meet? Is there a ‘halfway point’ they have in mind to check in on your progress?
Any important dates, deadlines and milestones should be listed here so you can develop your project schedule accordingly.
How does your client want you to measure the success of the project? What goals does the client want this project to achieve?
Understanding the motivation for the project can help your team to build a project that best serves these aims, and even make suggestions about deliverables to help clients better achieve these goals.
Sometimes KPIs won’t be necessary, but if your client has specific indicators in mind, it can be useful to track these as you progress along the project, to ensure you’re satisfying the client’s aims effectively.
Whether the end user/target audience is employees within the company, B2B businesses, or customers, when building a project, it’s helpful to know who is going to be affected by the project or the outcome of the project.
Further than this, your client can choose to include demographic information – if relevant – to help you further tailor the project.
Never the client’s favourite question, but one that’s vital to any project. Knowing how much the client is willing to spend from the outset will allow the team to plan the project accordingly – or let the client know immediately whether they need to scale back on certain deliverables (or increase their budget).
Though these conversations are uncomfortable, they provide the foundation for a less stressed-out team and a happier client, because you’ve been up-front and honest in the beginning.
Included at the end of this list since it won’t be relevant for every project – though vital for some – a branding section will give your client the space to tell you about the company.
Does their brand prioritize ease and convenience? The project should be simple, clean-looking and easy to navigate. Appealing to luxury brand investors? The project should appear classy (and probably expensive).
Whether your client talks about the message, values, the niche their company occupies, its aesthetics, or all of the above, what they say here can guide how the project feels. This enables your project team insight into the client and can help you to make the project a success.