Product brief template: How to write one + steps

The key to a successful product launch is team communication. Team members must work together to develop a product strategy, define product goals, and move product development forward. One way to keep team members and stakeholders on the same page is with a product brief.

Similar to a project brief, a product brief is a clear, concise guide to the key elements of your product plan. This document serves as a reference, provides consistency, and can improve product results. In this article, you'll learn what a product brief is, the key components to include, how to write one step by step, and access a free template to get started.

What is a product brief?

A product brief is an internal document that summarizes a product's scope, goals, and direction. It aligns your team on what you're building, why it matters, and how you'll bring it to market. Product briefs are highly customizable and guide your product through the development process.

Who uses product briefs and when?

Usually, the product manager creates the product brief during the planning stage. The brief helps explain the problem and solution to everyone involved. It also helps the team agree on their goals.

• Problem: People are distracted at work.

• Solution: Create software that limits distractions.

• Product brief: Explains what the team wants to achieve, what the product will be, and the main steps to create it.

A product brief isn't a technical document or a business case. It won't provide every answer, and because you create it early in the process, there's room for change. The product brief communicates your initial plans to everyone involved in the project. This helps improve decision-making and reduce wasted time.

Key components of a product brief

A good product brief includes a few key parts. The details may change depending on your organization, but most strong briefs have these elements:

• Problem statement: A clear description of the customer pain point or market need your product addresses.

• Product objectives: The specific goals you want to achieve with this product.

• Target audience: A detailed profile of who will use your product and why.

• Key features and functionality: The core capabilities your product must have to solve the identified problem.

• Competitive landscape: An overview of similar products in the market and how yours differs.

• Timeline and milestones: Key dates and phases for development and launch.

• Success metrics: How you will measure whether the product achieves its objectives.

• Budget and resources: The investment required and team members involved.

Putting all these parts in one document helps your team stay on track and gives stakeholders a clear view of what you are building and why.

Benefits of a product brief

A product brief is the glue that connects your cross-functional team throughout the product development process. This document will serve as the source of truth for all stakeholders, from the product team to product marketing executives, throughout the product life cycle.

• Offers clarity: The clearer you are when working with others to achieve a common goal, the better. A product brief provides clarity by compiling the most crucial information about your product, including requirements, design, and pricing.

• Reduces errors: When everyone understands the common goal and their role in achieving it, there's less risk of errors during product development. A product brief is something your team can reference to stay on the same page.

• Increases efficiency: Teams that know what they're doing can work faster to achieve their goals. Your product brief reduces time wasted on re-clarification and keeps everyone focused on the finish line.

Sharing an outline of your plans makes it easier for your team to work together and understand each other.

7 steps to write a product brief

You will write your product brief at the start of product development. It is a living document that will change as you plan. Rather than trying to cover everything, use your product brief to:

• Align stakeholders on the product vision

• Create a central source of truth for your team

• Capture questions as they come up

You don't alwaYou might not write your product brief in order. For example, you often choose the product name last, after answering some key questions. The following steps will help you create your first draft from start to finish.our problem

The first step in making your product brief is to clearly define the problems you want to solve. This gives you a strong base for your product and its solution. Ask yourself these questions at this stage:

• What are the needs of our target audience?

• How can we meet those needs with our product?

• What should we ultimately seek to achieve?

Starting with this information helps you see why your product matters and what features it needs. This part is useful for several teams:

• Product development: Uses it to guide feature prioritization

• Marketing: Uses it to position the product

• Sales: Uses it to explain how the product makes customers'lives easier

2. Define the product requirements

Once you know what specific problem your product needs to solve, work with your product team to define the product requirements. Product requirements provide structure for your product and help others visualize it. They may include things like:

• Product purpose

• Functionality

• Product features

• User stories

Product features and functions show how the product works. For example:

• Functionality: A cell phone needs to call people

• Feature: An internal speaker enables this functionality

Add user stories to go along with your product features and make your brief easier to understand. User stories describe features in simple terms from the user's point of view.

3. Give the product context

Once you have your product requirements, add context to your product. Do user research to look at competitors, define your audience, and estimate a price.

Analyze competitors

Evaluate who your competitors are and how they position themselves in your target market. Competitive analysis will help you determine how your product differs from competitors and shape your value proposition during product design and development.

Define your audience

Create your ideal customer profile and articulate who will buy your product. For example, if you're creating a data application, the ideal target audience would be DevOps team leads and project managers. Giving your teams an understanding of your potential customers will help them keep the end user in mind during the development process.

Estimate a price

Once you have the product details, start thinking about pricing. The price you set can affect how customers see your product and brand.

Common pricing options include:

• Fixed rate

• Tier system

• Free trials

The marketing and sales teams can offer advice, but your product team will have the best understanding of costs and market rates.

4. Establish your questions

A big part of a product brief is listing any open questions you cannot answer yet. The product team decides what the product is and how to build it, but some questions need outside input. Writing these questions in the brief helps you answer them as you go.

Questions may include:

• What's the product name?

• When will you release the product?

• What are the product risks?

• What differentiates the product?

• What features are part of the minimum viable product (MVP)?

• Which features are must-haves vs. nice-to-haves?

Don't worry if you can't answer all of these questions right now. You'll answer these questions by collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders and solidifying your ideas over time. By establishing questions in your product brief, you'll know what you need to answer to reach your end goal.

5. Create a timeline

Making a timeline can be hard early on, but even rough estimates help stakeholders see the product's scope. While your timeline may change once you complete your development plan, get a general idea of what phases you need to move through and what tasks team members need to complete to reach product completion. Include estimates for prototyping, testing, and release.

6. Name your product

Pick an internal name for your product while you develop it. This name can change as you go. The marketing team will choose the final name before launch. Also, come up with a tagline to go with your product name. The tagline should be a few words or a short sentence that explains what your product does.

For example, if your product is called DataApp, the tagline could be "An Application Monitoring Tool." The marketing team will handle all customer-facing materials.

7. Share and revise

When your product brief seems ready, share it with others to get feedback and find ways to improve it.

Share it with your cross-functional team

Share your product brief with your cross-functional team and project sponsors to get initial feedback. Because these individuals likely participated in creating the brief, they can help you polish the document before you send it to higher-level stakeholders for review.

Share it with the entire product team

After making necessary revisions, share the product brief with your entire product team during the kickoff meeting. Because this is a living document that people need to refer to regularly, make sure it's easily accessible through something like a work management system.

Product brief template

To help you begin, we have made a product brief template with the main parts of product planning. Fill in each section to build a complete product brief.

Tips for writing a product brief

Now that you know how the product brief template is set up, you can focus on writing it well. Use these tips to make your next brief even better.

• Make it easy to read: Use images, bullet points, diagrams, and charts to explain complex ideas and features. Try to keep your brief under three pages so it stays user-friendly.

• Use questions for each section: Organize your product brief with questions and answers for every part of the template. Make sure everyone involved can understand it.

• Keep it flexible: Your product brief will change as you add features or try new ideas. A living document lets you update it as you go.

Follow up your brief with a product strategy template to coordinate priorities, timelines, and stakeholder goals.

Use a product brief template for your next product launch

A product brief template can make product development easier from ideation to launch. When paired with work management software, you can share your document with stakeholders wherever they are and put your product brief into action once you finalize it. Plan your product brief in Asana, so everyone knows the direction you're going and how to get there. Get started today to streamline your product planning process.

Frequently asked questions about product briefs