What is a Product Brief?
A product brief is a short, structured document—typically one to two pages—that communicates the essential information about a product initiative. It answers three fundamental questions: What problem are we solving? What are we proposing to build? And how will we know if it worked? The product brief is the starting point for any new feature, product, or improvement at most product-led organizations.
Unlike a Product Requirements Document (PRD), which dives deep into functional requirements, user stories, and edge cases, the product brief stays at the strategic level. It is designed to be read in five minutes and understood by anyone—from engineers to executives to marketing partners. Its purpose is alignment, not specification. Once stakeholders agree on the brief, the team can move into discovery, design, and detailed planning with confidence that they are solving the right problem.
The best product briefs are opinionated and concise. They force the product manager to make hard choices about scope, clearly articulate the problem worth solving, and define what success looks like before a single line of code is written. A well-crafted product brief saves weeks of wasted effort by preventing the team from building the wrong thing or solving the wrong problem.
Product briefs go by many names depending on the organization: product one-pagers, initiative briefs, opportunity briefs, or product proposals. Regardless of the label, the structure and purpose are the same—get everyone on the same page quickly and create a shared understanding of the initiative before committing resources.
When to Write a Product Brief
The product brief lives at the very beginning of the product development lifecycle, after you have identified an opportunity but before you have committed resources to pursue it. Here are the most common scenarios where a product brief is the right tool:
New Feature Proposals
When proposing a new feature to the roadmap, use the brief to articulate the problem, the proposed solution, and the expected impact. This gives leadership enough context to decide whether to invest in discovery.
Quarterly or Sprint Planning
Before committing to a major initiative for the upcoming quarter or sprint cycle, write a brief to justify the investment. It forces you to quantify the opportunity and compare it against alternatives.
Cross-Functional Alignment
When multiple teams need to collaborate on an initiative, the brief serves as the single source of truth. Engineering, design, data, and marketing can all read the same one-pager and understand what is being built and why.
Executive Reviews
When presenting to leadership for budget approval, headcount requests, or strategic direction changes, a brief provides a structured format that respects their time while giving them enough information to make a decision.
Pivoting an Existing Initiative
When a project needs to change direction—perhaps based on new data, customer feedback, or market shifts—write an updated brief to realign the team on the new scope and goals.
Onboarding New Team Members
A well-written brief is the fastest way to bring someone new up to speed on why an initiative exists, what the team is building, and what success looks like.
Product Brief vs PRD vs 6-Pager
Product managers often struggle with choosing the right document format. Each serves a distinct purpose in the product development lifecycle. Here is how they compare:
| Dimension | Product Brief | PRD | Amazon 6-Pager |
|---|---|---|---|
| Length | 1-2 pages | 5-20 pages | Up to 6 pages + appendix |
| Purpose | Alignment & buy-in | Implementation specification | Decision-making & deep analysis |
| Audience | Stakeholders, leadership, cross-functional team | Engineering, design, QA | Senior leadership, decision-makers |
| Detail Level | High-level strategic overview | Granular requirements, user stories, edge cases | Narrative analysis with data and alternatives |
| When to Use | Before committing resources; to propose and align | After approval; to guide development | For major strategic decisions or investments |
| Format | Structured sections, mostly bullets and tables | Detailed sections with user stories, wireframes | Narrative prose, full sentences, no bullets |
| Time to Write | 30-60 minutes | Several days to a week | 1-3 weeks with multiple revisions |
Tip: These formats are complementary, not mutually exclusive. A typical workflow is: write a product brief to get buy-in, then write a PRD to guide engineering. Use a 6-pager for high-stakes, ambiguous decisions that require deep analysis and executive alignment.
Product Brief Template
Below is a complete, copy-ready product brief template in markdown format. Copy it into your favorite document tool and fill in each section. The template is designed to fit on one to two pages when formatted.
# Product Brief: [Initiative Name] **Author:** [Your Name] **Date:** [Date] **Status:** Draft / In Review / Approved **Team:** [Product Area] --- ## 1. Problem Statement [Describe the user/business problem in 2-3 sentences. Be specific about who is affected and the magnitude of the impact.] **Evidence:** - [Data point or user research finding 1] - [Data point or user research finding 2] - [Data point or user research finding 3] ## 2. Proposed Solution [Describe your proposed approach in 2-3 sentences. Focus on *what* it does and *how* it solves the problem, not implementation details.] **Key Features/Changes:** - [Feature/change 1] - [Feature/change 2] - [Feature/change 3] ## 3. Target Users **Primary:** [Who benefits most? How many users?] **Secondary:** [Other affected user segments] ## 4. Goals & Success Metrics | Goal | Metric | Current | Target | Timeline | |------|--------|---------|--------|----------| | [Goal 1] | [Metric] | [Value] | [Value] | [When] | | [Goal 2] | [Metric] | [Value] | [Value] | [When] | | [Goal 3] | [Metric] | [Value] | [Value] | [When] | **Guardrail Metrics:** [Metrics we must NOT regress] ## 5. Scope **In Scope:** - [Item 1] - [Item 2] - [Item 3] **Out of Scope:** - [Item 1 - explain why] - [Item 2 - explain why] ## 6. Key Risks & Mitigations | Risk | Impact | Mitigation | |------|--------|------------| | [Risk 1] | [H/M/L] | [Plan] | | [Risk 2] | [H/M/L] | [Plan] | ## 7. Timeline & Milestones - **Phase 1 (Week 1-2):** [Discovery & Design] - **Phase 2 (Week 3-6):** [Development] - **Phase 3 (Week 7-8):** [Testing & Launch] ## 8. Open Questions - [Question 1] - [Question 2] --- **Approvals:** - [ ] Product Lead: [Name] - [ ] Engineering Lead: [Name] - [ ] Design Lead: [Name]
Section-by-Section Guide
1. Problem Statement: Lead with the Pain
The problem statement is the most important section of your product brief. If stakeholders do not agree that the problem is worth solving, nothing else in the document matters. Be specific about who is affected, how they are affected, and what the cost of inaction looks like. Avoid vague statements like "users are frustrated." Instead, write: "42% of new users abandon onboarding at step 3, resulting in 1,200 lost activations per week and approximately $180K in unrealized monthly revenue."
Back your problem statement with evidence. Include data from analytics, user research findings, support ticket trends, or competitive analysis. The stronger your evidence, the easier it is to build the case for investment. Always cite your sources so stakeholders can verify the claims.
2. Proposed Solution: Be Clear, Not Comprehensive
Describe your proposed approach in two to three sentences. Focus on what the solution does from the user's perspective—not on how it will be built. For example: "We will replace the current 7-step onboarding wizard with a progressive disclosure model that introduces features contextually as users explore the product for the first time." List the key features or changes as bullet points, keeping each one to a single sentence.
Resist the urge to include technical details. The brief is not the place for API contracts, database schemas, or architecture diagrams. Those belong in the PRD or technical design document. The goal here is for a non-technical stakeholder to read this section and immediately understand what will change for users.
3. Target Users: Know Your Audience
Specify the primary and secondary user segments. Include the approximate size of each segment if possible. "Primary: New free-trial users (approximately 8,000 per month) who have not yet activated their account. Secondary: Existing users migrating from legacy onboarding flow." Being specific about your users prevents scope creep and keeps the team focused on the right experience.
4. Goals & Success Metrics: Define Done
Every product brief needs a goals table with current values, targets, and a timeline. Without measurable goals, there is no way to evaluate whether the initiative succeeded. Choose two to four metrics that directly reflect the problem you are solving. Include guardrail metrics—things that must not regress as a result of the change. For example, if you are redesigning onboarding, a guardrail might be "time-to-first-value for power users must not increase."
5. Scope: Draw the Line
The scope section might be the most underappreciated part of the product brief. Clearly listing what is in scope sets expectations. Clearly listing what is out of scope—with brief explanations of why—prevents stakeholders from assuming the initiative will solve every related problem. This section saves enormous amounts of time in reviews because it preemptively answers the most common question: "Will this also handle X?"
6. Key Risks & Mitigations: Be Honest
Every initiative has risks. Hiding them does not make them go away—it just means they surface later when the cost of addressing them is higher. List the top risks, rate their impact (High, Medium, or Low), and describe your mitigation plan. Common risks include technical feasibility, user adoption, dependencies on other teams, data quality, and timeline pressure. Senior stakeholders will respect a PM who surfaces risks proactively rather than one who pretends they do not exist.
7. Timeline & Milestones: Set Expectations
Break the initiative into phases with rough time estimates. You do not need a detailed project plan at this stage—high-level milestones are sufficient. The goal is to give stakeholders a sense of when they can expect to see results. If the initiative has hard deadlines (a conference, a contract renewal, a seasonal window), call them out explicitly.
8. Open Questions: Show What You Don't Know
Including an open questions section demonstrates intellectual honesty and invites collaborative problem-solving. List the unknowns that need to be resolved before or during the initiative. These might include technical feasibility questions, pending user research, unresolved design decisions, or dependencies on other teams. This section often generates the most productive discussion during brief reviews.
Product Brief Example: In-App Onboarding Redesign
Below is a filled-in example of a product brief for a hypothetical "In-App Onboarding Redesign" initiative. Use it as a reference for tone, specificity, and level of detail.
Product Brief: In-App Onboarding Redesign
Author: Sarah Chen, Senior PM
Date: January 15, 2026
Status: In Review
Team: Growth & Activation
1. Problem Statement
42% of new free-trial users abandon the onboarding wizard at step 3 of 7, resulting in approximately 1,200 lost activations per week. Users who complete onboarding are 3.2x more likely to convert to paid within 30 days. Our current 7-step wizard was designed in 2022 when the product had three features; it now covers twelve, making the flow overwhelming for new users.
Evidence:
- Amplitude funnel: 42% drop-off at step 3 (integration setup), up from 28% six months ago
- Hotjar recordings: users click "Skip" on steps 3-5, then churn within 48 hours
- User interviews (n=15): "I just wanted to try one thing, not set up everything"
2. Proposed Solution
Replace the 7-step onboarding wizard with a progressive disclosure model. Instead of forcing users through every setup step upfront, guide them to a single "aha moment" within 2 minutes and introduce remaining features contextually as they explore the product.
Key Features/Changes:
- Single-step initial onboarding focused on core use case selection
- Contextual tooltips and checklists that surface when users visit relevant features
- Persistent onboarding progress tracker accessible from the sidebar
3. Target Users
Primary: New free-trial users (approximately 8,000/month) who sign up and encounter the onboarding wizard for the first time.
Secondary: Existing users (~2,000/month) who invite teammates and need a lighter onboarding experience.
4. Goals & Success Metrics
| Goal | Metric | Current | Target | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reduce onboarding drop-off | Completion rate | 58% | 75% | 8 weeks post-launch |
| Improve activation | Day-7 activation rate | 31% | 40% | 12 weeks post-launch |
| Faster time to value | Time to first key action | 8.5 min | < 3 min | 4 weeks post-launch |
Guardrail Metrics: Free-to-paid conversion rate must not decrease; NPS for onboarding must not drop below 40.
5. Scope
In Scope:
- New progressive onboarding flow for web app
- Contextual tooltip system
- Onboarding progress tracker in sidebar
- Analytics instrumentation for all new steps
Out of Scope:
- Mobile app onboarding (separate initiative in Q3)
- Email drip campaign redesign (owned by Marketing)
- Pricing page changes (no dependency)
6. Key Risks & Mitigations
| Risk | Impact | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Users skip contextual tooltips | High | A/B test tooltip frequency and design; fall back to checklist |
| Engineering timeline slips (tooltip system complexity) | Medium | Phase 1 ships without tooltips using a simpler checklist; tooltips in Phase 2 |
| Decreased setup completion for advanced features | Medium | Monitor feature adoption rates weekly; trigger nudges if setup lags |
7. Timeline & Milestones
- Phase 1 (Week 1-2): User research synthesis and design exploration
- Phase 2 (Week 3-4): Design finalization and engineering spike on tooltip system
- Phase 3 (Week 5-7): Engineering implementation and QA
- Phase 4 (Week 8): Staged rollout (10% → 50% → 100%) with monitoring
8. Open Questions
- Should we allow users to choose their "primary use case" during onboarding, or infer it from behavior?
- What is the engineering effort to build a reusable tooltip/guide system vs. using a third-party tool?
- Do we need to maintain backward compatibility with the current onboarding flow during the rollout?
Best Practices
Do
Lead with the problem, not the solution
Stakeholders need to agree the problem is worth solving before evaluating your proposed approach.
Use specific numbers everywhere
"42% drop-off affecting 1,200 users/week" is far more compelling than "many users drop off."
Keep it to 1-2 pages
If you cannot explain the initiative concisely, you need to think harder about what is essential and what is detail.
Define out-of-scope explicitly
Prevents scope creep and preempts the inevitable "but will this also do X?" question in reviews.
Include guardrail metrics
Show you have thought about what must not break as a side effect of the change.
Share drafts early for feedback
Getting input from engineering and design before the formal review prevents surprises and builds ownership.
Write for a non-expert audience
Your brief will be read by people outside your immediate team. Avoid jargon and explain acronyms.
Don't
Write a PRD disguised as a brief
If you are including user stories, acceptance criteria, or wireframes, you have gone too deep. Save that for the PRD.
Skip the evidence for the problem
Asserting "users are frustrated" without data, quotes, or research makes the entire brief weak.
Include technical implementation details
Architecture decisions, API designs, and database schemas belong in a technical design doc, not the brief.
Set vague or unmeasurable goals
"Improve user experience" is not a goal. "Increase Day-7 activation from 31% to 40%" is.
Forget the approvals section
Without explicit sign-off, you risk misalignment resurfacing weeks into development.
Treat it as a one-time document
Update the brief as scope changes or new information emerges. It should remain the source of truth for "why."
Bury the ask or next step
Be clear about what decision you need and from whom. Ambiguous briefs lead to ambiguous outcomes.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Starting with the solution instead of the problem
Many PMs fall in love with their solution before validating the problem. Always start the brief by establishing the problem and its magnitude. If the problem is not compelling, no solution will save the brief.
Metrics without baselines or targets
Listing "increase activation rate" without a current value and a target value makes it impossible to evaluate success. Every metric needs a baseline, a target, and a timeline.
Scope creep through vague language
Phrases like "improve the onboarding experience" can mean anything. Be specific: "Replace the 7-step wizard with a progressive disclosure model." Ambiguity in the brief becomes ambiguity in execution.
Writing in isolation
The best briefs are collaborative. Talk to engineering about feasibility, design about user experience, and data about measurement before writing. A brief written in a vacuum often misses critical constraints.
Ignoring the "out of scope" section
Omitting out-of-scope items invites scope creep. Stakeholders will assume their pet feature is included unless you explicitly exclude it and explain why.
No clear ask or decision needed
Every brief should end with a specific ask: "I need approval to allocate 2 engineers and 1 designer for 8 weeks." Without a clear ask, the brief becomes informational rather than actionable.
Treating the brief as "done" after approval
The brief should evolve as you learn more during discovery and design. Update it when scope changes, new risks emerge, or metrics shift. It remains the source of truth for why the initiative exists.
Product Brief FAQ
What is a product brief?
A product brief is a concise 1-2 page summary document that communicates the what, why, and how of a product initiative. It covers the problem being solved, the proposed solution, target users, success metrics, scope, timeline, and key risks. Think of it as the executive summary that gets everyone aligned before detailed planning begins.
What's the difference between a product brief and a PRD?
A product brief is a concise 1-2 page overview designed for alignment and buy-in. A PRD (Product Requirements Document) is a detailed specification of 5-20 pages meant for execution. The brief answers "what are we building and why?" at a high level, while the PRD answers "exactly how should it work?" with detailed requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria. You write the brief first to get approval, then the PRD to guide implementation.
When should you write a product brief?
Write a product brief before detailed planning begins. Use it to align stakeholders on the problem, scope, goals, and approach before committing engineering and design resources. It is especially useful at the start of a new initiative, when pivoting direction on an existing project, or when you need executive sign-off before moving to discovery and design.
Who should write the product brief?
The product manager typically owns the product brief, but the best briefs incorporate inputs from design, engineering, data science, and key stakeholders. The PM drafts the document, circulates it for feedback, and iterates before presenting it for formal review. Getting cross-functional input early prevents misalignment later.
How long should a product brief be?
One to two pages maximum. If your brief is longer than two pages, you are probably writing a PRD. The entire point of a product brief is brevity and clarity. Force yourself to distill the initiative down to its essentials. If you cannot explain the initiative in two pages, you likely don't understand it well enough yet.
What are the essential sections of a product brief?
The essential sections are: Problem Statement (what problem are we solving and for whom), Proposed Solution (what we plan to build), Target Users (who benefits), Goals and Success Metrics (how we measure success), Scope (what is in and out), Timeline and Milestones (when it ships), and Key Risks and Mitigations (what could go wrong). Some teams also include Open Questions and an Approvals section.
Should a product brief include technical details?
No. Keep the product brief at a high level focused on the what and why, not the how of implementation. Technical architecture, API designs, database schemas, and engineering trade-offs belong in the PRD or a separate technical design document. Including technical details in a product brief clutters the narrative and makes it harder for non-technical stakeholders to engage.
How do you get stakeholder buy-in on a product brief?
Share drafts early and often rather than presenting a polished final version. Incorporate feedback from engineering, design, and business stakeholders before the formal review. Present the brief in a dedicated review meeting where attendees read it together (similar to Amazon's silent reading practice). Get explicit written sign-off from key decision-makers before proceeding to detailed planning.
Aditi Chaturvedi
·Founder, Best PM JobsAditi is the founder of Best PM Jobs, helping product managers find their dream roles at top tech companies. With experience in product management and recruiting, she creates resources to help PMs level up their careers.