Introduction
Workplace projects have many moving parts, from multiple stakeholders to tight deadlines. To hit your goals, you need clear documentation that prevents delays and confusion. Enter business requirements documents (BRDs), guides that centralize project goals and scope.
In this article, we’ll cover what a BRD is and share practical strategies to set your next project up for success.
What’s a Business Requirements Document?
Business requirements documents outline high-level project information, including scope, constraints and key stakeholders. These resources clearly describe the project’s goals and deliverables so team members are all on the same page.
Requirements documentation can be simple or complex depending on the project and company. An internal blog launch may only need a one-page outline with basic information, while a software development project would require detailed technical specifications.
Business Requirements vs. Functional Requirements
While these resources seem similar, a functional requirements document (FRD) fulfills a different need than a BRD.
A business requirements document outlines what a project hopes to accomplish, including the deliverables and major objectives. On the other hand, an FRD discusses how you’ll achieve these goals.
Say a company wants to speed up new employee onboarding. The BRD explains that the project aims to reduce onboarding time by 10% before the end of the quarter. And an accompanying FRD describes how the business will achieve that by putting all of their documents into one knowledge base.
Why Are Business Requirements Documents Important?
A BRD is a single source of truth about a project that aligns employees and key stakeholders. Here are the most impactful benefits of a well-written business requirements document:
- Clarify objectives: These guides help you set and maintain clear goals, driving your project forward. They also prevent scope creep by recording deliverables from the start.
- Reduce miscommunication: A BRD provides the same information to everyone, promoting consistency among the whole team.
- Enhance decision-making: Understanding your goals from the beginning lets you make decisions on the fly that still align with business objectives.
- Minimize risks: Requirements documents improve project transparency, which helps reduce delays and cost overruns. They also list project constraints to prevent issues like scope creep and employee burnout.
- Offer a reliable reference: These documents provide a quick reference throughout the project lifecycle for internal and external stakeholders.
The Key Components of a Business Requirements Document
While every BRD is unique, the following elements provide a solid foundation for any project.
Executive Summary
The executive summary is a quick overview of the rest of your document. It should explain your project’s purpose and scope in 1–3 paragraphs so readers can understand your BRD before diving in. Generally, you’ll describe the problem you’re solving, the recommended solution and your intended outcome.
This section can also list other resources that offer additional context. For example, a summary of a customer loyalty project could link to feedback surveys so readers could explore detailed metrics.
Project Objectives
This section explains your desired outcomes, giving you a benchmark for success. Make sure you set specific, measurable goals so you have detailed context to track your progress.
For example, if your goal is to improve conversion rates by 15% by the end of the year, you could check your analytics software periodically to see if you’re on track. With this information, you can monitor performance throughout the project lifecycle. That way, if you anticipate falling short, you can change your strategy to meet expectations.
Project Scope
The scope defines the project’s timeline, deliverables, budget and resources. This is essential for preventing scope creep, which occurs any time someone adds too many requirements to an ongoing project. Defining boundaries ahead of time prevents anyone from overloading teams with too many tasks.
Business Requirements
This is a list of all the deliverables teams must complete to finish a project. Typically, tasks are organized in order of priority. So, a BRD doesn’t just clarify business requirements — it also acts as a checklist of your progress.
Here’s an example of a company adopting a human resources information system (HRIS):
- Set up the new HRIS platform.
- Train HR staff on proper usage.
- Migrate current processes to the new system.
In this case, setting up the platform is the highest priority task because you can’t train staff or migrate information until the company starts using the software.
Stakeholders
This section identifies who has a significant say in the project. Common stakeholders include executives, project managers and team members.
Instead of just creating a list of relevant names, outline other crucial details, such as their role in the project and job title. Teammates can use this quick reference list to contact the right person for a task, improving productivity and communication.
Project Constraints
To paint a complete picture of the project, you also need to highlight its limitations. In this section, consider addressing the following elements:
- Budget restraints.
- Timeline concerns.
- Potential risks.
- Safety considerations.
- Team member availability.
Instead of just listing these issues, briefly address how you plan to mitigate them. For instance, if you have staffing concerns, hiring more employees or working with freelance contractors may address this problem.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
A cost-benefit analysis compares your project’s potential financial gains to the estimated costs. Be as transparent as possible about the expected expenses and return on investment. This highlights the advantages of completing the task, improving the likelihood of executive buy-in.
How To Write Business Requirements: 5 Tips
Here are five tips to help you write clear BRDs.
1. Start With a Template
Building your own document from scratch is time-consuming, and it’s easy to miss crucial headers. But business requirements templates offer a logical structure and common components to help you organize your information.
Our free business requirements document template is the perfect starting point for your BRD draft. It’s suitable for any industry, allowing you to quickly personalize it to your business needs and get started on projects faster.
2. Use Clear Language
Several people review BRDs, such as project managers, engineers and senior executives, and they all need to understand the content. Use straightforward language and avoid complex jargon so any reader can follow along.
Some companies explain difficult concepts with visuals and charts. For example, you might link to a business process flow to show how a task relates to the current project.
3. Keep It Concise and Organized
To help people quickly find information, use a clear format for requirements documents. Manage multiple points in bullet lists, use clear headers and organize complex information in a table. We also recommend linking to any relevant process documentation and guidelines for reference.
4. Get Feedback
After finishing your first draft, send it to stakeholders and ask if the listed expectations and responsibilities are correct. Collaborating on this outline ensures it’s accurate and that no one is blindsided by their roles.
When creating with Scribe, simply set user permissions on your new document and send it to stakeholders via a link. Depending on their access permissions, people can then jump in and make comments or edits. They can also leave emojis like hearts and applause for a quicker response.
5. Continuously Gather Information
Your BRD should constantly evolve as processes improve. Whenever you receive new information, log changes in your requirements doc to maintain clear records and inform everyone of recent updates.
Scribes are endlessly editable, so you can make changes at any point. Plus, Scribes are stored in the cloud, so stakeholders can review your updates in real time.
You’ll also never lose sight of your original scope with our detailed version history, which lets you reference your starting goals and roll back unnecessary changes.
Elevate Clarity and Connection With Scribe
Scribe is the ideal tool for capturing project overviews and sharing them with your team. Our platform lets you quickly record project requirements, send them to stakeholders and see real-time reactions. Make updates as the project progresses, and your team will instantly see the change.
Take your BRD to the next level by linking to procedures for additional context. Use our AI document generator to capture processes as you perform them. It automatically transforms tasks into step-by-step guides with detailed text and annotated screenshots.
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