The Essential Guide to Crafting an Effective Business Requirements Document

A business requirements document attempts to mitigate failures by ensuring that only projects that contribute directly to your business’s strategic goals are started.

Reason #2: It saves time, money, and resources

A business requirements document provides a clear project scope, identifies who is responsible for each part of the project, and recognizes potential risks before a project begins. This reduces the risk of unexpected costs and wasted employee time, leading to more profitable projects.

Reason #3: It ensures clear communication

Business requirements documents improve communication between stakeholders.

A BRD ensures everyone involved in a project understands the project’s requirements and what they individually need to do to ensure the project is a success.

A well-written, precise document can also help avoid ambiguity and confusion after project kickoff.

Reason #4: It identifies potential risks

All projects have potential risks. A project can cost more than expected or take longer than anticipated to complete. External factors like a change in regulations or a new competitor entering the marketplace may also have an impact.

 A business requirements document can identify potential risks, assess their severity, and suggest how to avoid or lessen the impact of these issues.

What should a business requirements document include?

The exact contents of a business requirements document will vary depending on the industry and what the project requirements are.

For example, a startup may be more willing to take risks than a well-established business, and this will be reflected in the BRD.

In our experience, to provide a complete picture, all business requirements documents should cover these key elements as a minimum:

Executive summary

An executive summary (or project overview) is a short description of the entire business requirements document, typically no longer than a page.

The executive summary provides key information to project stakeholders who may not have time to read the whole document, like investors or senior-level executives.

Although the executive summary appears at the start of the document, we recommend writing it last. This ensures that you can most accurately summarize the entire document and cover all of your project’s goals.

Project objectives

The project objectives are the goals you want your project to achieve. Identifying these means you can better focus your efforts and ultimately ensure that your project benefits your business.

There is no set quantity for the number of project objectives to include, although it’s easier to track and monitor a handful of well-thought-out project objectives than several vague ones.

Going back to the e-commerce platform we mentioned earlier, your project objectives here could be to increase online sales by 20% by the end of the year and to increase average order value (AOV) by 15%.

It’s essential that your project’s goals are SMART goals, namely:

• Specific. Are they clear and narrow in focus?
• Measurable. Can you use key performance metrics to track your goals?
• Achievable. Are your goals realistic?
• Relevant. Do they tie in with your overall business goals?
• Timely. Can you achieve your goals within the project timeframe?

Project scope

Project scope defines the boundaries of the project—basically, what you will do as part of project requirements and what you won’t.

Defining your project scope reduces the risk of scope creep, which is when a project expands beyond what you initially anticipated. This can lead to overspending, delays, and even failure.

The easiest way to identify project scope is to provide a definitive list of project activities that are in scope and out of scope.

For example, for our e-commerce store, developing a user-friendly website and building a secure customer account system may be in scope. However, developing a loyalty program or implementing on-page product recommendations may be out of scope.

Key stakeholders

Your key stakeholders are the people and organizations who have an interest in your project and its expected benefits. These can be internal (e.g., your Executive team or Project team) or external (e.g., your customers and suppliers).

The key stakeholders section of your business requirements document should list the stakeholders involved, what they want to see, and what you will do to meet their expectations. By detailing this information, you’re more likely to create a finished product that fulfills their needs.

Let’s drill down into one of the parties involved in our e-commerce store—the Executive team. They expect the new e-commerce store to increase online revenue. You can say you will achieve this goal by:

• Implementing effective marketing campaigns
• Providing an exceptional user experience
• Using upselling and cross-selling to increase AOV
• Testing and auditing the checkout process

Business requirements

The business requirements section needs to provide a detailed description of what actions you need to undertake to complete your project. This includes their priority, who you need to involve in the process, and what you will eventually achieve.

This section of your BRD will be the most crucial part of your document and the part project stakeholders will show the most interest in.

If you want to integrate your functional requirements document into your BRD, this is the logical section to include it.

The business requirements section helps ensure you can meet stakeholder needs and complete the project successfully. Documenting business requirements also provides accountability by helping your Project team understand what you expect from them.

A Gantt chart is an excellent way to visualize business requirements. It can determine how much time you need to complete a task, show project phases, and identify any dependencies.

Project constraints

The project constraints section of the document outlines the potential risks and limitations that may negatively affect your project and how to mitigate them.

By identifying as many project constraints as possible, you’re more likely to avoid them and ensure your project is completed on time and to budget. Your project constraints section also helps your stakeholders understand how they can support the project.

For example, let’s say you’ve identified that your e-commerce store may not launch on time. In your document you can list ways to reduce the chances of this happening, like implementing strict deadlines for each stage and bringing in additional support if required.

Cost-benefit analysis 

A cost-benefit analysis helps you determine if the benefits of a project outweigh the financial costs of implementing it.

In terms of our e-commerce store, how much will the project cost to implement? And how does this stack up against how much additional revenue it will bring?

If you need your stakeholders to sign off on your project, a cost-benefit analysis can give them the confidence that it’s worth the investment.

It’s important to cover as much expenditure as possible in your cost-benefit analysis. For example, it is a good idea to include:

• Tangible costs (quantifiable costs like physical assets and time spent by your Project team)
• Intangible costs (costs that aren’t quantifiable, like potential customer dissatisfaction)

Don’t forget to factor in up-front development costs, associated costs, and future operating costs. For example, software development costs, website hosting, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription fees.

Find the perfect business requirements document template

Creating a business requirements document for the first time can be tricky, especially if you’re new to project management.

A free template can help you understand what to include and how to write your document so it gets stakeholder approval.

Here are some business requirements document templates to get you started:

• ProjectManager business requirements document template
• Smartsheet business requirements document template
• TemplateLAB business requirements document template

How to write a business requirements document that helps you achieve your goals

A business requirements document is a blend of empirical data and persuasive writing. You need to state the facts clearly and objectively, but you also need to convince readers of the benefits your project will bring.

Here’s how to write a document that is clear and concise and engages your business partners.

Look at previous business requirements documents

Looking at past projects can provide valuable insights that will help you write a solid business requirements document.

You can analyze past projects to identify any mistakes or unidentified risks that led to issues, as well as learn from successful projects.

It’s also OK to repurpose relevant information from existing requirements documents, which can save time and ensure consistency.

If you don’t have any projects to review, see if Project Managers in a similar but non-competing business are willing to share BRDs they’ve created.

Do your research

Before you start drafting your business requirements document, it’s essential to do some requirements gathering. This ensures your BRD aligns with business goals, is data-driven, and is as accurate as possible.

You can carry out research by reading previous business requirement documents. You can also:

• Talk to relevant stakeholders. For example, employees who worked on previous projects or external vendors. You can also speak to other project managers and business analysts who have worked on similar projects.
• Review relevant documents. For example, balance sheets and income statements will help you compile a cost benefit analysis, while business processes will help identify potential project constraints.
• Carry out market research. For example, analyzing your target audience, determining user requirements, assessing competitors, and reviewing industry trends.

Keep it brief and to the point

If you work in a highly technical industry or need to deliver an extremely complex project, your BRD could be several pages long and full of hard-to-understand jargon.

The issue with this is that your stakeholders may not read (or struggle to read) the document. This may mean they don’t understand their role fully or fail to ask questions that might have a significant impact on the project.

Here are some ways to make your business requirements document easier to understand:

• Make sure your executive summary is comprehensive. That way, if that’s the only part of your BRD your stakeholders read, they’ll still understand the project.
• Keep your language clear and avoid jargon where possible. If you can’t avoid technical terms, add a glossary at the end of your document where you can explain terms in more detail.
• Use visuals like diagrams, flowcharts, and mock-ups to break up your text and make your business requirements document easier to read and understand.

Validate your document

Before you send your BRD to key stakeholders, you need to validate its information. This ensures your business requirements document is accurate, complete, and aligns with your business goal (or goals).

You don’t want the Executive team to sign off on your BRD only to discover you missed a significant piece of information that could affect the project’s success.

Take the time to thoroughly review the document and ask relevant people to provide feedback.

Revisit your document to reflect changing business needs

Your project will constantly evolve, and it’s vital that you update your business requirements document in line with these changes.

This will keep stakeholders up to date with how the project is doing, help you adapt to unforeseen challenges, and make it easy to assess the entire project upon completion.

Revisit your document regularly during the project lifecycle and make amendments when needed. A change log helps stakeholders see what amendments you have made and when you made them.

Understand your objectives with a well-written business requirements document

If your project requires support from multiple stakeholders or will take significant time or money to implement, a clear business requirements document is essential.

Let us leave you with one final tip—don’t be afraid to take your time. It’s better to spend time on a detailed, fact-checked BRD than to create one that’s rushed and low quality.

And don’t forget to take advantage of your Project team members—they can source data, speak to stakeholders, and help you create convincing, crisp copy.

Whether you’re working on a construction, manufacturing, or technology project, you now have the skills and resources necessary to write a business requirements document that achieves your goals!