template · initiative brief

Initiative Brief template

Copy-paste skeleton. Three pages maximum. The kill criterion is mandatory — without it, the brief is a wish.

How to use

Walk through in order. The named population precedes the bet; the bet precedes the assumption; the assumption precedes the success signal. Most teams skip the kill criterion. Do not.

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# Initiative Brief — [name of the initiative]

## Population   (named persons, not categories)
[Who this initiative is for. ≥2 named persons. One-line context
 each — role, team, the moment in their work this touches.]
- [Named person 1] — [context]
- [Named person 2] — [context]

## Journey   (numbered steps, in-scope marked)
J1. [Step 1]
J2. [Step 2]                            [in scope]
J3. [Step 3]                            [in scope]
J4. [Step 4]
J5. [Step 5]

## The bet   (one paragraph, three sentences)
If [intervention] for [population],
then [signal] will move because [mechanism].
[One more sentence on why this bet, this quarter.]

## Biggest unvalidated assumption   (one)
[The single assumption that, if false, refutes the bet. Name
 it; do not bury it in a list. The assumption is what the
 first cycle's check tests.]

## Success signal   (across 2–4 cycles)
- Cycle 1: [signal that should move after the first slice]
- Cycle 2: [signal that should move after the second slice]
- Cycle 3 (optional): [signal across the full initiative]

## First Feature Brief
[Link to the first Feature Brief, named. The first cycle's
 scope is here.]

## Kill criterion   (dated, specific)
If by [date] the signal [specific signal] has not moved to
[specific threshold], the initiative is killed and the team
freed for next-quarter work. The bet's mechanism is
considered refuted.

## Sign-off
PO:         [Name] · [date]
Leadership: [Name] · [date]

## Linked artefacts
- Goal it ties to: [/cycle/why-we-build/goals-objectives anchor]
- Portfolio row: [link]
- Vision: [/cycle/why-we-build/vision-mission anchor]

Worked example — Grading Initiative

markdown

# Initiative Brief — Time-honest grading for small schools

## Population
- Gal — head of 8th grade, three classes (≈90 students), grades
  on Fridays after 3pm, uses a Mac.
- Dina — head of 11th grade, two classes (≈60 students), grades
  on Sundays in the morning, uses a Mac.
- Two other heads-of-grade at pilot schools, not yet observed.

## Journey
1. Class submits exam (Thursday)            — IN SCOPE
2. Teacher opens the exam dashboard         — IN SCOPE
3. Teacher reviews and scores per exam      — IN SCOPE (the moment)
4. Teacher submits one exam, moves to next  — IN SCOPE (the friction)
5. Teacher reviews aggregate statistics     — OUT OF SCOPE (next initiative)
6. Teacher communicates results to students — OUT OF SCOPE

## The bet
We bet that the bottleneck in Gal's Friday afternoon is the
**navigation between exams**, not the grading itself; *because*
observation showed 31 of 47 minutes spent on dashboard navigation,
not on reading or scoring. A keyboard-shortcut shortcut path
should drop session time below 15 minutes — which, if true,
gives Gal her Friday evening back.

## Biggest unvalidated assumption
"Teachers grading in non-English languages experience the same
session time as English-default teachers." We have not yet
observed a Hebrew-default teacher in this moment.

## Success signal (across 2-4 cycles)
Cycle 1: pilot session median <25 min (the easy half of the gain).
Cycle 2: pilot session median <15 min (the full prediction).
Cycle 3: full rollout median <18 min (allowing for non-pilot
         schools' wider variance).
Cycle 4: VRI ≥ 0.7 at portfolio level.

## First Feature Brief
The keyboard-shortcut submit-and-advance feature. Ships cycle 1.

## Kill criterion
If by 2026-09-15 the pilot schools' median grading time is
above 25 min, the initiative is killed and the team is freed
for next-quarter work. The bet's mechanism (navigation, not
grading, is the bottleneck) is considered refuted.

## Sign-off
PO:         Alex · 2026-04-29
Leadership: Avi · 2026-04-30

## Linked artefacts
- Goal it ties to: Q2 goal — "Pilot schools' Friday workload"
- Portfolio row:   /portfolio/Q2-2026.md
- Vision:          /why-we-build/vision-mission.md

Where this lives in your project

The Initiative Brief sits at the portfolio layer — alongside the portfolio review artefacts, not inside the cycle's brief folder. It is read at every quarterly review. The kill criterion is the row that gets checked.

What to do if a section resists

Resistance	What it means	Where to go
Population is "users" or "graders"	The initiative has no person	Name two real people. If you can't, you do not yet have an initiative — you have a hunch
*Bet has no because* clause**	The mechanism is unspecified — the bet is hope	Why We Build · Initiative Identification
No biggest unvalidated assumption	Either everything is unvalidated (nothing has been thought through) or the team is hiding the risky one	Name the riskiest one. Honest.
Cannot write a kill criterion	The initiative is unkillable, which means it is unfalsifiable, which means it is not a bet	After We Build · The Portfolio
Success signal is one metric across all cycles	The bet has no theory of change across cycles	Write 2–4 signals — one per cycle. They should compound.

Initiative Brief template ​

Worked example — Grading Initiative ​

Where this lives in your project ​

What to do if a section resists ​

See also ​

Initiative Brief template

Worked example — Grading Initiative

Where this lives in your project

What to do if a section resists

See also