Tool Foundation Sprint Brief

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Foundation Sprint Brief

Produce the one-page brief that aligns the team on scope, decision target, participants, logistics, and success criteria before Day 1 begins. A well-built brief prevents Day 1 from opening with re-litigation of why-are-we-here; a missing or vague brief almost guarantees it.

Family contract: `docs/reference/skill-families/foundation-sprint-skills-contract.md`. This skill is a member of foundation-sprint-skills.

When to Use

• The readiness verdict from tool-foundation-sprint-readiness is Go (or Conditional Go with preconditions cleared).
• The sprint has dates blocked on calendars and you need the artifact that names what the sprint is for.
• The team has prep activities scheduled and you need a written reference for what to bring.
• A skeptical exec wants to know "what is the team doing for two days?" and you need an answer that fits on one page.

When NOT to Use

• The sprint has already started. The brief is a prep artifact, not an in-sprint deliverable. If Day 1 is happening, run tool-foundation-sprint-basics instead.
• The readiness verdict is Wait. The brief cannot fix an unready team; close the preconditions first, then re-run readiness, then invoke this skill.
• The team wants a strategy document. The brief is internal prep, not a stakeholder deliverable. If a stakeholder document is needed, that is a downstream artifact.
• The brief threatens to become a multi-page strategic document. Stop and reframe: the canonical brief is one page.

What This Skill Produces

A single bundled artifact with six sections:

1. Initiative statement and stakes: one paragraph naming what the team is sprinting on and why a wrong direction would be costly. 2. Decision the sprint must unlock: the open strategic question the sprint resolves. Single sentence. 3. Team roster with role assignments: who is in the room and what role each person plays per section of the sprint. 4. Logistics plan: dates, hours, location, format (in-person, remote, hybrid), tools, daily rhythm. 5. Existing inputs to bring: the research, customer examples, competitor notes, metrics, and constraints the team should reference during the sprint. 6. Readiness reaffirmation: a final check that the Go verdict from tool-foundation-sprint-readiness still holds.

See references/TEMPLATE.md for the canonical structure and references/EXAMPLE.md for the Brainshelf book-catalog brief.

Inference Inputs

Brief Length Discipline

The brief MUST fit on one page (or one screen). The skill enforces this through structural choices, not raw character counts:

• Initiative Statement: one paragraph, four sentences maximum.
• Decision the sprint must unlock: one sentence.
• Team Roster: table with one row per person.
• Logistics: table.
• Inputs to Bring: bulleted list, five items maximum.
• Readiness Reaffirmation: checklist.

If the brief expands beyond this scope, the sprint is being over-engineered before it starts. The fix is not a longer brief; the fix is a clearer decision target.

Common Pitfalls

• Over-engineering the brief. The brief is a prep artifact, not a strategy doc. If it has an executive summary, an appendix, or a "background" section longer than one paragraph, it has drifted.
• Treating the brief as a deliverable to stakeholders. Stakeholders do not read the brief; they read the Founding Hypothesis at the end. The brief is for the team. Sharing it publicly invites pre-sprint debate, which the sprint is supposed to resolve.
• Vague decision target. "We will figure out our strategy" is not a decision. "We will commit to a top bet between [option A] and [option B]" is.
• Logistics drift. "We'll figure out dates" or "we'll meet hybrid sometimes" telegraphs that the team has not actually committed to the sprint. Either dates and format are locked, or the readiness verdict was wrong.
• Skipping readiness reaffirmation. The readiness verdict was a snapshot. If a precondition has slipped or the Decider's availability has changed since readiness, the brief needs to surface that, not paper over it.

Canonical Sources

• Character Capital. "Foundation Sprint guide." Section on pre-sprint preparation and team scoping.
• Knapp, J., and Zeratsky, J. Click: How to Make What People Want. Pre-sprint prep recommendations.
• pm-skills foundation-meeting-brief precedent: brief-structure pattern adapted for the strategic context of a Foundation Sprint rather than a meeting.

Cross-Skill Usage

Prerequisites: tool-foundation-sprint-readiness. The brief expects the readiness output as its primary input. When prerequisites is honored, the brief inherits the readiness verdict, attendee recommendations, and pre-sprint activities; the skill then refines and commits them.

If the team has done equivalent prep without running the readiness skill explicitly (e.g., experienced sprint facilitator who knows the readiness criteria), the brief skill can be invoked directly. In that case, the skill body prompts the team to confirm the readiness criteria are met before generating the brief.

Next invocation in the sprint: tool-foundation-sprint-basics on Day 1 morning.

Decider Checkpoint

This skill ends with a Decider Checkpoint in references/TEMPLATE.md. The Decider signs off on scope (the decision target), team (the roster and role assignments), success criteria (what makes the sprint successful or not), and the explicit tradeoff that the sprint will force a top bet rather than preserve all directions. Without sign-off, the brief is advisory; with sign-off, it is the contract for the next two days.

Foundation Sprint Brief: Brainshelf

A worked brief for the Brainshelf founding team, following a Go verdict from tool-foundation-sprint-readiness with one yellow flag (competitor research, closed via May 12 evening prep).

Initiative Statement and Stakes

Brainshelf is a pre-seed B2C product for readers who want a better way to track what they have read and what they want to read next. The founding team is preparing for a friends-and-family raise in Q3 2026. Wrong product direction now could mean rebuilding the core experience post-raise, burning runway, and weakening the case to seed investors. The sprint exists because the team is divided on a load-bearing strategic call (individual collectors vs social readers) and needs to commit before MVP scoping.

Decision the Sprint Must Unlock

Should Brainshelf optimize first for individual collectors (private library tracking, personal recall, low social friction) or for social readers (community feeds, recommendations, book clubs, public profiles)?

Sprint Logistics

Team Roster

No cameo experts. The team is the team.

Existing Inputs to Bring

1. 22-interview synthesis (Riley). Themes already clustered; printed copies for Day 1 morning reference. 2. One-page competitor cards (Riley). Goodreads, StoryGraph, Bookly, LibraryThing, compiled May 12 evening per readiness precondition. 3. Discord notes on reader frustrations (Riley). Anonymized from her 12k-member book-blogger network. 4. Pre-seed pitch deck draft (Jamie). Context only, not for input. 5. Brand and visual sketches (Alex). For Day 1 PM differentiation context only.

Success Criteria

The sprint is successful if:

1. By end of Day 2, the team ratifies a single Founding Hypothesis using the canonical "If we help X solve Y with Z..." template. 2. The Hypothesis is specific enough to translate into a Design Sprint challenge. 3. The Hypothesis Scorecard identifies the highest-risk assumption (the one the Design Sprint should test first). 4. The team has a documented backup plan (the runner-up approach) if the top bet invalidates.

The sprint is unsuccessful if any of the above is missing or if the team ratifies a hypothesis that is structurally too vague to test ("we will build a great book app for readers" is not testable).

Readiness Reaffirmation

The Go verdict from tool-foundation-sprint-readiness (2026-05-12) remains in effect.

• [x] Decider availability still confirmed for both days (Jamie).
• [x] Preconditions closed: Riley completed the competitor one-pagers on the evening of May 12 as planned.
• [x] No new risk factors have surfaced.
• [x] Conditional Go yellow flag (competitor research) is now closed.

Decider Checkpoint

Decider sign-off required before Day 1 begins.

• [x] Jamie confirms scope: a single Founding Hypothesis is the deliverable.
• [x] Jamie confirms team and attendance windows.
• [x] Jamie confirms success criteria (testable hypothesis ratified by end of Day 2 with scorecard and backup plan).
• [x] Jamie acknowledges that the team will NOT preserve both individual-collector and social-reader paths at the end of Day 2; one becomes the top bet, the other becomes the backup or is dropped.
• [x] Jamie commits to attending the Day 2 closing session.

Signed: Jamie (founder, PM), 2026-05-12 21:30 PT

Foundation Sprint Brief: [Initiative name]

<!-- One-page pre-sprint artifact. The team and Decider sign off on this as the contract for the next two days. -->

Initiative Statement and Stakes

[One paragraph. Four sentences max. What is the team sprinting on? Why does the direction matter? What would a wrong direction cost?]

Decision the Sprint Must Unlock

[Single sentence framing the open strategic question the sprint resolves. State it as a binary or bounded choice: "X vs Y," "which of [list]," "should we commit to [direction] or its alternative."]

Sprint Logistics

Team Roster

[Cameo experts, if any, listed separately with the specific section they attend.]

Existing Inputs to Bring

[Bulleted list, 5 items maximum. Each item names the artifact and who owns bringing it.]

1. [Artifact] ([Owner]). [What it is; why it matters in the sprint.] 2. [Artifact] ([Owner]). [...] 3. [Artifact] ([Owner]). [...] 4. [Artifact] ([Owner]). [...] 5. [Artifact] ([Owner]). [...]

Success Criteria

The sprint is successful if:

1. [Outcome 1, named in observable terms.] 2. [Outcome 2.] 3. [Outcome 3.] 4. [Outcome 4.]

The sprint is unsuccessful if [the explicit failure conditions: missing output, ratified hypothesis that is not testable, or scope drift].

Readiness Reaffirmation

[The Go verdict from tool-foundation-sprint-readiness was issued on [date]. Has anything changed since?]

• [ ] Decider availability still confirmed for both days.
• [ ] Preconditions from the readiness assessment (if any) are closed.
• [ ] No new risk factors have surfaced (e.g., key team member out, scope creep).
• [ ] If Conditional Go: the named yellow flags have been addressed.

If any box is unchecked, the brief is incomplete; close the gap or postpone the sprint before proceeding to Day 1.

Decider Checkpoint

Decider sign-off required before Day 1 begins.

• [ ] Decider confirms scope: the named Decision the sprint must unlock is the deliverable.
• [ ] Decider confirms team roster and attendance windows.
• [ ] Decider confirms success criteria.
• [ ] Decider acknowledges that the sprint will NOT preserve all directions at the end of Day 2; one becomes the top bet, the other becomes the backup or is dropped.
• [ ] Decider commits to attending the Day 2 closing session where the Founding Hypothesis is ratified.

Signed: [Decider name, role], [ISO date and local time]