Running a small project without the paperwork

Background

Not every piece of work needs a project office, a charter and a risk register. But the opposite is just as common: a piece of work that matters, with three people involved and nothing written down. A month later, nobody agrees what was promised.

For anything that takes more than a couple of weeks or involves more than one person, a bit of structure pays for itself. This guide is the smallest version of that structure. It's three pieces of paper, and none of them is long.

Setup

Piece one: the one-page brief

Write it before you start, and get the person who asked for the work to read it.

• The problem. What's going wrong now, for whom, in a sentence or two.
• What good looks like. The result, not the activity. "Staff can book a room without emailing anyone."
• What's out. Things someone might expect that you're not doing.
• Who's involved. The person who decides, the person doing it, anyone who has to be told.
• The deadline, and why. If there isn't a real reason, say so.
• What could go wrong. Three things, and what you'd do about each.

The "what's out" section prevents most arguments later, so spend a few minutes on it. When something new gets asked for halfway through, checking it against the original goal is how you spot scope creep before anyone signs.

Piece two: the weekly update

Five lines, sent on the same day each week, to the same people:

1. Done this week
2. Planned next week
3. Blocked or at risk (and what you need from whom)
4. Decisions needed
5. Status: on track, at risk, or off track. With a sentence on why.

If the update says "on track" and the evidence isn't there, that's the thing to check. There's a related approach in rolling several updates into one page.

Piece three: the finish

Decide at the start how you'll know you're done. A short checklist is plenty:

• The result in the brief has been checked by the person who asked.
• Anything people need to do differently has been told to them.
• Documents are in one agreed place, with an owner.
• Something's been written about what you'd do differently.

The last one is the one that gets skipped. Twenty minutes with the team, three questions: what went well, what didn't, what would we change? Write down the actions with an owner and a date.

Using AI to write the brief

I'm starting a small project. Ask me up to six questions, one at a time,
to build a one-page project brief: problem, what good looks like, what's
out of scope, who's involved, deadline, and risks. When you've got what
you need, write the brief in plain English. Anything I didn't tell you,
mark [TO CONFIRM].

See also asking it to question you first, and running a pre-mortem once the brief is done.