Most training briefs I read are too short, too vague, and ask all the wrong things. The vendor ends up guessing, the proposal comes back generic, and the HR team concludes the vendor isn’t right — when really, the brief was the problem.
I’ve been on both sides of this. I’ve written briefs as a buyer and received them as a trainer. The difference between a brief that attracts a tailored, useful proposal and one that generates five interchangeable PDFs isn’t complicated. It’s just that nobody teaches HR teams how to write them.
Here’s what works.
Why Most Training Briefs Fail Before the Vendor Even Opens Them
The most common mistake is treating the brief like an admin task. You want to get it out fast, so you write three bullet points, attach a rough headcount, and hit send.
The vendor receives it, has ten questions they’d love to ask, but doesn’t want to look difficult — so they write a proposal based on assumptions. You receive something that feels templated. Both sides are frustrated.
The second mistake is describing what you want to do rather than what you need to change. “We need a leadership workshop” tells a vendor almost nothing. “We’ve promoted eight people into management roles in the last year and none of them have managed people before — we’re seeing stress, miscommunication, and one person has already resigned from a direct report” tells them everything.
The brief isn’t a form to fill in. It’s a conversation starter. The more honest and specific you make it, the better your proposals will be.
The Six Elements of a Brief That Gets Results
- The Business Context
Don’t start with the training. Start with what’s happening in the business. Is the company growing fast? Going through a restructure? Launching into a new market? Just acquired another team?
Training that’s disconnected from business context rarely lands well. A good vendor will want to know what’s driving the need — give them that before you describe what you think you need.
- The Problem, In Plain Language
What’s actually going wrong — or what do you want to go right that isn’t happening now? Be specific. “We want to improve leadership” is not a problem statement. “Our managers default to doing the work themselves instead of delegating, and it’s creating bottlenecks” is.
If you’re not sure how to articulate it, think about the complaints you hear most often, the feedback from exit interviews, or the patterns in performance reviews. That’s your problem statement.
- The Audience
Who will be in the room? Not just the job titles — the context matters. Are these people who’ve been in the business for years and know each other well, or a mix of new hires and legacy staff? Is this a global team joining virtually from different countries, or one location, in-person?
A good vendor designs differently for a group of 12 first-time managers in Hong Kong than for 40 mid-level leaders across Singapore, HK, and Tokyo. Give them what they need to make that call.
- What You Want People to Do Differently
This is the most important part and the most consistently missing. What does success look like in behaviour, not in feelings? Not “we want people to feel more confident” — but “we want managers to give direct feedback in their one-on-ones instead of avoiding it.” Not “we want better teamwork” — but “we want teams to surface problems early rather than hiding them until they become crises.”
Outcome statements like this are what allow a vendor to design something that actually gets measured.
- Logistics
Format (in-person, virtual, hybrid), duration, location if relevant, language, dates or flexibility, and headcount. Keep this section short — it’s important but not where the magic is.
- Budget Range
I know many HR teams are uncomfortable sharing budget. Don’t be. A vendor who receives a budget range will design something appropriate for it. A vendor who doesn’t know your budget will either over-engineer an expensive solution you can’t afford, or under-pitch to play it safe. Either way you lose.
You don’t need to share an exact number. “We’re working with a budget of HK$40,000–60,000 for this programme” gives a vendor enough to work with and filters out providers who aren’t the right fit anyway.
A Section Worth Including That Most Briefs Skip
Tell the vendor what has and hasn’t worked before. If you’ve run something similar and it fell flat, say why you think it did. If people are cynical about training programmes, say that. If there’s a particular facilitator style that tends to work (or not work) with your team, share it.
This context takes two minutes to write and saves hours of back-and-forth. It also immediately separates vendors who read your brief carefully from those who are running on autopilot.
How Long Should a Brief Be?
One to two pages is ideal. Long enough to give a vendor real context, short enough that they’ll actually read it properly. If you find yourself writing five pages, you’re probably trying to solve the training problem in the brief rather than leaving room for the vendor to bring their expertise.
What Happens When You Get the Brief Right
When your brief is specific and honest, something changes in the proposals you receive. Vendors stop presenting their off-the-shelf programmes and start proposing things that respond to your actual situation. You have real conversations instead of sales pitches. And you make faster, more confident decisions.
At Growth Academy Asia, we help HR teams structure their brief before we match them with vendors — because a well-written brief gets better matches and better outcomes. If you want to get started, match with a vendor now. Or if you’d like to talk through what you need first, get in touch.
Stuart Harris is co-founder of Growth Academy Asia. He has spent 22 years working with HR teams and training providers across Hong Kong and Asia.
