Where does the creative-direction brief sit in a scrum framework?

Above the epic and below the product vision. The brief produced by the creative-direction skill is the artifact that turns vision into structured constraints (tone, aesthetic, relationship, sensory) the team can act on. The brief gets attached to the epic that contains the work it scopes, becomes part of definition of done, and gets re-read at sprint review to grade direction adherence.

Does this work in Kanban or only Scrum?

Both. The patterns are framed in scrum vocabulary (epic, story, definition of done, sprint review) because that is the most common shape, but Kanban teams substitute their own units (work item, ready column, completed column, retrospective) and the integration still works. The boundary object is the brief, not the ceremony name.

What is the most common failure of this integration?

The brief becomes a write-once document. The team produces it during the discovery sprint, attaches it to the epic, then nobody re-reads it during refinement, planning, or review. Six weeks in, the team is shipping competent stories that drift away from the original direction. The fix is operational: definition of done has to reference the brief explicitly, sprint review has to grade direction adherence, and refinement has to allow stories to be rejected for breaking the brief.

Do I need RampStack to use these patterns?

No. The patterns work whether the brief was generated by Claude using the open-source creative-direction skill or written by hand using the same four-axis format. The integration assumes the brief exists; it does not assume how it got produced. Teams already running discovery sprints can adopt the framework by translating their existing direction documents to the four-axis format.

Integration · Agile sprints

Creative direction in agile sprints.

Discovery to brief to epic to stories to definition of done. Sprint review grades direction adherence, not just story-completion.

The brief is the artifact every story under the epic answers to. Discovery produces it. Planning attaches it. Refinement rejects work that breaks it. Definition of done names it. Sprint review re-reads it. Where the brief gets dropped at any of those steps, drift starts. This page ships the operational patterns that keep the brief load-bearing across the sprint.

The shape

The brief flowing through a sprint.

The brief enters at discovery and stays present at every ceremony that follows. Planning consults it to scope stories. Refinement consults it to gate stories. Daily standup does not consult it (the daily is for execution detail). Review consults it to grade direction. The brief that gets dropped between discovery and planning is the most common failure; the brief that gets dropped between planning and review is the second most common.

Discovery produces the brief. Planning attaches it. Refinement gates against it. Review grades it. Retrospective is where drift surfaces if the earlier gates failed.

The mapping

Brief artifacts to scrum primitives.

The mapping below holds across whatever tracker the team is on. The Jira and Linear pages translate this same mapping into platform-specific primitives. The shape is identical; the names differ.

Brief artifact	Scrum primitive	Where it lives
Synthesis paragraph	Epic description	Top of the epic doc
Tone axis position	Acceptance criterion on every story	Story template
Aesthetic axis position	Acceptance criterion on design stories	Story template
Relationship axis position	Acceptance criterion on copy stories	Story template
Sensory axis position	Acceptance criterion on sequence stories	Story template
Rejection list	“Won't do” criteria on the epic	Refinement gate
Inspiration references	Epic linked resources	Epic body
Open questions	Spike stories	First sprint of the epic

The rejection list is the most-used part of the mapping once the team is in flight. During refinement, the gate question is does this story break anything in the rejection list? If it does, the story either gets rewritten until it answers the brief or gets cut. The rejection list is what prevents the brief from being a wishlist that quietly accumulates exceptions until the brief no longer describes the work.

Templates

Copy these into the team's playbook.

Four templates that operationalize the integration. Adapt the wording to the team's register; keep the structure.

Definition of done (epic-scoped)

Add the brief-alignment line to the team's standard definition of done. This is the operational gate that prevents drift.

Definition of done (epic [PROJ-NNN])

Code
  - Tests pass on CI
  - Reviewed by at least one engineer not on the story
  - Deployed to staging without regression in monitoring

Direction
  - Story output answers the brief on every relevant axis
  - Nothing in the rejection list is reintroduced
  - If the story changed direction, the brief was updated first

Documentation
  - Storybook story or design file updated
  - Brief link present in the story or PR description

Story template

Replace the team's standard story template with the version below. The axis line is the load-bearing one; without it, stories drift.

Title: [outcome-focused, no implementation detail]

Epic: [PROJ-NNN]
Brief: [link to the BRIEF.md or epic anchor]

As a [role]
I want [outcome]
So that [downstream effect]

Acceptance criteria
  - Visible behavior: [the user-facing change]
  - Direction: answers the brief on the [axis] axis
    by [specific manifestation, e.g., "using Considered
    sensory pacing in the empty-state copy"]
  - Quality: [tests, accessibility, performance floor]

Out of scope (rejection list excerpt)
  - [paste the relevant lines from the brief's
    rejection list, even if just one]

Sprint review prompt

The sprint review traditionally grades execution (did the demo work, did the story complete). The brief-aware sprint review adds direction grading. The prompt below replaces the team's default review opening.

Sprint review opening (5 minutes)

Re-read the brief synthesis and rejection list aloud.

For each demoed story, ask in this order:

1. Did the work ship? (binary)
2. Does it answer the brief on the relevant axes?
   - Tone: yes / no / partial
   - Aesthetic: yes / no / partial / not applicable
   - Relationship: yes / no / partial / not applicable
   - Sensory: yes / no / partial / not applicable
3. Did anything in the rejection list get reintroduced?
4. If "partial" or "no" anywhere: what would close the gap?

Output: a one-line direction grade per story, surfaced
to the retrospective if the grade is below "yes" on any
axis.

Discovery sprint outline

A 5-day outline for the sprint that produces the brief. Day 5 is non-negotiable: the brief either ships or the next sprint cannot start.

Day 1  Audience and category research
       Output: notes on what the audience already gets
       too much of and too little of in the category.

Day 2  Reference walk
       Output: 2 to 4 reference brands with one-sentence
       notes on what specifically resonates.

Day 3  Axis selection workshop
       Output: a position on each of the four axes,
       with a one-sentence rationale per choice.

Day 4  Synthesis and rejection list
       Output: synthesis paragraph (present tense), the
       rejection list (specific phrasings, structures,
       and visual moves the brief excludes).

Day 5  Brief sign-off
       Output: BRIEF.md committed to the project repo,
       linked from the parent epic, distributed to every
       story author who will draw from it next sprint.

Failure modes

Where this integration goes wrong.

The brief becomes a write-once document. Discovery produces it, the team posts it in the channel, and that is the last time it gets read. Six weeks in, the work has drifted and no one can say where the drift started. The fix is operational: definition of done has to reference the brief and sprint review has to grade it. If the document is referenced only at ceremony, drift compounds quietly.

Definition of done references the brief in name only. The DoD line says “answers the brief” but no story is ever rejected for failing that line. The gate is decorative. Pick a recent shipped story at random; if it would have failed an honest brief grade, the DoD line was decorative. The fix is to actually fail stories at acceptance until the team learns the rule is real.

Stories created without epic linkage drift. Someone files a quick story, forgets to set the epic link, and the story enters the next sprint without ever being graded against the brief. Tracker hygiene fixes this: required field on the epic link, automation that flags issues without an epic, refinement gate that catches the rest.

Sprint review grades execution but not direction. The team demos working software, the stakeholders applaud, no one asks whether the work answered the brief. This is the most common failure because it feels good in the room. The fix is the review prompt above: re-read the brief aloud first, then grade.

Composition

Which skills feed this integration.

The discovery sprint runs the creative-direction skill to produce the brief. Downstream sprints then run brand-voice to operationalize the tone position, brand-identity to operationalize the aesthetic and sensory positions, and landing-page-copy for conversion-focused work that consumes both. The dependency chain is explicit: each skill consumes the upstream artifact; each artifact is referenced by the downstream one.

Continue reading.

Frequently asked questions.

Where does the creative-direction brief sit in a scrum framework?: Above the epic and below the product vision. The brief produced by the creative-direction skill is the artifact that turns vision into structured constraints (tone, aesthetic, relationship, sensory) the team can act on. The brief gets attached to the epic that contains the work it scopes, becomes part of definition of done, and gets re-read at sprint review to grade direction adherence.
Does this work in Kanban or only Scrum?: Both. The patterns are framed in scrum vocabulary (epic, story, definition of done, sprint review) because that is the most common shape, but Kanban teams substitute their own units (work item, ready column, completed column, retrospective) and the integration still works. The boundary object is the brief, not the ceremony name.
What is the most common failure of this integration?: The brief becomes a write-once document. The team produces it during the discovery sprint, attaches it to the epic, then nobody re-reads it during refinement, planning, or review. Six weeks in, the team is shipping competent stories that drift away from the original direction. The fix is operational: definition of done has to reference the brief explicitly, sprint review has to grade direction adherence, and refinement has to allow stories to be rejected for breaking the brief.
Do I need RampStack to use these patterns?: No. The patterns work whether the brief was generated by Claude using the open-source creative-direction skill or written by hand using the same four-axis format. The integration assumes the brief exists; it does not assume how it got produced. Teams already running discovery sprints can adopt the framework by translating their existing direction documents to the four-axis format.