Methods, incl. modeling methods, are important for designing innovations. They (should) provide hands-on guidance for creating outcomes in a systematic way using certain techniques. These techniques need to be understood, (correctly) applied, and possibly also selected as well as arranged. Previous research called for more studies on the ‘presentation formats’ supporting these tasks, specifically for practitioners. This is especially relevant for the early stage of innovation projects. Here, business stakeholders with different disciplinary backgrounds engage in collaborative design who are not accustomed to, e.g., formalized notations. For this context, we develop support for understanding, selecting, arranging, and applying modeling techniques. Following the design science research paradigm, we develop the presentation format of a two-page diagram brief. The development of this artifact is informed by the established format of design cards as well as knowledge from research in enterprise modeling and situational method engineering. A brief is centered around one or few closely related diagrams and provides information structured along nine categories which are identical for all briefs. For example, briefs provide outcome creation and usage instructions, excerpts from a stakeholder perspective catalog, and quality criteria. The brief design is demonstrated through 18 briefs for strategy, organization, and high-level information technology design and evaluated with survey data (n = 88). Our research contributes a template for researchers, instructors, and practitioners to support lightweight, collaborative modeling by non-experts (i.e., grass-roots modeling) in the early stage of innovation projects.