What Is A Kickoff Meeting?
A project kickoff meeting is an opportunity to meet with the team members and the stakeholders involved in the project. A kickoff meeting is organised only after the project charter is approved, and the project plan is created. In this meeting attendees review the purpose, objective, goals, potential issues, and key tasks of the project. Kickoff meetings include assigning tasks to individuals, and informing the team about the important upcoming deadlines. This provides a chance for team members to ask questions and clarify any doubts. After the kickoff meeting, the whole project team should have shared understanding about the project.
Types Of Kickoff Meetings
There are four types of kickoff meetings, depending on how formal or informal a meeting should be. In general, the contents of all the meetings are mostly same. These are the various types of kickoff meetings:
Internal Meeting
An internal project kickoff meeting is to get the whole project team on the same page. This kind of meeting provides an opportunity for the project team to meet and discuss the project, and ask questions to clear doubts. This kickoff meeting agenda is to discuss the project plan, objectives, scope, timeline, and the tasks done.
Executive Sponsor Kickoff Meeting
When a project has executive sponsors, then higher-level kickoff meetings are organised. This brings all the sponsors together to discuss the project’s purpose and goals. This meeting focuses on the impacts that the project will have on the company’s objectives. This kickoff meeting includes project purpose and objectives to show stakeholders what will be achieved at the end. Here, a high-level version of the executive summary is shared with all the key project information.
External Kickoff Meeting
This type of kickoff meeting is common when working with client projects. The project team and important stakeholders will align on project goals and deliverables during this kickoff meeting. Plan to spend some time during this meeting presenting the project team. Also, agreeing on the frequency of communication between you and your client, and outlining what successful collaboration entails. This meeting includes the project plan, scope, roadmap, stakeholders, and project status report.
Agile Kickoff Meetings
Agile teams host a kickoff meeting to ensure everyone is aligned. They run their projects in sprints. Thus, making sure your Agile team has all they need for a sprint at the project kickoff meeting will allow you to concentrate on continuous improvement throughout sprint planning and sprint retrospective meetings.
What Should A Kickoff Meeting Agenda Include?
Kickoff meetings are crucial before the beginning of the projects. They provide enough background information and data to the project team about upcoming tasks. This helps the team to understand their roles and responsibilities in the project. The Kickoff meeting agenda includes:
Overview
Provide the team members with a brief overview of the project. Tell me what the project is and why are you implementing it. Also, give them an overview of their roles in the project. Do not overload the project team members with excess information.
Introductions
Project team members should know each other well. Provide a description of what each individual will be doing in the project. This will give a clear idea to the whole team on whom to reach when some problem arises.
Project Completion Explanation
This is a quick summary of your strategy for finishing this project. Think about providing a timetable that summarises the various phases of the project that you hope to have completed by particular dates. Describe the team management tool you’ll employ to keep tabs on the progress of the project.
Upcoming Dates
Prepare a calendar to mark the important upcoming dates of the meetings. It should show the deadlines and milestones that need to be achieved in a certain timeline.
Clarification
Just before finishing the meeting, ask employees if they have any queries. Clarify the doubts about the tasks or deadline, if any. This will bring more clarity and avoid confusion.
Discuss Action Items
Discuss the action items and the tasks to be carried out in the next step. Assign tasks to every team member and provide clear deadlines within which they should be completed.
Follow-up Email
Prepare a follow-up email summarising all that was discussed in the meeting. Highlight the action items and deadlines discussed at the meeting. Send this email to all those who attended and also those who were unable to attend the meeting.
10 Steps Of Project Kickoff Meetings
A project manager is responsible to plan and present during the project kickoff meeting. These 10 steps can help to host a successful kickoff meeting:
1. Preparation for the meeting
The first step to host a kickoff meeting is to prepare an invitee list and schedule a time, date, and venue. Create a kickoff meeting agenda in advance and send it to all the team members. Share materials with your meeting agenda so that people can review them and come prepared for the discussion. Make sure to take notes or assign someone to do so during the meeting. It will be useful for those not attending the meeting.
2. Introduction
If this is the first kickoff meeting before starting the project, it is possible that most of the team members don’t know each other. Start the meeting with an introduction of the team members and what they will be responsible for.
3. Discuss the project purpose
The most important thing, to begin with, is the project’s purpose. Discuss with the team members what are they working towards and why this work matters. Explain how this project connects with the company’s goals. This will help to clarify the larger purpose of the project to the team and bring everybody on the same page.
4. Share the detailed project plan
Give the team members a copy of the whole project plan. Review all the specifics, including the schedule, checkpoints, deliverables, client expectations, and other important information.
5. Discussion on the project scope
It is crucial to discuss the project scope to make sure everyone has the same expectations. It is also important to know what is out of scope. Clarifying the project scope, in the beginning, is the best way to prevent the project from delaying. It also helps the team to understand the deliverables of the project.
6. Assign responsibilities
During the kickoff meeting, assign the roles and responsibilities to the team members. Make sure everyone is aware of their tasks and you have assigned them tasks according to their competence levels. Make a list of these workers and include a general description of the duties they will perform for the project.
7. Create deadlines for tasks
Create a list of action items that need to be completed before the next meeting. Then build a timeline for the team members to submit these tasks. Create a meeting schedule as well as regularly monitor the progress of the team members. Make sure that each member has access to all the calendars to remain updated on the status of the project.
8. Choose a team management tool
It’s important that each person remains updated on the progress of the tasks related to the project. Choose a team management tool that allows you to create a section for your project. Here, the progress of each task is visible to all the team members. When all the information is in one place, it is easy for the team to locate project documents quickly and get real-time project updates.
9. Dedicate time for questions
After the whole discussion in the kickoff meeting, someone may have questions about the scope or tasks. Make sure to dedicate some time at the end of every kickoff meeting to answer the questions so that everyone completely understands the project.
10. Post-meeting requirements
After the kickoff meeting is finished, make sure to combine all the notes taken during the meeting. If the meeting was virtual, make sure to share recordings/transcripts with the team members. Finally, assign the action items to the relevant team members and send a recap followup email.
Kickoff Meeting FAQs
What Project Documents Are Created Before The Kickoff Meeting?
A project charter is created and approved before the kickoff meetings. It is then used to prepare a project plan.
Who Attends The Kickoff Meetings?
All the project managers attend the project kickoff meetings. It usually includes the customer implementation manager and finance or accounting department team members. It may also need the presence of DevOps engineers or data scientists.
When Should The Kickoff Meetings Be Held?
Generally, kickoff meetings take place one month after the project approval. These meetings have long brainstorming sessions. Thus, they should not be longer than 90 minutes.
