What is a kick-off meeting?
Kick off meetings serve one purpose.
When should a kickoff meeting be held?
Participants at the kickoff meeting
Invitation to the project kickoff meeting
Your kick-off meeting agenda
Project goals
Scope of the project
Project approach
Roles of project team
Potent roadblocks
Next steps
What length should a kickoffmeeting last?
What to do after the kickoff meeting? Send the minutes
Follow up on your actions
What is a kick-off meeting?
A kick-off meeting is a type planning meeting. It is the first meeting you have as part of a project team.
In reality, you may have an internal meeting to kick off your team and another one with clients when you are ready for them to share project information (and if they have a client).
If you’re working on your own project and aren’t serving an outside client, you will only require one.
The kickoff meeting is an important part of any project. This is your chance set the tone for the project, to create a culture of success and, most importantly, to agree on common goals.
Kick off meetings serve one purpose.
A kickoff meeting has the following objectives:
Set the tone for the meeting.
Set ground rules for working
And, most importantly
You want everyone to have a common understanding about the project.
It’s not rocket science. It’s important to get everyone together so everyone can see the same vision of what’s next and why. You create a shared vision for the project and clarity about the final result.
People should not know what the kickoff meeting is like
What they will be working on (big picture). At this point, you won’t have a detailed list of project tasks.
Why is the project important for the business?
How success looks — what it means to deliver on your promises.
When should a kickoff meeting be held?
The kickoff meeting is one of your first tasks on a project. It’s part project initiation. This is your chance to get the project moving in the right direction and in the right manner from the beginning. It is important to hold it as soon possible.
It can be difficult to get people together. However, it is important that your key resources are able to attend. Even if the business case is not approved yet, you can still book the kick-off meeting.
My experience is that sponsors want to move forward as soon as their business case has been approved. They will call you or come to you to ask when you would like to host a kick-off meeting. They will pressure you to schedule it for tomorrow!
Give people at least 48 hours notice, and preferably a week. This gives you the opportunity to meet with your project sponsor and plan how to conduct the meeting.
You will need to sign the contracts if you plan on inviting external clients to the meeting. This is not sales work. This is the first step in committing time and resources to the job.
Participants at the kickoff meeting
Who should comealong? Participants at the kickoff meeting should include:
You are the project manager. You will chair and facilitate the meeting.
The project sponsor. They should give a brief introduction at the beginning of the meeting to explain their vision and the end goal you are all working towards. They might choose to chair the meeting, e.g. You can open and close the meeting, and you can do most of the facilitation. It doesn’t matter who takes the lead, there are benefits to both.
If you are a business analyst, please add them to your team
Core suppliers — such as the supplier project manager. It should be someone who you will be working with on project delivery.
If you are the product owner
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