There are many elements to running a successful kickoff meeting. I’ve tried to capture those key elements that in my experience make the meeting a success.
No surprises – how to preach to the choir
The first element that I can’t emphasize enough is, “No surprises”. There is nothing that can derail your agenda faster than having a project sponsor or stakeholder start asking questions because some element of the meeting or project doesn’t fit within their expectations.
Key project members, especially project sponsors and stakeholders, should already know details. For the most part, you should be preaching to the choir. There will usually be a few project members that weren’t involved in every stage of the process up to now but making every effort to proactively minimize surprise is in everyone’s best interest.
The Kickoff Agenda – don’t get derailed
It is always advisable, for any scheduled meeting, to have an agenda. It is particularly important at a kickoff meeting as it lets all participants know what will be covered during the kickoff. I’m sure you’ve been in more than one meeting where a participant starts asking questions if a particular topic will be covered in the meeting, even before the meeting has started. Your agenda is one tool to keep these types of questions to a minimum and keep your meeting on track.
Following the theme of no surprises it is a good idea to review the agenda with key meeting participants before the kickoff begins.
The detailed topic areas below are a great start to your kickoff meeting agenda:
Introductions
After a quick review of the kickoff meeting agenda I always go around the room and have everyone do introductions. In a small company this may not carry the same weight as it does in a large organization but is important none the less.
Introductions carry special weight in larger organizations because teams and team members may work in different divisions or work groups that have little or no exposure to each other. This is the perfect opportunity to “break the social ice”. Putting a face with a name always makes communication easier and more meaningful.
The following project roles need special emphasis as they are key members of the project team:
• Sponsors
• Stakeholders
• Client Project Team
• Vendor Project Team(s)
Project Review
The review is the meat and potatoes of the kickoff meeting. Below are the topics that I usually cover during the project review:
Overall Project Approach – Goals, goals, goals
For many project team members this may their first exposure to the project. As the project manager, hopefully, you have been working closely with the project sponsor and stakeholders so you have already begun to take for granted many of the project elements. Don’t assume this is the case for your project team(s).
Here are three important questions you must answer for your team. What is the project about (goals)? Why is this project important to the business (goals)? How is the team going to “get to done” (goals)?
Deliverables
After explaining the project approach, reviewing the project deliverables gives the project team a clear idea on what they are expected to produce during the duration of the project. Having a clear list of deliverables makes it much easier for the team to envision when the deliverables are due based on the milestone schedule that you will present next. Finally, an understanding of the deliverables helps the team understand their roles and responsibilities.
Milestone schedule
A milestone schedule is something that everyone can use to see clear interim project goals. Project sponsors and stakeholders can read project status reports; compare the reports against the milestone schedule to quickly determine if the project is in need of additional resources or guidance when they see unexpected deviation at the milestone level.
I don't recommend presenting a detailed schedule during the kickoff meeting unless it is specifically requested. A detailed schedule invites detailed questions which can quickly derail your agenda and make the kickoff run long
Most sponsors and stakeholders aren’t interested in the nitty, gritty day to day details of the project. It is always helpful to have a detailed project plan you can “flash” to the sponsors, letting them know that you will be reviewing it in detail with the project team members. This also helps put your project team at ease, knowing that there is a plan in place for them to be successful.
Roles
Like introductions, if you have a small team that has worked closely together, roles may be inherently obvious. When working with larger project teams across multiple divisions setting clear role expectations is very important. If each of the project teams and team members don’t clearly understand their role in the project, communication issues and late deliverables may quickly become the leading conversation in your regular status meetings. This then becomes an issue that is escalated project sponsors and stakeholders. Why not just avoid the issue altogether by ensuring that everyone understands their role in the project
Responsibilities
Similar to roles, clear ownership of responsibilities will reduce the quantity of late deliverables and provide some level of assurance that teams aren’t stepping on one another’s toes or unknowingly letting tasks fall through the cracks. Nothing erodes a project team’s self-confidence as quickly as when one member of the team says to another, “I thought you were going to do that!?” This can be a clear sign of weak leadership on your part as the PM or that there is a lack of communication among team members.
The Communication Plan
Naturally a strong communication plan is a tool used to facilitate regular communication between all levels of the team, stakeholders, sponsors and the end customer.
A great communication plan will never replace a face to face, looking you in the eye meeting. A sign of poor communication skills within your team is their desire to regularly send email rather than make a phone call, or make a phone call when they can walk 20 feet and have a face to face “full bandwidth” conversation.
Make sure your communications plan clearly outlines the following:
• What is to be communicated? (Status, issues, etc)
• To whom it should be communicated? (Sponsors, Team Member(s), etc)
• How often the communication should occur? (Daily, weekly, monthly, etc)
• What medium will be used for the communication? (Email, standup meeting, telephone, etc)
• Who is responsible to see that the communication meets the requirements above?
Project In/Out Scope List
Spend time in the kickoff meeting to review what is in and out of scope for the project. While I always hope for no surprises, here is invariably where you discover there at least a few team members who haven’t read this documentation on their own.
It is much easier to set (or reset) expectations at this point in the project rather than when you’ve completed 50% of the work only to find that some of the team members are off target or working on unplanned tasks because the “thought it was in scope”.
Assumptions
Follow-up your project scope review with a review of the assumptions made by the project. In my experience, there are even more project members that have not read the assumptions than there are those who weren’t fully aware of the project scope. Many times not even the project sponsors and stakeholders have reviewed the project charter/SOW to this level of detail.
I go as far as reading out loud all the assumptions listed in the project charter or statement of work. Leave no reason for an excuse later that they weren’t aware of the assumptions.
Again, if you are going to have any surprises, better to have them now than when you're midway through the project.
Q & A
By now your audience is probably growing a little restless and ready to get back to work. To keep attendees engaged I generally invite questions during the kickoff meeting as the meeting is in progress.
If the questions are off topic, I try and push them off into the Q&A session, where they many times are forgotten. Since they weren't the focus of the kickoff meeting not much is lost and you can save a lot valuable meeting time.
If a question is on topic, but a one that required a detailed technical reply, this is a great time to address it, preferably letting an SME provide the answer. Pushing the question into the Q&A portion of the kickoff meeting also provides a little thinking time for your SME to formulate the best answer.
Next Steps
Review Action Items
At the conclusion of any meeting it is always desirable to review action items to ensure that the responsible party is both understands the action and is prepared to deliver to a specific timeline.
In a kickoff meeting this allows the project sponsor and stakeholders to have a clear confirmation that the project team is engaged and understands the immediate next steps.
In preparation for the kickoff meeting it is good to set expectations with the project sponsor such that if they don’t feel the team is engaged nor has the necessary traction that they can speak to the team as a whole and reset the tone of the project.
Publish meeting minutes
Publishing after meeting minutes is a great way to connect with the meeting attendees. The human mind is forgetful so if at all possible send out the minutes the same day as your meeting, if not definitely do it the next business day.
Include a list of action items that came out of the meeting, including the next steps that you reviewed.
Summary
Project kickoff meetings are more than just a feel good, meet and greet. It is your first opportunity to set expectations across the entire project team, crack the ice that can inhibit team communication and ensure that your sponsor and stakeholders will understand the project goals, deliverables and schedule milestones thereby helping the project team be successful.
By following the steps outlined above I’m sure that your next project will be kicked off to a great start!