Top tips for project kick-offs — your last safety net! Part 3 of 4
Alright, it’s time to give it a go! You’ve prepared yourself for the kick-off meeting and set the agenda to all participants (if you missed Part 2, check it out here). Let’s kick things off!
This meeting would probably be the first time some team members will be meeting each other so make sure to use a camera if it’s an online call. It’s more personal and will have positive impact on your relationship.
The Intro
As the Project Manager or the facilitator of the meeting, you should not forget to spend some time for everyone to introduce themselves. I’ve had meetings where this small step was rushed and later in the meeting out of the blue we had someone speaking and some of the others didn’t even knew the guy — it’s quite confusing and not the proper way to start a conversation.
Why are we here
Surely, the short answer would be “to kick-off the project.” but you have to put some high-level context into that. The purpose of this part of the meeting is to set the stage for going into details later and again will validate your understanding with the others.
What I’m generally starting with is how much time we have for this meeting and I’m asking everyone if their timeline is flexible in case we haven’t gone through the whole agenda in time. Their answer will help me facilitate the meeting forward. For example if the end time is firm and we are spending more time on one topic than planned, we might have to compensate with another. Second, I go through the agenda and time-boxes for every topic. Again, quick validation if we’re not missing something major. Third, I make sure that the goal of the meeting is clear.
Here is the list with things I go through next:
- The big picture — ask the client to explain how they got the idea for this project in the first place. In some cases, we might already know the answer from the project brief we read, but putting a reason behind something that we’re doing, let’s say to help someone, other than just making money, is a great motivator for the team, especially when it comes from the client. I recently read an interesting article from Sandeep Kashyap on the importance of giving purpose to your team;
- Business Goals and User Goals — ask the client what their business goals are and of course if they are willing to share them. Whats in it for the users? We have to understand how the project we’re doing is supposed to benefit its users. If it’s an app we’re building that would be used by end-users, it might be that the goal is to have a great UX and UI, etc. But if it’s an ERP for example that it intended for internal use, then it would have a direct impact only on the employees of the company, and the goal might be to reduce claims management processing time with 50% or to increase visibility and provide a comprehensive dashboard with KPIs for management. Clearing this point would give us more understanding of what a successful project would look like for the client;
Whats in Scope?
After we make sure we all know the context of the project and why there is a need for it, we have to clear what we are going to deliver. We’ll not only have to go through what was agreed upon, but also to discuss the big unknowns and potential risks.
Scope of Work
I’ve seen project, where the scope of work only includes the functional parts of the project, but what about the non-functional? This is actually pretty important to clear in the sales phase but if it was missed for some reason, now is the time to do that — again, “your last safety net.” An example for non-functional would be infrastructure requirements, browser compatibility, design responsiveness, supported devices, etc.
The Big Unknowns
In every project, we have a lot of unknowns throughout the project. Some of them will be initial ones, some of them will arise later on. Whatever unknowns we have before the start, is good to be brought up as soon as possible. Not that you cannot do this later, but the kick-off meeting is a great place to do so as all or most of the team will be there. I advise you not to go into details (unless absolutely necessary) at this stage because whatever the unknown, it might not be relevant to the whole audience. Remember, we want to keep them engaged as much as possible. Just state what is unknown are that you’ll follow-up after the meeting. If it can be cleared really quick, then OK.
An example would be the development environment. If the development team is distributed, you have to sync on how they’ll organise their work. Another would be, hosting plans, any licenses needed, SSL certificates, etc.
Potential Risks and Mitigation Plan
Back to the stage before the kick-off meeting when you should have spent time for preparation and conduct a risk analysis plus mitigation plan, now is the time to bring it up so everyone are aware. Make sure that the client is aware of the risks you’ve found, their impact on the project and mitigation plan you came up with. Let the client share his thoughts on the subject.
The sooner you bring up risks, the better. If there was a relatively obvious risk and you haven’t communicated it with the client upfront, even if you manage to assess the situation, your relationship will suffer.
Decide what risks to communicate with the client and what not. For example, if the risk is with a small impact for the project and it’s more of an internal thing within the your team, maybe it’s not needed to bring it up now, but later when you have an internal meeting. But if the risk concerns the client and might have a high impact on the project, then definitely raise it as soon as possible. Here is a great article on Risk Management from TimeCamp.
With that, I’ll see you in the next bit, where I write about how we’re going to achieve the end goal, what the timeline is and define next steps.
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