Project Kick-off meeting — an overview

Significance of the project kick-off meeting

Executing the project successfully is perhaps the primary goal of every single organization and the reason behind that is very obvious. An organization puts a lot of effort in terms of budget, time and resources in order to execute the projects. These projects are usually aligned with the strategic objectives of an organization and hence successfully completing the project is supercritical for the success of an organization.

That is why as a project team and a project manager it becomes important to make sure that the project begins on a positive note. The project kickoff meeting is the first official gathering of a project team and hence it has a special significance because it creates the first impression about the project and hence a special attention should be paid to make it as effective and successful.

Project and its stakeholders

But before diving into the details of what actually happens in a project kickoff meeting, I want to cover a couple of important terms which will help us to clarify further points down the line. First of all, let us understand what is meant by the project. As per the project management institute or PMI, a project is a temporary endeavor which, when completed, usually produces some kind of a service or some kind of a result for the performing organization.

Developing a mobile application or a website for a pizza delivering company is an example of a project. Similarly, bringing down the CO2 emission from a petrol vehicle in the next 18 months by 10% can also be a project. The important characteristic of the project is it has the start time and end time and it usually generates some kind of a result or a product or a service, when it is successfully done.

Another important term which we have to understand is a term called project stakeholders. The project stakeholders can be an individual or a group of people or it can also be an organization. These project stakeholders can directly influence the outcome of the project. On the other hand, these stakeholders can also be impacted by the outcome of the project. In short, these stakeholders have “stakes” in the project and that is why their opinion as well as their concerns must be taken into consideration when the project is getting executed.

For a successful project, the project team and the project manager should ensure not only the successful completion of the project as per the project timelines and within the budget by completing all the scope of the project but they should ensure that the project stakeholders are happy and satisfied at the end of the project.

And the project kick off meeting can play a very vital role to start this project on a positive note. A well-executed project kickoff meeting can help you to lay the groundwork for a smooth and successful project execution by establishing a common & shared project understanding. This meeting is useful in setting the right expectations with the team and with the stakeholders and it helps prepare the project team to tackle the challenges effectively in future.

Remember that each project will have its own challenges and it is important for the team to form the team bonding and mutual understanding, mutual respect for each other in the early stages of the project and the best place to start building such trust, relationship is the project kickoff meeting.

When to conduct the kick-off meeting?

From my experience, I found that there is no hard and fast rule regarding when to conduct the project kick off meeting but based on my experience I found that most of the organizations conduct the project kickoff meeting typically after the project charter is approved. Some organizations also hold the kickoff meeting after the project planning is completed by the project team. So when to conduct the kickoff meeting is really up to each performing organization and as far as I know there is no hard and fast rule regarding that.

Who should attend the kick-off?

Now that we understand the significance of the project kickoff meeting and when the project team should conduct it, the next step is to know who should be attending the project kickoff meeting.

Well, since one of the major goals of the project kickoff meeting is to build the alignment, inviting all the project stakeholders to kick-off is extremely important. By inviting the project stakeholders to the project kickoff meeting will allow them to get to know each other personally by interacting with each other face to face during the project kickoff meeting. It can foster better communication and this kind of sense of personal community development will help this project team for better collaboration in future throughout the project life cycle.

What to cover during the kick-off meeting?

But you must be wondering, what exactly goes into the project kick-off meeting. Again, to the best of my knowledge and experience, the exact details of what goes in a project kickoff meeting always vary from project to project because as you might imagine, each project is different and unique in its own way, and each project has its own context and the performing organization may have different practices.

Having said that, there are few activities which are found to be common and they are fairly typical in most of the project kickoff meetings. So let us explore those activities which are involved in most of the project kickoff meetings.

1. They say you should always begin with why. So during the project kickoff meeting one of the goals should be to make sure that all the project team members understand why we are executing this project in the first place. It is important to discuss the project’s background, the high level scope of what the project is going to achieve. This clarity is very important for defining the project boundaries and ensuring that the team efforts are directed towards achieving the goals of the project. Clarifying the project information, at least at a high level, can be very useful especially to the junior members of the team who might be executing the project for the first time in their careers or in their life. So it is always helpful to explain the details so that even the most junior member of the team also has the basic understanding about what the project is going to achieve.
2. Many times it can happen in the project that people don’t know whom to reach out to when they face any impediment during the execution of the project. So one of the things where the project kickoff meeting can help is by making sure that all the project stakeholders know each other, they also know the roles and the responsibilities of each other during the kickoff meeting. So for example, if the project team needs to buy the software license during the project execution they probably have to reach out to the procurement department and if the members of the procurement department attend the project kickoff meeting, the project team members will know exactly whom to contact for such purchasing during the project execution.
3. If the project kickoff meeting is happening after the project planning then it is always a good idea to go through the high level project plan with the team. This can help the project team understand some of the upcoming milestones in the project and they will also know when those milestones are approaching in terms of timelines and what are the project work items that need to be completed in order to successfully pass those milestones. This kind of high level understanding of the project plan can be super helpful to avoid any surprises during the project execution.
4. And last but not the least, there has to be some time reserved towards the end of the meeting so that the project team members can ask any clarifying questions. At the end of the kickoff meeting ideally, we want everyone to have a fairly good idea about what the project is and the high level project details such as important milestones, and what is the role of each team member and how the communication is going to happen in the project. If anyone has any doubts in these areas those should be clarified during the later stages of the project kick off meeting.

How to optimize the kick-off meeting?

OK, so now that we know who the audience is for the project kickoff meeting and what typically happens during the project kickoff meeting there are a couple of tidbits that can be applied to make the project kickoff meeting even more efficient.

• One of the things you can do is for the people who are going to attend the project kickoff meeting you can share to them the project brief. A project beef is nothing but a document which can outline the key information about the project such as how much is the project budget, what are the important milestones, who are the key stakeholders and so on. Sharing this project brief before the kickoff meeting will allow the participants with the time to familiarize themselves about the gist of the project and it enables participants to come to the meeting well prepared and based on the information they can ask relevant questions during the project kickoff meeting and clarify if they want something specific. Remember the actual duration of the project kick off meeting will be limited and any new information always takes more time for people to completely consume then just expanding on something which they already know. So by providing this project brief document before the project kickoff meeting will be super helpful for your team to go through the details before the meeting.
• As much as possible try to make the project kickoff meeting as a face to face meeting. During the Covid 19 times, many project teams have been working remotely but if there is one project meeting that you wanted to do face to face it has to be the project kickoff meeting. As mentioned previously, this meeting provides an excellent opportunity to the project team members to know each other and build trusting relationships. Doing it face to face and meeting somebody in person will have a completely different impact than doing or meeting over a zoom or Google meet. So if possible, the project kick off meeting should be held in person.

Conclusion

We all want a successful execution of the project, we all want at the end of the project everyone to be happy that the project team has delivered the project successfully and we all want to begin on the right note.

In this article we covered the details of how to successfully conduct the project kickoff meeting and what all details to be covered while conducting the project click off meeting.