Kickoff meetings

• The_Cat
• January 26, 2022
• Project management
• 1
• 1189

As any normal introduction, I should start by defining the term of “kickoff “and what exactly it means in a project …this kickoff meeting?

It is believed that the term comes from sports, more exactly from soccer and is defined as the official moment match start… You know ….by kicking the ball from center .

Like any respected field of knowledge, project management borrowed this term to define the official start of a project or sometimes for an important project phase.

Although there are many opinions on the kickoff meeting deliverables, you will have an important advantage if the following will be tackled:

1. Organizational structure including main roles and responsibilities
2. Governance structure
3. Overall schedule
4. Main challenges/risks

Despite the deliverables listed above within the kickoff meetings there are activities that one should NOT DO:

1. Work on responsibilities and roles definition
2. Conceive schedule and/or work optimization
3. Define KPI’s, reporting formats and related aspects
4. Perform a risk analysis

Therefore, kickoff meeting it’s not a working meeting and… and you will not have:

1. Brainstorming sessions
2. Debates
3. Focused discussion ending with a long corrective action plan,
4. Definition of required activities, scheduling, optimization of schedule

If you read again the above, you might find yourself a little bit confused because on one side you have some deliverable to be achieved after this meeting while you cannot work on this during the meeting. …so, what is the catch?

If you had any contact until today with an activity that implied organizing something, you observed that a good preparation increases the chances of success or the 6P rule – Prior Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

You, as project manager must do some work prior to the kickoff meeting and, prepare the deliverables already to be validated during the kickoff meeting. It’s like getting the deliverables ready for the meeting 99%.

Coming back to the soccer match, imagine that the team is not defining the rules during kick-off in front of an entire stadium, nor they debate who must be the goalkeeper …

Thus, being said, the kickoff meeting for a project is a meeting organized to formalize, validate the moment of beginning of the project as well as” the actors and the rules of the game” still all the deliverables are prepared in advance.

Until now, I have defined what is a kickoff meeting and what are the deliverables that should be obtained at the end of this meeting but…organizing the kickoff meeting it’s a very sensitive matter. If somebody that has the role of validating the schedule is not present, then obviously the meeting has not achieved its target. Even though the deliverable was presented in full, it was not validated and, the project cannot start without the validated schedule (at least I do not advice to start like this).

There are three elements to consider in organizing this meeting:

1. Who needs to attend?
2. What is their role in the meeting?
3. How to prepare?

The project manager will have to use certain tools in answering the questions above.

To be continued…