Kickoff Meeting: Start Your Project!

A project kickoff meeting is one of the most critical meetings which provides an chance for project teams and stakeholders to set common objectives and start their projects properly. It is an essential tool for communication that can help to run a project smoothly with minimal problems if done in the right way. However, if it is done poorly, it may have negative effects on the project’s success. In this article, we will discuss both internal and external project kickoff meetings and propose a best practice for creating a kickoff meeting agenda.

Table of Contents

What is a Project Kickoff Meeting?

Typically a project kickoff meeting is conducted at the beginning of a new project. It is the first meeting between the project team and stakeholders after the contract has been signed. In general, before starting a project, team members, project manager, project sponsor, high-level project stakeholders, and the client participates in the kickoff meeting to define the base elements.

The purpose of that meeting is to define keystones regarding completing the project successfully. It helps attendants to work in harmony by focusing on what needs to be done, when, and how.

New projects often start in chaotic environments because most of the stakeholders have limited information about the following steps. There might be uncertainties or unclear requirements that may cause risks and deviate the project from the path. That’s why you need to assemble a kickoff meeting to provide an environment in which people can ask questions to clarify unclear points. During the meeting, both the client and the contractor demonstrate their enthusiasm and understandings related to expectations. From this aspect, a project kickoff provides a chance for both parties to understand each other.

What is the Purpose of a Kickoff Meeting?

The outstanding purpose of the project kickoff meeting is that it starts the project work officially.

If the project is small, that meeting is held in the planning process. Most of the project team members who participate in both the planning and the execution phase, attend the meeting. The team members understand the goals, deadlines, deliverables, and challenges of the project.

If the project is large and multiphased, the kickoff meeting takes place before starting each phase and the project team discusses methodologies, assumptions and constraints of each phase.

To sum up, the main purpose is to;

Introduce the project team and stakeholders
Provide a solid understanding of the project goals
Discuss what needs to be done, when and how
Promote communication and collaboration
Minimize potential risks and issues

What are the Benefits?

Holding a kickoff meeting provides many benefits to the project teams. A few of them are below.

Project team members get the chance to know each other.
Gives a project manager the opportunity to show his/her skills and authority.
Ensures that the team members understand the key project objectives, deadlines, and milestones.
Provides clarity with the help of the question and answer session.
Improves communication and collaboration between the parties.

External and Internal Project Kickoff Meeting

An internal kickoff meeting is done among the team members and the management to discuss the project deliverables, challenges, and key project milestones. The purpose is to gather up the team in the room and prepare for the project kickoff meeting. It can be thinkable as an exercise for the project team before attending the external meeting.

The external kickoff(also known as the project kickoff meeting), on the other hand, is conducted among the team members, the client, and high-level project stakeholders. It provides a common understanding to operate from the same page. It helps the project team to know the expectations of the client.

What are the Steps to Conduct a Successful Kickoff Meeting?

It is obvious that you need to prepare for the meeting to increase the chance of success. It is a good idea to hold an internal kickoff meeting among the team members and the management before attending the project kickoff meeting with the client.

Below are the steps to conduct a successful meeting.

Set a Timeframe

The first step is to set a timeframe that suits everyone. Your meeting may involve people from different locations. Make sure the meeting time and date will allow participants to be prepared well.

Set a Kickoff Meeting Agenda

Writing a Kickoff Meeting Agenda is not a big deal if you can follow some basic steps. You will attend and host many meetings in your life. To make them more effective, you can consider using templates. Using a template will prevent you to create the same thing all the time.

Before attending the meeting, you need to list the important topics to be discussed. For instance, you can discuss the key project milestones as well as objectives. You may add the following sections to the project kickoff meeting agenda template;

Introductions
Project background
Project purpose
Project Scope
Project Plan
Roles
Questions

You need to send the agenda to the team members before the meeting so that they will be prepared regarding the important topics.

Conduct the Meeting

Typically, a kickoff meeting begins with introducing the participants and the project. After that, you will discuss the topics specified in the agenda.

After talking about the project background and the introductions, discuss the project assumptions and constraints. Explain the project charter to the team members and set the expectations.

You can talk about the reporting system and the communication channels.

Don’t forget to talk about the risks, critical issues, key project stakeholders, and other important details.

Hold a Question and Answer Session

Before closing the meeting, hold a question and answer session in which the participants can ask their questions and receive the answers. So that everybody will understand the outputs, challenges, and constraints of the project.

Lastly, prepare the minutes of meeting and send them to the attendees for review. Once all the steps have been completed, your team is ready to attend the external kickoff meeting with the client.

Bottom Line

A kickoff meeting is a face-to-face communication tool between the project team and the client. For remote teams, it can also be conducted through a video conferencing service like Zoom or Skype. It marks the official start of a new project or a new phase. Important project decisions are made during this meeting. If you conduct an internal meeting and discuss important points regarding the project, the project team will exactly know what they are doing while talking with the client during the external meeting.

Besides, if you are preparing for the PMP Certification Exam, you may encounter some questions related to the topic. Although the earlier versions of the PMBOK Guide did not mention this concept, it is explained starting from the Sixth Edition of the PMBOK Guide as a tool of the develop project management plan process.

Have you ever participated in a meeting at the beginning of a project? We will be happy to hear about your experiences through the comments box.