Kickoff Meeting

This is your first opportunity to work with the entire team in a group setting. The purpose of holding a Kickoff Meeting is to:

• Ensure your project team’s buy-in of the project
• Reinforce their understanding of and focus on the achievement of the project objectives
• Obtain their understanding and concurrence of individual responsibilities

Tip: Throughout the project always send out reports after each meeting. All of these reports along with the project documentation should be put in a centralized location accessible to the stakeholders.

If you have team members who do not know each other, consider team building exercises. Make sure you prepare and distribute an agenda several days before the meeting. Typically, project kickoff meetings are ½ to 1 working day – this depends on the complexity of your project and your need for team building. Suggestions for your agenda include:

• Project Overview: describe the business purpose, the sponsor, major project deliverables, the “customer”/stakeholders, and major milestones.
• Project Goals: short-term and long-term goals/objectives, and the metrics to measure attainment of the objectives.
• Review Critical Milestones and Deliverables
• Review the Project Schedule: focus on the near-term activities and tasks for each team member (make sure all team members know what is expected of them up to the first deliverable).
• Communications and Project Reporting: make sure all team members understand and concur with the project communications plan for all project stakeholders.

After the end of the meeting, write a kickoff meeting report and send it to all the stakeholders. Do this as soon as possible – best is to send this report the next day or at the latest 48 hours after the meeting.