Project kickoffs are an essential part of each initiative development lifecycle. They help you:
However, there’s a big difference between a “just okayish” kickoff and a truly great kickoff. The latter can be positively game-changing for the trajectory of the initiative.
I’ve facilitated dozens of kickoffs in my career, so let me share my best practices on how to make your kickoffs great.
Although kickoffs are heavily context-dependent, there are a few tips that work pretty universally.
Let me split them into three categories:
Preparation is the most important part. Nail this and you’re set for success.
Before each kickoff, I usually gather all important information into short decks and distribute it to all invitees, ideally a couple of days before the actual kickoff.
It serves two purposes:
Many people seem to be stuck in the false belief that participation in a meeting is binary. You either attend or don’t attend, and you’re either invited or not.
The truth is you can rotate participants during the meeting. It’s especially useful for larger kickoffs.
First, define a “core team”— people who are required to participate throughout the whole kickoff. But nothing stops you from inviting ad-hoc stakeholders and subject matter experts to participate only in specific meeting agenda points.
Thanks to that, you both ensure the meeting’s efficiency by limiting the group size and avoiding wasting people’s precious time.
Win-win.
The last thing to do is to prepare and share the agenda.
If possible, give participants three days heads-up and chase them for feedback. People tend to come more prepared if they see and green light the agenda before the meeting itself.
As a rule of thumb, I avoid essential meetings in the afternoon hours. You want people fresh and before the afternoon slump.
Strong facilitation can have a great impact on kickoff outcomes, so make sure you follow the tips below.
If the team is new, start with an icebreaker, even if you’re on a tight schedule.
And it’s not even about meeting new people and building relationships (although that’s also beneficial).
You simply want people to know who is who and if someone gives feedback during the meeting, people should be aware of whether it comes from the engineering, design, or CS person. Context is essential for complete understanding.
On the other hand, you don’t want people to waste time and energy figuring out “Who is that person, again?” over and over.
The common practice for kickoffs is to spend most of the time presenting timelines, risks, objectives, stakeholders, etc.
I don’t like that. That’s what fact packs are for.
Although it’s okay to recap critical details, the kickoff should focus more on discussions and clarifying doubts than the presentation.
Ask a lot of questions, open new conversations, and ensure that no one hijacks the meeting to give a ten-minute monologue.
The most beautiful word for a person in any language is their name.
If you’re like most people, whenever you hear your name in a discussion, you get a small cortisol spike, and your focus level skyrockets to make sure you understand what is being discussed and if you need to comment on something.
Even if you multitask during the meeting and barely listen, I’m sure you’ll catch it whenever someone uses your name and focus back on the meeting.
That’s how humans work. Leverage it.
The more you use people’s names in discussions, the more focus you can expect, thus, better engagement.
This seemingly small tip can dramatically impact the dynamics of the meeting.
Regardless of whether the kickoff was engaging and productive or a total disaster, what you do after the meeting can still impact upcoming weeks and the initiative as a whole.
Sending a summary after an important meeting is a piece of common knowledge, but they often tend to be vague and rather high-level.
I, on the other hand, advocate for truly detailed summaries with discussed points, action points, decisions, and doubts that need further clarification.
This way you:
In other words, you keep the meeting topics alive even after the meeting concludes.
The good news is that tons of AI tools create detailed summaries based on meeting transcripts.
A common approach to handling action items after the kickoff is to list out everything that needs to be done, assign owners and deadlines, and get going.
Although sound in principle, I often found myself chasing item owners to update the tracker or to actually start working on the action item. Let’s be honest; you’ve been there, too.
An alternative approach is to schedule a follow-up meeting a couple of days after the kickoff to serve as a “checkpoint” for all work in progress related to the initiative. As much as I hate creating extra meetings, this extra block in the calendar reminding people they’ll have to report on their progress in front of all their peers boosts accountability tremendously. No one wants to be the one saying in front of the group they haven’t even started working on their items yet.
You did something wrong if you didn’t learn something new as a facilitator.
Each kickoff you lead is an opportunity for you to step up your facilitation game. Make sure you collect feedback and implement it in your next kickoffs.
If you receive a lot of feedback, focus on the one or two most important things. No one can expect you to become a master facilitator overnight.
The better your project kickoff, the easier it’ll be to deliver the initiative you’re working on.
The difference can be tremendous.
Thus, here’s a challenge for you.
For your next kickoff, don’t just focus on making the meeting good or even great. Step up your game and make your next kickoff the best meeting you’ve ever facilitated — a meeting that people will remember for months.
The difference it will make will be an eye-opening experience for many.
Featured image source: IconScout
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