Table of Content for Essential Steps for Successful Project Kick-off Meeting-
- Introduction to Kick off Meeting
- Purpose of Kick off Meeting
- Project Kick off Meeting Agenda
- How to Conduct a Kick off Meeting
- Kick off Meeting Documentation – Template.
- Key Learnings
Introduction to Kick off Meeting
A project is a temporary endeavour in which the various stakeholders align their priorities to achieve an objective. The objective can be a construction of a building, upgrading a service, introducing new technology, improving supply-chain or anything that adds value to the business, lowers cost, optimise time etc. Throughout the project timeline, stakeholders conduct meetings to discuss the project, take decisions, set priorities, define deliverables, resolve issues etc. The first meeting conducted before the project start or the start of a new phase is called the kick-off meeting.
The kick-off meeting sets priorities and responsibilities among the stakeholders. It also reaffirms the contractual obligations of clients, contractors, vendors, consultants. The mood for the project is set in the meeting and future outcomes are predicted along the timeline of the project.
A project manager generally hosts the meeting.
With the above paragraphs, we have established our basic understanding of the project kick-off meeting. Let us know discuss why exactly a kick-off meeting is required.
Purpose of Kick off Meeting
Consider a project that is started as soon as the contracts are signed. Now, the contractor team has started working on the project with certain assumptions on priority, quality, documentation. Now, they are also confused about whom to contact in the client’s team for technical, administrative, and financial problems. Of course, the client’s project manager is there but he cannot be approached for everything and every time. This leads to confusion, mistakes, repetition, chaos and whatnot. A kick-off meeting could have avoided all of it.
A kick-off meeting formally marks the start of the project. It brings the stakeholders and their teams to the table to know each other. The team members set project deliverables, expectations, priorities, necessary documentation, communication protocols, quality parameters, responsibilities etc.
Another purpose of holding a kick-off meeting is to motivate the team give them a direction to focus and work upon. The basic rules, protocols and checklists are set.
Till now, we have understood what we can achieve with the kick-off meeting. Here a question arises, how to structure a kick-off meeting to fulfil all of these purposes? The next section answers this.
Kick-off Meeting Agenda
To have a successful meeting, it must have an agenda. All the participants should be well versed with it. Before the meeting, all the participants should be informed in advance about their responsibility areas. Basically, what is expected out of them during the meeting.
A kick-off meeting should be interactive and every member should fully engage. With collaborative brainstorming, better ideas come up that shape the project plan.
The kick-off agenda should least include the following-
- Description of project objectives- why this project exists?
- Introduction of Stakeholders and their teams- who will do what?
- Project scope- what need to be done?
- Project deliverables & milestones– Breakup of project scope.
- Project execution plan- how to achieve the project objectives?
- Project timeline– By when the deliverables and milestones be achieved?
- Communication protocol- whom to contact for what?
- Documentation protocol- what records are to be kept and with whom to share them?
- Priorities- What needs to be done first?
- Project Risk Management Plan (RMP)– Identification, assessment, classification and treatment of risk.
- Contractual obligations- contractual duties of client, contractor, vendors, consultants.
- Statutory compliances- what approvals and compliance are required and who shall obtain them?
How to Conduct a Kick off Meeting
Deciding the Kick-off Meeting venue and time
A venue and time should be mutually decided and communicated to all the participants.
Internal meeting before the main meeting
An internal meeting that sets the agenda for the kick-off meeting helps. All the teams should brainstorm their ideas to set the main meeting agenda, documents to be prepared, internal documentation and communication protocols, timelines to be committed, resource plan, questions to be asked etc.
Keeping the Kick-off Meeting simple and brief
The effective way to conduct a kick-off meeting is not to include too many details. As all the stakeholders are not fully aware of all the details, hence it may confuse them and derail the meeting. Also, point-wise discussion helps in easily grasping the discussion and easy documentation of meeting minutes.
Recording the minutes & circulating it
Take notes of the meeting and document them for later actions. Circulating the minutes of the meeting to participants brings all of them on the same page and responsibilities for the pending actions are set.
Kick-off Meeting Documentation
The kick-off meeting documentation helps in coming back to the open points. The minutes documented can be categorised into three categories-
- Information: Points mentioned in the document just for the information.
- Action: These points have actions that are to be taken and have a responsibility and a target date.
- Decision: The decision points indicate an agreement among the stakeholders.
The template attached below is effective for recording the meeting minutes. It also covers the participants, date and time, venue, agenda for the meeting.
Key Learnings
The key learnings from this article are the meaning and importance of a kick-off meeting, why a kick-off meeting is conducted, how an effective kick-off meeting is conducted and the documentation of meeting minutes.
The meeting minutes’ template is icing on the cake.
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