What Is A Project Kickoff Meeting?
A project kickoff meeting is the first meeting between a project team and the client or sponsor of a project when kicking off a new project.
It’ll take place after contracts have been signed and there’s agreement on the statement of work (SoW), project charter, costs, and project timeline, although sometimes with new clients this paperwork may not be finalized. By this point, you’ll likely have started the project planning phase of the project lifecycle.
The client project kickoff meeting is an opportunity to hear from the client and their project team, as well as other key stakeholders, about the project and get a broader understanding of the project background and business drivers that led to the project being initiated, review the project brief, and discuss how to make it a success.
What Is The Purpose Of The Kickoff Meeting?
There are a few purposes to the project kickoff meeting. The main one is getting the project up and running and ensuring clarity on what needs to be done to get things moving. You also need to:
- Introduce the client and project teams and their roles and responsibilities
- Make sure everyone understands the project background
- Make sure everyone agrees on what a successful project looks like
- Make sure everyone agrees on what teamwork looks like
Essentially you want to get all key stakeholders and attendees, including your own team, on the same page.
What To Cover In The Kickoff Meeting?
Once you’ve defined your objectives for the kickoff meeting, work on developing an agenda which allows you to meet those objectives. After your agenda is ready, don’t just sit on it and feel smug. Send it in advance to your client and get feedback, ask them what else they want to discuss, and begin a dialogue on the meeting content before the meeting happens.
When creating a kickoff meeting agenda, keep in mind these basic questions that you’ll want answers to:
- Why – Why are we doing this project in the first place? What business need does it satisfy? What are the business and user goals?
- What – What’s the solution or deliverable? What are we going to do or make? What project process are we going to use? What are the requirements?
- How – How are we going to work together to make the project happen? What’s the communication plan? How will risks, issues, and change management be managed?
- When – When are we going to do it? What is the timeline?
- Where/Who – Where is the starting point for kicking things off? Who’s going to do what?
What’s Next?
Once the project kickoff meeting is out of the way, you and your team can get started on the project, assuming you also have all the info and assets you need. In some cases, you may need to finalize the project plan and any other project planning activities before moving on to project execution.