“The beginning is the most important part of the work,” said Plato. It is safe to assume, and also proven from experience, that this principle applies to every project, irrespective of its size or complexity. Projects are unique, temporary, uncertain, and cross-functional and most of them tend to bring about a change, however big or small, in an organization. Therefore, it is never an easy task to manage a project. That makes the start of a project critical. It is indispensable to lay a proper foundation and put in place the necessary groundwork to set in motion a smooth execution. Let's take a look at various Project Kick-off Best practices one must follow while planning a project kick-off.
9 Steps for a Successful Kick-off for a Project
Every project is different in its own right, but there are certain aspects that are common to most projects irrespective of the industry, size, and stakeholders concerned.The project kick-off meeting is the one that preps the stage for your entire project. Nail the project kick-off, and your team hits the ground motivated, energized, and focused. But a great project kick-off doesn’t just happen like that; it takes proper planning and preparation. Start your project off right with 9 step checklist:
Establish Vision and Deliverables:
Share project objectives at your kick-off meeting to set a common goal for your team. Using consistent project management terminology from the first meeting helps the team describe objectives and deliverables in the same way.
Identify Team and Assign Roles:
Create a contact list that includes the names of team members along with their roles, departments, email ID and phone numbers, etc to share. This list becomes the starting point for distributing project information, so everyone knows who receives which updates and through which channel.
Develop an Initial Project Plan:
Here involve your project team members in finalizing details and get their inputs during the kick-off meeting so that you can incorporate them into your plan. The input gathered here feeds directly into a full project management plan, which sets out scope, schedule, budget, and controls.
Define How You Will Measure Success:
Give your project team a clear picture of how the project will be considered successful and what is expected of them.
Establish the Logistics of Team Communication:
Schedule regular stand-up meetings that everyone can attend.
Choose Your Project Management Methodology/Outline your Preferred Work Process:
Establish the best practices for your team to follow till the completion of the project. Which project management certification courses best practices are they supposed to use and what is the preferred process they have to adhere to? If the team follows Agile, this is also the time to agree on how Agile meetings such as stand-ups and retrospectives will run.
Decide Which Tools Your Team Will Use:
Ensure all your team members are set up and are familiar with the tools to use during the project lifecycle.
Schedule Your Kick-off Meeting:
Everybody should attend this meeting if they are not able to attend get them on a conference call or video chat etc. For distributed teams this is the norm rather than the exception, and guidance on implementing Scrum in remote teams can help keep everyone equally involved.
Set Your Agenda for the Meeting and Prepare Handouts:
Send the handouts to your team and others who are attending this meeting so that it runs in a smooth manner. Sharing materials in advance is one of the simplest meeting management techniques, since it lets attendees arrive prepared to contribute.
Conclusion
In conclusion, projects are getting more and more complex in today’s environment. Project management best practices and methodologies advocate the importance of executing the basics in the right manner, however trivial they appear to be, before kicking off a project. You can never control external factors which influence the success or failure of a project but you can always ensure you have done everything in your capacity to deliver expected results.
Enroll in Invensis learning's Project Management Certifications to gain advanced expertise in project management concepts such as project kick-off to excel in your career.
