A Dutch saying goes ´A good start is half the work´. This also applies in project management, where a bad start means double the work. In most projects a starting session has an agenda that covers all functional topics: HR, Facilities, IT, Design etc. That works well for smaller projects, but in my experience larger projects and programs need to provide control in a complex environment; then this functional approach shows quick gains in the obvious areas but does not ‘guarantee’ that nothing is forgotten. Then a different approach needs to be taken, even though opponents will initially see this as a waste of money and time since it hampers their ‘need for speed’. Like installing an airbag in your car: it costs time and money and is probably overkill if you drive the car on the premises to the garage, but most people would consider it useful when taking the highway.

The scope of this blog is the kick-off for a ‘big’project as defined in When to apply project management. For such a kick-off, I usually would suggest to take 3 days. For international projects, Monday to fly in and Friday to fly out would make a complete week.

DAY 1

Welcome

Generally it does make sense to start a session on the objective for why the participants have gathered. That objective is nothing but to come up with a plan of “Who does What When” at the end of the meeting. Minor detail is that often the Project Manager then needs some time to put it all in a presentable format, and maybe the project team then needs to go through an approval process after which an approved Project Plan has been established.

BASELINE

Introductions (Who)

For any group it makes sense to start with introductions of the various people in the room and the role they will be playing in the project. A natural continuation would be a description of the envisioned Project Team, the Steering Committee, Communication Lines and Escalation Paths. Note on the latter: I once was told proudly that a project had been completed without any escalations. I did not want to disturb the peace, but it reminded me of a quote “If you think you have everything under control in a project, you are not going fast enough”. So please do not skimp on this subject.

One nice way of ensuring support for the project is to involve a Sounding Board into the process. Depending upon their involvement they might either take part in the kick-off itself or join in for the “vetting of the Project Plan at the end.

Project Charter-Scope (What)

When we have clear who is who, the assignment or project Charter can be discussed. It is crucial to summarize the assumptions of higher management on this topic before starting, and to explicitly mention those items out of scope to verify whether that might be a big mistake in the view of some participants.

Project Charter-High Level Initial Planning (When)

A second set of assumptions of higher management, those with respect to time need to be made explicit as well. These milestones are not ‘set in stone’ but if there are deviations they need to be supported by facts/assessments/risks etc.

PROJECT

Work Breakdown Structure (What)

Now that the departure point has been made clear, it is time to focus on taking the scope of the project one level deeper. Per Functional area the major work packages are identified.

Again, also this WBS should have been prepared by the Project Manager so that at least the discussion can get a jump start. Otherwise you might easily loose 4 hours in settling issues like format and basic structure. This is also the point where Lessons Learned of previous projects can provide helpful input.

Sometimes I get the question to what level of detail a Work Breakdown Structure should go. My answer is that ideally this document should fit one (A3-)page. During the kick-off this is a good time to start identifying the various sublevel work packages (or the writing of the post-its).

DAY 2

RASIC (Who)

Now that we have an overview of what needs to be done we can settle on who will do the item. Essential are the Accountable (to sign) and the Responsible (to do), whereby I have seen different interpretations of whether the Accountable or the Responsible is the party to communicate. I do not necessarily have a preference, as long as it is clear. One often-used variant is that the Accountable person need to be in the project team – and thus is the center of communication on that topic, whereas various Responsibles outside might be steered by her.

Sometimes opponents to this ‘convoluted way of working’ comment that responsibilities are clear, because we all have our job descriptions, right? However the following example clearly shows the need to align: to establish a new service, a telecommunications link needs to be ordered by the supplier and installed into the server room of the client. Question 1: who is responsible for the access system to the server room? That the supplier should pay for it might be clear, but what if he wants to have a contractor drill a hole in the wall at the clients’server room? Question 2: is this preparation a Facilities-responsibility or an IT-responsibility?, especially relevant if client and supplier have defined that differently.

Planning (When)

Only now can we look at the timing of work packages: the responsible parties need to identify how long a particular step will take, and which items are required for them to start or complete that work package. Here the moving of the post-it’s takes place and input of various sides and sometimes heavy discussions are required to get to a common understanding of what happens when. In the discussion already a questioning attitude from each participant is crucial for success.

DAY 3

VETTING

Planning vetting (When)

For all those non-native English speakers: vetting is the process of background check. Candidates for a job – famous examples are presidents of the USA, but also candidates that need to be confirmed by Congress – have their backgrounds checked for scandals or other unsavory occurrences. This process might turn up so much dirt on a candidate that she is considered to be not fit for the role, or it might turn up publicity-sensitive topics that might need to be addressed pro-actively. A friend of mine was a gay high ranking government official. During his background check it was made sure that he could not be blackmailed on that subject.

After a good night’s sleep often the best ideas come up and the ideas from yesterday are reviewed in a more objective light. Here also a Sounding Board is definitely helpful, to identify the weak spots in the planning and ‘vet’ the plan on realism. Risks to the plan bubble up more or less automatically to feed the next agenda topic.

Risk Log (What)

One of the often overlooked topics is to identify the Risks to the project, not to be gloomy but to assess what countermeasure could be taken to clarify/quantify, mitigate (e.g. develop a fallback plan) or transfer (e.g. take an insurance policy) if not accepted.

Formally one also should look at opportunities at this point, if a competitor is closing down a facility nearby it might be possible to hire experienced employees very fast. Measures to exploit this opportunity are identified here then as well.

Open Points’ List(Who)

And finally it makes sense to identify who is going to undertake any individual actions that are not in the planning. The main distinction I make between planning and OPL is that Planning needs to be more formal and would be repeated in other similar projects, whereas an OPL is for one-time items.

Finally, if time permits, it also might make sense to share the period Status Report that will be produced, so that readers get acquainted with the format.