How to Plan an Effective Kickoff Meeting

Kickoff meetings are the best way to start a project off on the right foot.

Before your team embarks on its next endeavor, bring everyone together to align on the strategy, determine a timeline, assign responsibilities, and clarify next steps. Here’s what you should know to make these team meetings as effective as possible.

What is a kickoff meeting?

A kickoff meeting happens before rolling out a new project. Team leaders hold kickoff meetings to introduce their employees to a new project, including deadlines, deliverables, and individual responsibilities. This helps get team members prepped and aligned before launching a new initiative.

Why kickoff meetings matter

Organizational psychologist David Chaudron said kickoff meetings are crucial for briefing team members on a new project’s long-term goals and getting their buy-in for the new initiative. “The buy-in is particularly important so they can be enthusiastic about whatever is going on,” he said.

On any given project, you’ll likely have multiple stakeholders contributing work in different areas. For example, you might have product managers, engineers, customer support reps, marketers, and technical writers all working on the same software project. To collaborate effectively, each participant must understand the project’s criteria, timeline, and purpose.

Making kickoff meetings count

You can use a kickoff meeting to get everyone on the same page and prepared for a smooth, efficient project launch. Use these tips during the meeting to lay a strong foundation for a successful project.

• Align the team. Ensure that all participants understand the project’s goals, objectives, and deliverables.
• Set expectations. Review the project timeline, roles and responsibilities, communication channels, and success metrics.
• Identify potential risks. Discuss the project plan to identify and address potential roadblocks and challenges proactively.
• Establish a check-in cadence. Set expectations for communication frequency, preferred methods (email, Slack, meetings), and how to raise concerns.

Planning a successful kickoff meeting

An effective kickoff meeting doesn’t happen on its own. You need a plan of action so that all participants come away with a clear idea of the upcoming project and their roles in it. Check out these meeting strategies.

Determine the agenda and meeting structure

Start by creating a meeting agenda and laying out the meeting structure ahead of time. Consider sharing out the agenda in advance, such as in a Slack canvas or Google Doc, to give team members a chance to review it and come prepared with questions and ideas.

Here’s a kickoff meeting agenda template that you can adjust to suit your specific needs:

Kickoff meeting agenda: [Project name]

• Meeting objectives
• Align team on project goals and deliverables
• Review project timeline and milestones
• Define roles and responsibilities
• Establish communication protocols
• Address questions and concerns

Agenda

• Welcome and introductions (5 minutes)
• Project overview (5 minutes)
• Project scope and deliverables (15 minutes)
• Project timeline and milestones (10 minutes)
• Roles and responsibilities (10 minutes)
• Communication and collaboration (10 minutes)
• Q&A and discussion (10 minutes)
• Next steps and action items (5 minutes)
• Meeting wrap-up (5 minutes)

Identify key stakeholders and their roles

Well before the kickoff meeting, identify the project’s key stakeholders and outline their specific roles. This will make it easier to assign action items and deliverables to the appropriate participants and field their questions during the meeting. If you’re not sure who the key stakeholders are ahead of time, create a project-specific Slack channel and invite all involved team members so you can hash out those details asynchronously before the kickoff meeting.

Set clear goals and expectations

Clear objectives and standards make kickoff meetings more effective. Document and share these details before the meeting, potentially in the agenda. You can center the discussion around the predetermined goals to get all participants on the same page.

Running an effective kickoff meeting

The prep work is just the beginning. These tips and tricks can guide you through your kickoff meeting to keep things smooth and simple.

Engage participants and foster collaboration

Boost engagement by keeping the discussion short and on track for the duration of the meeting. A study by a group at Stanford University found that meeting participants often start multitasking in meetings that run long. Compared with efficient, 20-minute meetings, employees are three times as likely to switch to another task when a meeting runs for 40 minutes.

To stick to the agenda and keep team members invested in the conversation, give everyone a chance to share during the meeting. Even folks who choose not to speak up can still contribute using an online collaboration tool such as a canvas or a digital whiteboard that integrates with your company’s communication platform.

Present project specifics

Take some time during the kickoff meeting to detail the new project’s scope, timeline, and deliverables. Take time to answer team members’ questions. Make sure all participants understand what they need to deliver and how much time to allot to the project.

Address potential risks and challenges

Use your kickoff meeting to be upfront about all potential obstacles to completing your project on time. For example, if your upcoming initiative could expose security risks, consider including your legal or security team in the kickoff meeting and project plan.

Keep a running list of questions

It’s important to take notes on your meeting as it progresses. Jot down any questions or roadblocks that don’t get resolved during the meeting so the team can address them afterward. When you share out the meeting notes on Slack, you can tag team members to assign action items or request information. Keep the notes updated so you can discuss answers in your next project update meeting.

Best practices for a successful kickoff meeting

To host a top-notch kickoff meeting, follow these best practices:

• Keep intros short and sweet. In a smaller group, take time to introduce each participant, but keep it quick. Team members can introduce themselves briefly when it’s their turn to speak. Intros shouldn’t take more than five minutes of the meeting time.
• Encourage open communication and feedback. With a collaborative note-taking space such as a canvas or Google Doc, team members can take notes, add their thoughts after the kickoff meeting, and note action items for the next meeting’s agenda.
• Clarify responsibilities and next steps. Assigning action items to specific people promotes accountability and task ownership. When no one owns a task, it can be difficult to determine next steps, so make sure to tick this box during or soon after the kickoff meeting.

Next steps after the kickoff meeting

Your kickoff meeting went well. Now what? Consider taking these steps once the meeting concludes.

Review meeting notes and follow up on action items
Before your project gets rolling and the kickoff meeting gets lost in the haze, review your team’s notes from the meeting and touch base with anyone with action items assigned to them. Take some time after the meeting to complete any unfinished notes, organize them logically, and store them where stakeholders can easily find and access them.

Develop a project timeline and create milestones

You can use project management software to develop a timeline for your project, create a workflow, and identify any milestones. Many of the most popular project management apps also integrate with Slack to reduce context switching and keep your resources organized. You can even use Slack Workflow Builder to automate some of the simplest and most repetitive steps in your project plan.

Establish a process for regular project updates

To keep things moving once the project launches, your team will need to meet regularly to gather progress updates and discuss potential blockers. It’s up to you to determine the right project update system for your team and project. You might consider a combination of scheduled meetings, asynchronous chat updates, and on-the-spot Slack huddles.

Optimize your next kickoff meeting with Slack

Slack is the all-in-one, AI-powered communication platform for modern workplaces, and it can help your team get the most out of its kickoff meetings. Slack integrates with popular note-taking apps, video conferencing platforms, project management tools, and your company’s other favorite tech solutions so you can get your best work done in one centralized space.

Contact our sales team to learn how Slack can make your meetings better.