Project Management Kick-off Meeting Tips PDF

Tips for leading a successful kick-off meeting In the previous video, you learned what a project kick-off meeting is and what it involves. As a reminder, a kick-off meeting is the first meeting among the project team, stakeholders, and the project sponsor at the start of a new project or new project...

Tips for leading a successful kick-off meeting In the previous video, you learned what a project kick-off meeting is and what it involves. As a reminder, a kick-off meeting is the first meeting among the project team, stakeholders, and the project sponsor at the start of a new project or new project phase. The purpose of a kick-off meeting is to ground everyone in a shared vision, ensure they understand the project’s goals and scope, and make sure that they are all on the same page about their roles and responsibilities on the project. The kick-off meeting is critical to a project’s overall success. It gets the team together to align on goals and visions for the project and sets the project up for success. This reading will provide you with some tips for running an effective kick-off meeting. Kick-off meeting best practices ​ Set the right time. Choose a meeting time that works for everyone. Be mindful of time zone differences. ​ Set the right length. Choose an appropriate meeting length—no more than one hour. You don’t want to waste people’s time, but you also don’t want to run out of time. Kick-off meetings work best when you first share key information and then spend any additional time on questions and team building. ​ Invite the right people. Be strategic about including the appropriate people. The goal is to invite attendees who play a role in the development and execution of the project, such as all team members, stakeholders, and the project sponsor. You don’t want to leave anyone out, but you also don’t want to invite people who shouldn’t be there. ​ Designate a notetaker. The discussion that takes place during the meeting is important. It is critical that you document any feedback, changes, or questions asked  by attendees. If you are leading the meeting, designate someone else to take notes before the meeting starts. You can also use tools like Chorus Notetaker, Google Keep, Google Docs, or Microsoft OneNote. ​ Set the agenda. To recap what we discussed in the video, a kick-off meeting agenda should generally include: introductions, the project background and purpose, project goals and scope, roles and responsibilities, the collaboration process and project tools, what comes next (expectations and action items), and time for questions and discussion. ​ Share the agenda. Prior to the meeting, share the agenda with attendees via email and identify speakers for each topic. By sending the agenda in advance, everyone will have an idea of what to expect, time to prepare for anything they may need to present or discuss, and time to generate questions or ideas. ​ Stick to the agenda. During meetings, discussions can sometimes go off topic or take longer than expected. As a project manager, it is your job to keep the meeting on track by redirecting discussions to the items on the agenda. ​ Follow up after the meeting. After the meeting, make sure to send out a meeting summary featuring the meeting notes and any action items. Setting milestones: Best practices You have learned what milestones and tasks are and when, where, and how you will use them as a project manager. In this reading, we will explore best practices for setting milestones. But first, let’s revisit the definitions of tasks and milestones. ​ A project task is an activity that needs to be accomplished within a set period of time and is assigned to one or more individuals for completion. The work of a project is broken down into many different project tasks. ​ A project milestone is an important point within the project schedule that usually signifies the completion of a major deliverable. Milestones are significant checkpoints in your project, and keeping track of them helps ensure that your project is on schedule to meet its goals. Set tasks to identify milestones Setting tasks can help you clearly define milestones. You can do this in two ways: 1.​ Top-down scheduling: In this approach, the project manager lays out the higher-level milestones, then works to break down the effort into project tasks. The project manager works with their team to ensure that all tasks are captured. 2.​ Bottom-up scheduling: In this approach, the project manager looks at all of the individual tasks that need to be completed and then rolls those tasks into manageable chunks that lead to a milestone. Most projects have many tasks that lead to milestones. For instance, if your milestone is to receive approval on the first draft of an article that you are writing, you might complete tasks such as “develop outline,” “write first draft,” and “send to the editor.” Then, you may have another set of tasks to achieve before reaching the milestone of revising the article. Milestones serve as check-in points along your project to make sure that you are headed in the right direction toward the end goal. Milestones also make projects more manageable. Integrate milestones into your project schedule There is not a consistent number of milestones in every project. Some projects will have a few milestones, while others may have dozens. Rather than aiming to hit a certain number of milestones, try to set milestones for the most important events in your project. Review your project schedule and identify important moments or checkpoints. In other words, pinpoint where in your project you will achieve major goals and make those points your milestones. Milestone-setting pitfalls Here are some things to avoid when setting milestones: ​ Don’t set too many milestones. When there are too many milestones, their importance is downplayed. And, if milestones are too small or too specific, you may end up with too many, making the project look much bigger than it really is to your team and stakeholders. ​ Don’t mistake tasks for milestones. Remember that milestones should represent moments in time, and in order to map out how you will get to those moments, you need to assign smaller tasks to each milestone. ​ Don’t list your milestones and tasks separately. Make sure that tasks and milestones can be visualized together in one place, such as a project plan. This will help ensure that you are hitting your deadlines and milestones. Key takeaways Your approach to setting milestones may differ from project to project, but most projects will have at least one milestone and several smaller tasks associated with each milestone. Setting clearly-defined, distinct tasks, and milestones, integrating them into your project schedule, and using a tool that visualizes them together will help organize your project and drive it forward. Breaking down the work breakdown structure In the previous video, you were introduced to a major component of the planning phase: the creation of a work breakdown structure (WBS). A WBS is a deliverable-oriented breakdown of a project into smaller components. It’s a tool that sorts the milestones and tasks of a project into a hierarchy, in the order they need to be completed. A thorough WBS gives you a visual representation of a project and the tasks required to deliver each milestone. It makes it easier to understand all of the essential project tasks, such as estimating costs, developing a schedule, assigning roles and responsibilities, and tracking progress. Think of each piece of information as part of the overall project puzzle—you can’t successfully navigate through the tasks without understanding how they all fit together. For instance, many smaller tasks may ladder up to a larger task or milestone. Steps to build a WBS As a reminder, here are three main steps to follow when creating a WBS: ​ Start with the high-level, overarching project picture. Brainstorm with your team to list the major deliverables and milestones. Example: Imagine you are planning a company event. Your major milestones might include categories like “secure venue,” “finalize guest logistics,” and “establish agenda.” ​ Identify the tasks that need to be performed in order to meet those milestones. Example: You could break a milestone like “secure venue” down into tasks like “research venues,” “tour and decorate space,” “make down payment,” and so on. ​ Examine those tasks and break them down further into sub-tasks. Example: You could break down a task like “tour and decorate space” further into sub-tasks like “organize decorating committee,” “purchase decorations,” “assign decorating responsibilities,” and so on. Further reading For further learning on best practices for developing a WBS, check out this article: ​ How to Create a Work Breakdown Structure and Why You Should Putting together the pieces of a project plan Every project plan is a living artifact that serves as your team’s roadmap throughout the project. We have covered some common elements of project plans, including tasks, milestones, people, documentation, and time. Let’s look at how these elements intersect with other important components to create a comprehensive plan for your project. How project plan components are connected You have learned that at the center of the project plan is the project schedule, which helps you estimate the amount of time it will take to complete the project and provides the team with a way to track the project’s progress against your goals. In addition to the schedule, you should also include the following components in your project plan: ​ Scope and goals ​ Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) ​ Budget ​ Management plans Project scope and goals Both the project scope and goals will be captured initially in your project charter, the document that clearly defines the key details of your project. You can link your project charter in your project plan. Having details about the project’s scope and goals easily accessible can help remind your team of the objectives they are trying to accomplish and if anything is asked of them that goes beyond what was initially agreed upon in order to achieve those objectives. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) As a reminder, a Work Breakdown Structure is a tool that sorts the milestones and tasks of a project in a hierarchy, in the order they need to be completed. The WBS is key to your project plan since it breaks the work down into more manageable pieces. In your project plan, the tasks should be visible in one place with clear descriptions, owners, and due dates. This will allow you and your team to understand who is responsible for which tasks and when each task is supposed to be completed. Your project plan should also contain detailed milestones and statuses related to these tasks, which will help you and your team members visualize project progress. In addition to the WBS, further documentation—such as a RACI chart—will help define roles and responsibilities and would be useful to add to your project plan. Keeping this documentation stored or linked in one place is a best practice for transparency and effective communication. Budget Throughout the life cycle of your project, the budget will need to be managed and monitored. The project budget is often linked to the project plan because it is heavily dependent on key elements of the project. Linking these components allows for smoother management and visibility. Depending on the size of your project and your organization, you may not be the primary person responsible for managing the project budget. For instance, if your project is at a large organization and the funds are managed by another department, you may not have as much autonomy or insight into all of the budget elements. As a result, you may not be able to monitor the budget closely. If someone in another department is managing the budget, make sure to have regular check-ins with them to ensure that you are aware of how you are tracking. Management plans Management plans—such as the change management plan, risk management plan, and communication plan—are all integral to keeping a project organized and on track and should be linked in your project plan. These plans will be discussed in detail in the coming lessons of this course. Key takeaway Project scope and goals, the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), the budget, and management plans are all important components of your project plan. They help define how basic project plan elements—including tasks, milestones, people, documentation, and time—will be structured and utilized in your project. However, no two project plans will be the same. At Google, we work with a variety of different tools and templates to create and manage project plans. It is important to know your end goals and what is essential to you and your team in order to pull the relevant pieces of the project together.