What to Include in Your Project Kickoff Meeting Agenda

Adriana Girdler

Include these items and your project kickoff meeting is sure to be a success! Are you starting a project and are wondering what exactly you …

Include these items and your project kickoff meeting is sure to be a success!

Are you starting a project and are wondering what exactly you need to put in your kickoff meeting agenda?

There are a few critical components that go into a successful project kickoff meeting. Starting a project is exciting and fun, but it also requires some hard work and intentional planning.

What is a kickoff meeting?

Before getting into the agenda, you need to have a clear understanding of what a kickoff meeting is. The kickoff meeting is the first official meeting between the project manager and the project team.

The kickoff meeting is all about bringing everyone up to speed on what exactly they have to do, the project charter, and any other key pieces of information that people need so they can start working on the project.

Agenda Item #1 – Opening Remarks

This first agenda item will answer the question, “Why are we here?”

You may want to invite sponsors, steering committee members, and other important senior executives to come into the meeting to give these opening remarks.

If those individuals are too busy to come to the meeting, something I like to do is get a video of them doing those opening remarks and play that at the meeting instead.

The purpose of this agenda item is for people to understand the WHY, because they need to understand that before they can get into details, tasks, and the nitty-gritty of the project.

When those opening remarks come from senior people, it makes all the difference because it shows those team members just how important your project really is!

Other project kickoff agenda items

There are obviously quite a few agenda items you’ll need to go through at your project kickoff meeting, and I want to make sure you get a complete understanding of what those are and how to deliver those items in your meeting.

I made a YouTube video that goes more in detail into all those essential aspects of a project kickoff meeting. So, if you’re preparing for a kickoff meeting, make sure you head over to YouTube with me so that we can keep chatting about this!

Meanwhile, if you really are committed to mastering your next project, do consider taking my SLAY Project Management online course where I show you step-by-step how to take your project from chaos to clarity. Plus you get access to every template you will need, along with detailed video instructions on how to fill them out. Whether you’re a dedicated project manager or project management is one of the many roles you cover – with my tried and tested techniques found in SLAY, you can reach project success!

-Adriana

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Adriana Girdler is a project manager, productivity specialist, entrepreneur, professional speaker, facilitator, visioning wizard, and author. As President of CornerStone Dynamics, Adriana is one of Canada’s prominent business productivity and project management specialists—helping both individuals and businesses do what they do, only better. She is a certified master black belt lean six sigma with over 20 years’ experience improving how companies work.

She also holds both PMP (project management professional) and CET (certified engineering technologist) designations. She’s a Tedx speaker, as well as a HuffPost and Thrive Global contributor. She has been interviewed on Global, CBC, CTV, CHCH, 680News Radio, Newstalk 1010, Sirius XM and published in the Globe and Mail and numerous industry magazines. WANT ADRIANA'S FREE ONLINE TRAINING? In 45 min, learn Adriana's 5 project management secrets she use on EVERY project. Sign up for the Free Webinar here: THE FAB FIVE FUNDAMENTALS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

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