Project Kickoff Meeting Template

What is the Project Kickoff Meeting template?

Embark on your project journey with a kickoff meeting, a harmonious gathering of key stakeholders, dedicated team members, and invaluable contributors. Together, explore the initial steps and activities essential to launch the project on a path to success. Treat the kickoff as an opportunity to collectively grasp the project’s purpose, objectives, scope, and expected outcomes. Ensure everyone shares a unified understanding of the project, establish distinct roles and responsibilities, and set a clear vision for the project’s trajectory.

The meeting sets the tone for collaboration and fosters a sense of collective ownership over the project’s goals. It is a chance to address any initial questions, concerns, or potential roadblocks, creating a more informed and prepared environment moving forward. The kickoff meeting lays the foundation for an organized, motivated, and aligned team, ready to embark on a successful project journey.

What are the benefits of the Project Kickoff Meeting template?

Thanks to the Project Kickoff Meeting template, you can:

• Create a clear manifesto where all parties can see the project’s objectives, values, and action items.
• Keep all team members aligned on the project goals, expectations, and scope.
• Bring the team together to discuss what a successful project delivery should look like and inspire the team to achieve that.
• Establish clear roles and responsibilities and set the project on a defined and organized path.
• Define the project’s next steps to ensure a smooth and efficient development and delivery process.

How to use the Project Kickoff Meeting template in a few steps?

1. Open the Project Kickoff Meeting template on a new whiteboard or add it to an already existing one.
2. Start a video call and add your camera stream to the board to see and talk to your team members.
3. Start the kickoff meeting by navigating to the first frame, Vital Stats. Type down on sticky notes such information as meeting date, project name, project sponsor, project leader, meeting facilitator, and core team.
4. Ask the project’s sponsor to welcome the meeting attendees and share the project’s vision and goals. The stakeholder can write down their notes on sticky notes and place them in the second frame, A word from the sponsor.
5. Move to the quick Icebreaker session available in the third frame. Ask all participants to choose one of the available images representing their feelings and mood best and place a sticky note with their name next to it. Encourage your teammates to share and explain why they’ve chosen a specific picture (if they feel comfortable doing so).
6. Build a shared understanding of what you do and why you collaborate by crafting the Vision statement. Replace the existing sticky notes with your answers.
7. Keep the vision statement in mind and ask everyone to jot down what they think indicates the project’s Success measures. Put the sticky notes in the Success indicator swimlane. Then, write down how to measure these results in the Target metric section. 
8. Define the Project scope in the next step by asking the participants to write down tasks on sticky notes (for instance, requirements, new feature ideas, etc.). Discuss the ideas with your team members and place them in the appropriate column, In scope or Out of scope.
9. Copy the tasks from the In scope column and paste them to the Action items frame. Provide such details as Task, Owner, and Due date.
10. Run a quick Sentiment check-in session at the end of the meeting by asking all the participants to choose one of the available emojis and placing them in the designated frame. You can also paste GIFs directly to the whiteboard to express your feelings.