How Kickoff Meetings Improve Business Cooperation

A kickoff meeting is the very first meeting between development team members and their customer. This kind of meeting considers the discussions of the matters related to the fundamental principles of the project.

The meeting plays the crucial role in the project planning. It sets the tone of the entire further workflow.

This is not just a meeting – it is a strategic social that helps all the persons involved in the project work to discuss and confirm the important issues. The kickoff meeting is a kind of the assurance for every person who is involved in the project development work.

How to make the kickoff meeting impeccable?

There is a practicable post published on Hygger.io blog that identifies 3 tips on how to improve kickoff meetings. Here’re the extracts:

Prepare presentation in details

This tip is suitable for development teams and customers – it is important to have a good picture of your coming kickoff meeting, so try to prepare yourself as well as it should be:

The customer should have a clear vision of the future project and a list of requirements. He/she is responsible for a good conversation, timely questions, and recommendations. The developers should be able to visualize the whole project, feel its real needs and nuances and also provide a clear picture of the planned workflow.

Check up the partner’s reputation

It also matches for both sides. It is okay if one of the parties wants to confirm everything said or written earlier. It is critical to make sure of the personal plain dealing of each of the parties.

The customer has the right to be convinced of the competence of the team. The development team members have the right to assure themselves of the reliability of the customer and sponsors. It won’t go amiss to ask the stakeholders about their interest in the project, how they see the perspectives and how many similar projects they supported.

Everybody should know what to do further after the kickoff meeting

After all the discussions at the beginning of the work, there should be a clear understanding of the further steps on the way to the successful implementation of the project. The point is that there should not be any ambiguities after the kickoff meeting – everything should be understandable and logical. At the same time, all the discussions should not go too far in details – remember that it is only the first meeting, and you will have many other meetings in the future.

The first meeting has a key role in the whole business cooperation, so do not minimize its value and hold it in a top-class level.