Kickoff meeting
Encyclopedia
The Kickoff Meeting is the first meeting with the project team
Team
A team comprises a group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. Teams are especially appropriate for conducting tasks that are high in complexity and have many interdependent subtasks.A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team...

 and the client
Customer
A customer is usually used to refer to a current or potential buyer or user of the products of an individual or organization, called the supplier, seller, or vendor. This is typically through purchasing or renting goods or services...

 of the project
Project
A project in business and science is typically defined as a collaborative enterprise, frequently involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim. Projects can be further defined as temporary rather than permanent social systems that are constituted by teams...

. This meeting would follow definition of the base elements for the project and other project planning
Project planning
Project planning is part of project management, which relates to the use of schedules such as Gantt charts to plan and subsequently report progress within the project environment....

activities. This meeting introduces the members of the project team and the client and provides the opportunity to discuss the role of each team member. Other base elements in the project that involve the client may also be discussed at this meeting (Schedule, Status Reporting, etc.).

The basic format of a kickoff meeting includes the roles of and contributions from the stakeholders. It also mentions the risks and issues involved, particularly those that may affect project schedules and lead to decreased customer satisfaction. This is the point at which help needed from stakeholders is explicitly mentioned.

If there are any new team members, the process to be followed is explained so as to maintain quality standards of the organization. Clarity is given by the project lead if there exists any ambiguity in the process implementations....

There is a special discussion on the legalities involved in the project. For example, the design team interacting with the testing team may want a car to be tested on city roads. If the legal permissions are not mentioned by the concerned stakeholder during kickoff, the test may get modified later to comply with local traffic laws (this causes unplanned delay in project implementation). So, it was best to have a discussion about it in the kickoff meeting and follow it up separately, than to assume stuff and later be forced to replan test procedures.

The kickoff meeting is an enthusiasm-generator for the customer and displays a full summary of the project so far. By displaying a thorough knowledge of the goal and steps on how to reach it, confidence is put in the customer.

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