How to Launch a Project Successfully: A Step-by-Step Guide
A project kickoff is, essentially, how you start your project - and it is an essential step in ensuring long-term success for the initiative.
Project kickoffs set the foundation for success. Here is how we approach work management.
Work Management Made Easy
Summary
- Kickoff planning beats mid-project scrambling - Get the right team assembled from day one across all departments. Adding someone mid-project means onboarding them from scratch, which kills momentum and wastes time.
- Pick KPIs for marketing, timelines for product - Marketing projects need measurable KPIs like traffic and conversion rates. Product development needs clear timelines mapping when each feature ships. Choose the wrong measurement and you can’t tell if you’re succeeding.
- Send the agenda before the meeting - Share your project charter or meeting agenda in advance so team members arrive prepared. Winging it signals you don’t have a real plan.
- Ready to automate your project workflows? See how Tallyfy handles project kickoffs
Organizing a great project kickoff ensures that the project starts off on the right foot. See, the thing is, a project kickoff doesn’t just signify the launch of a project. It’s also a foundation to work with - it sets a general direction that the team is supposed to head towards.
Why does the project kickoff matter?
When you are pitching the project to upper management, you probably have a good grasp on what the project entails, what your general direction is, etc.
For project kickoff, though, you will really have to dive deep and figure out all the essential details. You will have to come up with things such as the general direction and vision, team member responsibilities, KPIs, and a bunch of other things.
Then, you will have to communicate all that with your team on the project kickoff meeting, ensuring that everyone knows what they are getting into.
As you could have guessed, if you don’t start the project the right way, your team might be left pretty clueless.
6 steps to a successful project kickoff
Step #1: Identify project goals and vision
You have won the senior management over with your project. Now you have to do the same with your team.
You will have to communicate what the project is about, exactly, and why it matters. The way you do this really does matter - your team needs to be motivated enough and know that what you are working towards is really significant in the grand scheme of things.
If the project is something they’ve been forced into by their supervisor, they won’t be too happy to give their all and participate.
Step #2: Get the right team together
You will need to make sure you have everyone you need for the project. This matters more than people think. From what I’ve seen across our professional services (10%) and tech (9%) customer base, if you realize you need someone new sometime mid-way to project completion, you will probably have to onboard them from the beginning, and that can be very time-consuming.
Make sure to get people from different departments, as well as someone from the senior management (if the project is about process re-engineering, for example, and needs the approval from management to really make some changes).
Then, you would want to put down all the project team member information in one place. Think, names, departments, how to contact, etc.
Make sure to get several different ways to contact the employees, though. While an e-mail can work most of the time, there are times you might have to get them on the line ASAP.
Step #3: Define the right key performance indicators (KPIs) or timeline
You can’t really tell whether a project is successful or not without the right means of measuring it. There are usually 2 ways of doing this, depending on the type of the project.
If it is something marketing related, you would go for KPIs. i.e, you would measure online traffic, conversion rate, profit growth, and so on. This is essential for both internal and external projects - but your boss and an external client would want to see what the ROI of the project is.
If on the other hand, you are developing a new product or software, you would go for a timeline. Meaning, you would map out the length of the project, and when you are supposed to have what feature or aspect ready.
For your internal team, this provides accountability and ensures that you will get the project out on time. For the client, this can be a sort of quality assurance.
Step #4: Project tools and methodologies
One pattern we have observed repeatedly: teams that rely on scattered tools - Outlook folders, Excel spreadsheets, and calendar reminders - end up with critical information fragmented across five or more departments. Feedback we have received suggests this fragmentation is the root cause of most project delays.
To be more specific, you would have to decide on…
- Project Management Methodology - As in, how, exactly, you are going to be doing things. Methodologies such as Scrum, Agile, Kanban, etc.
- Communication and Planning Tools - tools such as Slack for chat, Microsoft Teams for online meetings, Tallyfy for process management, etc.
- Communication Strategy - How often are you going to communicate with your team? Weekly? Monthly? In what form, online or offline?
Step #5: Project kickoff meeting planning
Now that you have figured out all the details on how you will be running the project, you will need to communicate all this with your team through a project kickoff meeting.
First and foremost, you will need to notify your team about the meeting in advance. The project kickoff meeting is something you can’t miss.
Ensure that if a team member isn’t able to attend physically, they’re still online to participate in the meeting.
Then, you will have to explain everything you have planned for the project to your team. Who is in charge of what, what the general vision is, etc.
Unless you are the type to be really good at winging meetings, you should have an agenda for it. In my experience running project kickoffs - and client onboarding appears in over 23% of the workflow implementations we have seen - having a written agenda dramatically improves meeting outcomes. So, you should put all this down on paper (or powerpoint). Or, you could even create a project charter, something that will end up coming handy throughout the duration of the whole project.
All this, of course, you will need to send to your team members in advance so they have an idea on what you will discuss on the meeting.
Stage #6: Project kickoff meeting
Since you have already handled all the planning for the meeting in advance, this one should be a breeze. On the meeting itself, you should talk about…
- Project Vision and Goals. Give the team a basic overview of the project and what the client’s needs are (if it is an external project, of course). Share your objectives for the project and your vision for the end results, as well as the KPIs and timeline.
- Team Introductions. Unless you are working in a small or medium company, your team members come from a number of different departments. So, introduce yourself to the group and then have everyone on the team introduce themselves by their name and their role on the project. If you have already made a contact information file, make sure to share it with everyone.
- Tools and Communication. What tools / project management methodology you will be using and how you will be communicating with the team.
- Define Steps Going Forward. What is the next step for the project? When is the next meeting? What are the initial tasks that need to be taken care of?
- Questions and Answers. Now that you have outlined the project for the team, have a brief question and answer session. This is a great opportunity to have other team members share their feedback and to proactively address any concerns they may have.
Start your next kickoff with a proven process
Are kickoffs consistent?
Are you hearing this at work? That's busywork
Enter between 1 and 150,000
Enter between 0.5 and 40
Enter between $10 and $1,000
Based on $30/hr x 4 hrs/wk
Your loss and waste is:
every week
What you are losing
Cash burned on busywork
per week in wasted wages
What you could have gained
160 extra hours could create:
per week in real and compounding value
Total cumulative impact over time (real cost + missed opportunities)
You are bleeding cash, annoying every employee and killing dreams.
It's a no-brainer
Did you already carry out the project kickoff? How did it go, everything as expected? Do you have any tips or tricks that tend to help? Let us know down in the comments!
About the Author
Amit is the CEO of Tallyfy. He is a workflow expert and specializes in process automation and the next generation of business process management in the post-flowchart age. He has decades of consulting experience in task and workflow automation, continuous improvement (all the flavors) and AI-driven workflows for small and large companies. Amit did a Computer Science degree at the University of Bath and moved from the UK to St. Louis, MO in 2014. He loves watching American robins and their nesting behaviors!
Follow Amit on his website, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, X (Twitter) or YouTube.
Automate your workflows with Tallyfy
Stop chasing status updates. Track and automate your processes in one place.