How To Conduct an Effective Project Kickoff Meeting (2022 Guide)

Udn Webber

Editorial Coordinator

Imagine attending a project’s third meeting, just to realize that the project is not at all what you thought it was going to be.

Did your jaw drop?

Are you screaming internally? 😱

You can prevent this from happening by hosting an effective project kickoff meeting . That’s where your team can get on the same page about all the project aspects from the start to avoid future miscommunications.

In this article, we’ll discuss what a project kickoff meeting is and how to conduct it with the help of a productivity tool .

Let’s kick off this meeting guide. 🥂🎉

What Is a Project Kickoff Meeting?

A project kickoff meeting is a meeting conducted at the start of every new project. It takes place after completing your project planning stage and signals the start of the project execution phase.

Want a top-level overview? Read our guide on project management stages.

The kickoff meeting brings all the people involved together to ensure they’re on the same page over the:

If you have a small project, you’ll probably need just one kickoff meeting. However, larger projects with multiple phases usually have a kickoff meeting at the beginning of every stage.

Who attends the project kickoff meeting?

The invitees to this meeting may include the:

Since almost everyone involved in the project attends the kickoff meeting, it encourages communication and establishes the foundation for project success .

Not only will this help you avoid mid-project chaos and challenges , but you’ll also be ensuring that your project team members are excited and motivated!

How To Conduct a Project Kickoff Meeting

To conduct a project kick off meeting, follow an agenda that covers all important details.

Structure the agenda well, and all you’ll have to do is follow it through.

E-A-S-Y.

Lucky for you, we’ve already made a list of things you need to discuss in your kickoff meeting.

Step 1: Start with the introductions

Introductions are important because a project may not always have just internal team members. You may have a project sponsor, stakeholder, or client present.

So, to ensure everyone is aligned before the meeting begins, a list of invitees and meeting agenda should be formulated and shared among the attendees for reference; the Docs in UDN Task Manager can help with that! 😉

Easily create professional meeting agendas in UDN Task Manager Docs using these features:

Navigating the right sidebar and Docs settings in UDN Task Manager Docs

Once you’re ready, share it directly or attach it to an email using the Email ClickApp to send it to the attendees.

Step 2: Discuss the project purpose

Once you’ve exchanged pleasantries, it’s time to discuss the project’s purpose .

Discussing the project objective or purpose will clarify:

The easiest way to define all these details is to create a project charter .

It’ll contain essential project details starting from the scope and deliverables to project risks and resources.

Docs in UDN Task Manager is where you can draft your project charter and share it with key stakeholders, clients, and project team members via a simple link.

The fun part?

You don’t have to draft the charter all alone.

Just collaborate with your project management team using the real-time editing feature in Docs!

BONUS: Learn how to draft an excellent project charter .

However, just documenting the project background and scope won’t do much.

You’ll have to record your goals somewhere to track them later.

Ditch your spreadsheets and just feed the data into UDN Task Manager . This project management software makes it super simple to track progress and hit targets once the project begins.

How?

Say hello to Goals . 👋

You can create Goals that contain different Targets, like:

As you complete your Targets, UDN Task Manager will automatically update your progress percentage. This way, you can see how close you are to achieving your goal.

Read: How to use UDN Task Manager to set Goals for your team .

Step 3: Assign the right roles

Next on the project kickoff meeting agenda is to discuss roles and collaborations.

Some people may already know their responsibilities, but it’s important to discuss them anyway. It’s essential for your stakeholders, clients, and even new team members to understand who’s responsible for what.

Either way, assigning tasks to people should be easy, and their responsibilities must be crystal clear.

Start assigning tasks in UDN Task Manager as you discuss the roles.

This way, you won’t have to refer back to your meeting notes to assign tasks later.

UDN Task Manager makes it pretty easy to assign any task to a single person or even multiple assignees .

Got a team that needs to work on something?

No problem. Just assign tasks to an entire Team in UDN Task Manager .

However, allocating roles requires skill.

If you distribute work unevenly, some team members may have to work overtime while others could be underutilized.

Try the Workload view in UDN Task Manager .

Here, you can track who’s got what on their plate and allocate work accordingly.

You can even measure the workload in hours or by the number of tasks.

Step 4: Discuss the project timeline

A kick off meeting doesn’t have to describe every task in detail.

If you do, the meeting may never end.

Just like the pile of dirty dishes after a huge party. 🍽

However, you have to have an overview of the timeline to establish the key dates and events.

For example, client review dates, estimated project completion times, and milestones are important events, and you should discuss them.

Speaking of Milestones , you can set and track them in UDN Task Manager ’s Gantt chart .

It’s one of the most easy-to-read charts where you can:

And so much more!

The Timeline view is another option to visualize your project timeline. Think of it as a Gantt chart , just in a linear format.

You can build and rearrange the timeline quickly using the drag and drop functionality.

Bonus: read our Gantt chart vs. Timeline comparison to see how they differ.

Additionally, you can always set due dates for tasks so that Assignees know when they should complete their work.

For important events in your timeline, you can create reminders .

You can even delegate them to others, so they don’t forget an essential action item.

Step 5: Create a communication plan

A communication plan is key when there are so many parties involved.

So add a brainstorming session to your kickoff meeting agenda to determine how you’re going to keep everyone, including different stakeholders and clients, updated.

How will you share things? What tool are you going to use?

Are emails or video calls convenient for the clients?

The answer to all these: use UDN Task Manager !

You can use the Calendar view to schedule regular meetings. 📅

If your team is remote, you’re going to love our Zoom integration . This will let you host and join the project meeting right from within a task.

But are emails everything to you?

No worries! Use Email in UDN Task Manager to send and receive emails without leaving your task management platform and save time by taking immediate actions.

Still have more to say?

Use the Chat view for all other conversations!

You can even Assign Comments here to make quick action items for anyone.

However, when it comes to viewing progress and task updates, we recommend taking the simplest path to maintain transparency.

What’s that?

Public Sharing .

This lets you share all the views , including Calendar, Gantt, and List , as read-only with just a simple link or embed code. However, you can always change access levels so that people can even edit it.

This way, even if you can’t hold a meeting, project updates are still visible to everyone.

Step 6: Ask questions

Before you close the meeting, have a question and answer session.

Ask questions or give the floor to anyone who has doubts or confusion.

Some questions may surprise you.

But trust us, it’s never a bad thing when it comes to your project’s success.

The answers will make things clear as day, which is the goal of this meeting!

The Notepad in UDN Task Manager is an ideal place to take down these meeting notes and questions.

You can even create a quick Checklist in it.

And guess what?

You can even turn your notes into tasks to take action on them.

All you need to do is open the Notepad, click on + on the note option or within the note itself, and then select a List to make necessary task adjustments.

This is how your note is formatted into a task:

And that’s all for your project kick off meeting!

After you’ve covered everything on your project kickoff agenda, make sure you thank everyone for their efforts.

Close the project kick off meeting with a quick reminder of what the first task is in the execution phase.

Oh, and don’t forget to tell them about the date and time for the next kickoff session. 🕓

In case you do forget, though, we’ve got your back.

Remember, you can delegate reminders to UDN Task Manager . 😉

Now the only thing left to do is to get to work and deliver a successful project.

Good luck!

Kickoff With UDN Task Manager

There’s no guarantee that your project will be all smooth sailing after the kickoff meeting.

But having a solid kickoff meeting to start things off will definitely reduce miscommunications and bottlenecks. That’s why it’s especially important to host a successful kickoff meeting that covers all the important points.

And with the right meeting management tool , this becomes a piece of cake.

A powerful tool like UDN Task Manager can take your project kickoff meetings to the next level.

And that’s not all…

Imagine what UDN Task Manager can do for your entire project with its task, workflow, resource, time , and document management capabilities.

Make your project kickoff meeting a home run when you get UDN Task Manager for free today !