Starting well: kick-off and alignment

During the analysis and sales phases a great deal of value is produced: you get to know the client, discuss ideas, make decisions. And it is right there, in the handover to execution, that this value risks getting lost. The kick-off is there to prevent it. The alignment meetings that follow are there to stop it leaking away along the way.

In The Heir’s Challenge the four cousins run three parallel projects with no shared vision, and only talk to each other at dinner. It is the portrait of a project that started without a kick-off.

Before starting: initiation

Before the kick-off, the project needs clear answers to a few questions. What is the vision, and what is the purpose? What must be delivered, broadly? What is the main problem, and what are the possible solutions? What does it cost, and what does it bring? Who is involved, what do they expect, how much do they count?

In more structured projects these answers go into an initiation document, the Project Charter. In others, one page is enough. But they must be there, and they must be shared.

Objectives you can measure

“Rebuild the website” is not an objective. There are several ways to write a good one, and it pays to know them all.

• SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound. The best known and the most rigorous; its limit is that it can become rigid and uninspiring.
• CLEAR: collaborative, limited in time and scope, emotional, appreciable (broken into small milestones), refinable. Better suited to contexts that change quickly.
• OKR (Objectives and Key Results): a meaningful, inspiring objective, with three to five measurable key results, no grey areas. If a key result can’t be verified, it isn’t a key result.
• The 3Ps: possible (do budget, people and time add up?), passionate (will the team believe in it?), pervasive (does it really solve the problem, or is it a sticking plaster?).

An OKR example:

Objective	Key results
Make the new website the first point of contact for customers	40% of enquiries come through the online form within six months
	Average response time under 24 hours
	500 newsletter subscribers by the launch of the new collection

It isn’t about choosing one method and discarding the others: you take from each what the project needs.

The kick-off

The kick-off is the meeting that officially starts the project. It is for sharing objectives, strategy, tasks, roles and responsibilities. It often pays to hold two: an internal one with the team, to align on everything that won’t be said in front of the client; and one with the client.

1. Prepare the material. A short presentation with context, problem, objectives, audience, budget and timing; a project sheet with the essentials; the list of deliverables.
2. Invite the right people. Everyone with a key role, internal and external, and only them. A crowded meeting confuses instead of aligning.
3. Write the agenda. Introduction to the project; strategy and tasks; roles and responsibilities; how we will communicate and monitor; next steps.
4. Run it. Whoever facilitates keeps to time, involves everyone, clears up doubts and sums up. Everyone should be able to voice expectations and concerns; at the end, decisions must be shared.
5. Document and share. Short minutes: agreed objectives, roles, actions, deadlines. And a couple of lines thanking those who took part, which cost little and are worth a lot.

Meetings, in general

Project meetings come in three kinds: informative (updating everyone on status, results, problems), decision-making (choosing between alternatives, approving), creative (generating ideas, solving problems). Mixing them is the quickest way to achieve none of the three.

Whatever the kind, a few rules apply: a frequency that suits the project, neither too many nor too few; a length proportionate to the topics; the right people and no more; agenda and materials sent beforehand; someone who moderates; a summary afterwards, with decisions and actions.

The alignment calendar

Meeting	What it is	Frequency	Length
Stand-up	Everyone says what they are doing today, what is blocking them, what they need	Daily	15 minutes at most
Catch-up	The team reviews progress, results and problems	Weekly	30–60 minutes
Progress review	Formal alignment with everyone involved: status, issues, adjustments	Monthly, or per phase	60–90 minutes
Steering committee	Meeting with senior decision-makers: objectives, results, critical decisions	Monthly or quarterly	60–90 minutes

Not every project needs them all. But every project must know which ones it uses, when and with whom: it is the first piece of the communication plan.

People who join halfway

When a person or a supplier joins a project already under way, the risk is that they learn everything from mistakes. Three things help: a tidy archive of materials, where briefs, decisions and versions can be found; a buddy, someone on the team who works alongside them for the first weeks; a few dedicated catch-ups, to check they really have the picture.