Kick-Off Meeting, and What Needs to Be

¶ … kick-off meeting, and what needs to be reviewed in that meeting. Describe a project kick off meeting you have attended or hosted, and give suggestions on how to improve it in the future. In at least 200 words, provide a comprehensive answer using your reading, knowledge and experience. The most essential elements of a project need to be shared during the project kick-off meeting including the goals and objectives for the project, how the project will be evaluated, and what the key resources are for getting it accomplished.

Excellent project kick-off meetings include clear role and responsibility assignments in addition to clear expectations of how each role interrelates with each other (Pasian, Sankaran, Boydell, 2012). Second, effective project kick-offs also include a framework used for monitoring progress and determining dependencies and their relative impact on overall project performance (Grant, Pennypacker, 2006). Third, effective project kick-offs also include a shared workspace or collaboration area online where project schedules, supporting documentation and completed work can be stored in an organized taxonomy or structure (Pasian, Sankaran, Boydell, 2012).

Fourth, an effective project kick-off, often lead to a cross-functional team leader, clearly and explicitly states how conflicts will be resolved over time, including those involving limited and often highly skilled resources, for example development and engineering time (Grant, Pennypacker, 2006). Fifth, an effective kick-off meeting also provides guidance on how contingencies to schedules and overall development programs will be managed.

Based on experiences managing cross-functional teams and leading project kick-offs, the most critical element of all is creating a solid foundation of communication and trust across all members of the extended, and often interdepartmental group. Describe how often project reviews should be held with project sponsors by the project manager.

List five important factors that should be in the project review, described in the text as "actionable information." Is it important to tell the sponsors what they want to hear or the truth about the actual status of the project? Explain your answer with professional examples if possible. Project reviews need to be held with project sponsors a minimum of once a week, potentially more often on projects that are of shorter duration with tighter deadlines.

The five factors that need to be included in a project review include continual clarification of project goals, very clearly defined roles and responsibilities and the continual focus on accountability for them, discussion and solidification of project scope, continual pursuit of open and clear communication, and continual focus on keeping management's support. Of these, the most critical is ensuring that the time invested during each project review is used to continually strengthen and clarify management's support while also providing very clear insights into how a project is progressing (Little, 2011).

Based on experience, it's clear that the tighter the schedule to get a project completed, the more essential it is to have management support to remove barriers to its successful completion. In small and medium businesses, this is often the CEO or owner. Empirical studies suggest that the greater the reliance on interdepartmental coordination and support in a small business, the faster resistance to change dissipates and drops over time (Turner, Ledwith, Kelly, 2012).

In small and medium businesses, the five important factors become encapsulated in daily conversations and the project team tends.