Project Kick-off: Kick-off Planning Template
Instructions
This document is intended to support the project manager as he/she prepares to kick-
off the project. Several activities are involved with preparation, including the kick-off
meeting and stakeholder communication planning. Included in this document are 1) a
kick-off meeting activity checklist, 2) a kick-off meeting agenda template, 3) guidelines
on developing a stakeholder communication plan and 4) a sample project timeline
format.
Project Kickoff Activity Checklist
1. Obtain and review project charter.
2. Understand and confirm project funding.
3. Understand and confirm project team members (roles, responsibilities, time
commitment and availability).
4. Understand and confirm project timeline, in light of resource availability identified above
(sample timeline format included in this document).
5. Develop stakeholder communications plan (with input from team members and key
stakeholders).
6. Identify who should be attending kick-off meeting (project team, key stakeholders,
project sponsors, others).
7. Determine the amount of time you’ll need for the kick-off meeting (generally not more
than 2 hours).
8. Email all meeting participants to understand their availability for a meeting date and
time or utilize Outlook Calendar to assess common availability.
9. Arrange meeting room and technology (projector, screen, etc.).
10. Coordinating calendars, schedule kick-off meeting with everyone involved.
11. Create meeting materials including:
12. PowerPoint or other presentation (see agenda below)
13. Handouts (project charter, timeline, contact lists, other)
14. If needed, create a shared folder for electronic files related to the project. You may
want to have a folder for the project team (technical team) and a separate folder for
users and key stakeholders. Create access permissions as appropriate.