Projects and operations
Template: minutes from a kickoff meeting
A minute template for the kickoff meeting of a project, with goal, scope, roles, milestones and the assumptions everyone thought they agreed on.
MINUTES: KICKOFF MEETING [project name]
[date], [__.__]–[__.__] | [place or meeting format]
PRESENT
[Name], [role]
[Name], [role]
GOAL
[What the project is to deliver, in one to three sentences. Write it so
that somebody outside the room can decide whether it has been achieved.]
OUTSIDE THE PROJECT
- [What is NOT included, and which somebody might come to think is]
- [...]
ROLES
Project owner: [name]
Project manager: [name]
Decision maker: [name] (who says yes and no)
Participants: [name, name]
MILESTONES
Milestone Date Owner
[milestone] [date] [name]
[milestone] [date] [name]
ASSUMPTIONS
[What the work rests on, and which is not yet confirmed.]
- [Assumption]. Confirmed by [name] by [date].
RISKS AND DEPENDENCIES
- [Risk]: [measure], owner [name]
HOW WE WORK
Meeting frequency: [weekly / fortnightly]
Decisions: [how they are taken, and by whom]
Documentation: [where minutes and materials live]
TASKS
| # | Task | Owner | Due |
|---|------|-------|-----|
| 1 | | | |
NEXT MEETING
[date, time]
Minutes taken by: [name]How to use it
- Fill in “outside the project” even if nobody asked. It is the item that saves the most hours later, and the one most often left blank.
- Write the name of the decision maker. Not a committee. A project without one person who can say no takes every decision twice.
- Separate assumptions from risks. An assumption is something you believe is true and have not checked. A risk is something you know could go wrong. They are handled differently.
Send the minutes before anybody has time to misremember
A kickoff meeting is where everyone leaves with their own version of what was agreed. The minutes the same day are the only thing that catches the divergence while it is still cheap to correct.
Frequently asked questions
The goal, what is outside the project, roles with names, milestones, and the assumptions the work rests on. The last is the item people skip, and the one that most often topples projects later.
Because scope creep nearly always starts with «I thought that was included». A written item about what is outside is the cheapest insurance a project can have.
An hour and a half to two hours for a project of any size. Shorter and it becomes a briefing, and then the clarifications have to happen somewhere else anyway.