Kickoff

Goals

• the project team gets fully enabled to work on the project

• team members get to know each other (who works with me? what are their skills?)

• team members get to know the partner organization and the project task (what is wanted / needed by the NPO?)

• agree on a way of organizing the team

Checklist

• The necessary materials for the sessions are available.

• The project lead has received a briefing concerning the partner organisation and the project framework and can contribute their parts to the workshop.

• All participants have received concrete information up to two weeks before the workshop.

• All participants have received the information about the different accounts they need and set them up (Slack and optional Nextcloud)

• All participants received a reminder email with a detailed program one week before the event.

Purpose of the kickoff

The kickoff marks the start of the project work. Hence, it plays a special role in the course of the project. On one weekend (or an online meeting if an in-person meeting is not possible), the relevant stakeholders of the project come together to discuss the concrete goals of the project and how they can be reached. Participants are:

• the project coordinator

• the project team lead

• the project team

• representatives from the partner organization

The kickoff also marks the point in the project process where the main responsibility is passed on from the project coordinator to the project team lead and the project team.

The goals of the kickoff are:

• The project team knows the goals and values of CorrelAid, sees itself as part of it and knows the goals and values of the client.

• The project team knows the expectations and goals of the partner organisation and makes them its own.

• The project team identifies with the task and has developed its own vision for the work.

• The project team knows its own strengths and weaknesses and has developed a preliminary distribution of tasks.

• The project team had fun during the kickoff

The project coordinator is responsible for preparing the kickoff together with the project lead. The project coordinator and project lead agree early on who has what responsibilities in the preparation and implementation of the workshop. Whenever this chapter talks about activities that the project coordinator or project lead is responsible for, these are merely suggestions.

How to organize

You can find material and templates for the kickoff of the project cycle here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1d9paDcxWKQr20FO8TX18jV9J57N-RJJ9.