#383 The relevance of project kick-offs

The relevance of project kick-offs

Projects between office mentality and a spirit of optimism

Projects require a high level of motivation.

While this is often demanded, the reality of projects usually looks more like everyday business life. Numerous projects are postponed and delayed. Finished on time, on track, on target, on or under budget, and delivering the promised or expected added value — less than half of all projects fulfil this wish. In the following interviews, it was often apparent to those involved right from the start that the project would not succeed. Usually, the participants stated that this face was already crystal clear at the kick-off.

How can you make your projects more successful, and what role do kick-offs play?

Preparation

The objectives for a good kick-off must be defined at the beginning. However, the project objectives alone are not enough. Too many kick-offs end up being just a discussion of deadlines. Endless PowerPoint slides, which are usually just read out, quickly turn these kick-offs into appointments that most people involved in the project would rather forget very soon. The principle of my manager in my first job was: 'No supervised reading' - you need more than boring PowerPoint meetings. Pay attention to who is participating in the project and make each person's strengths visible to others. In addition to the project plan, the background and current situation of the organisation should always be considered, as these play a crucial role in projects. Of course, the budget must also be discussed clearly and transparently. Above all, however, besides the purely technical aspect, you also need social activities, which must be part of every good and relevant kick-off. Conflicts inevitably arise in projects. How these are resolved is significantly influenced by whether people know each other from a purely professional distance or have already signed so-called 'emotional contracts' with each other. Therefore, the excuse that there is supposedly no budget for such activities is neither acceptable nor sustainable and certainly not adequate.

Realisation

You need excellent presenters for the kick-off contributions. If you know that you or others are not good at this skill, it is time to learn it immediately. In-person, but especially online, people switch off quickly when giving poor presentations. Life is too short to have slides and copied Microsoft Excel spreadsheets read to you. When it comes to an important project, the presence of management, in person or online, is vital. Management commitment shows everyone involved that importance is not just an empty phrase. Discuss activities, timelines, roles, responsibilities, the work breakdown structure and the critical path. In addition, there needs to be a very good communication plan to know who communicates when, to whom, what content, via which communication channels, and at what frequency. Discussing risks, open questions and answers, and social activities round off the kick-off.

The aim is clear: to generate motivation, cohesion, and commitment based on facts while also considering the emotional side of a joint project.

(More on these aspects in this week's podcast; see links below).

Implementation

When implementing this idea, the objection quickly arises that there is no budget for social activities. Do you have the budget for delayed projects? Do you have the budget for projects that miss their targets? Do you have the budget for employees who leave the organisation because of such projects? No? Then, it is your responsibility to provide a budget for social activities. Of course, this is not realised with unreasonable demands. Look at the regulations, clearly define and delimit the activity and take compliance aspects into account. You will then have a good overview and can draft a budget that will serve as a reference for future kick-offs so that repeatability and equal treatment are also possible — the more important and larger the project, the more comprehensive and larger the kick-off. Corresponding best practices must be permanently anchored in the organisation.

Conclusion: excellent kick-offs ensure excellent project launches. These are often the basis for equally excellent results.

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More on this topic in this week's podcast: Apple Podcasts / Spotify
See below for the podcast’s transcript.

Is excellent leadership important to you?

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Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn

Website: www.NB-Networks.biz

Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.

Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, moderator.

Podcast Transcript

Speaker: Niels Brabandt

Welcome to the new project. Let's go. Maybe you know this kind of optimism when a new project begins. Or maybe you say, well, the atmosphere in our team is actually quite different. And that might be heavily relying on if you had a proper kickoff or not. Today, we're going to talk about how important excellent project kickoffs are. Sometimes you have a bit of an office mentality where people basically say, okay.

Here's a PowerPoint slide, and we talk about who has to do what until when, and then we just move on. And sometimes you have a great moment where great moment during a kickoff where where people are really motivated and committed to do the project at their best of their abilities. However, we need to see that the vast majority of project kickoffs are, let's say, substandard.

They're usually quite boring. People are not motivated to do them. They're usually quite stiff. They're quite bland. And when you compare one to the other, you couldn't distinguish them when you don't know the project's name. So projects are daily business. While they are dedicated pieces, of course, in organization, we are almost in some sort of project almost every single day of all working lives.

Most of the projects, however, are not successful. When you look into studies and surveys from project management works, you find that only 39% of projects are successful, and they have a quite wide definition of what successful means. When you really look into what the successful project mean, you need more than the typical 3 to 4 factors you hear. So first, of course, it needs to be on time, obviously.

Second 1, on track. So you went the path that you actually designed to do before you started. So that one on target, you want to reach the goal. However, then it has to be on or under the budget. That's where most projects actually fail. And the last one of this completely disregarded, and that is, did it actually deliver the value that was either expected or promised? So when you don't have the value at the end, the project can be successful on paper.

When there is no when you implement a piece of software but users do not adapt the software in their daily business, daily work life, then there is no success of such project. We now have to talk about how to deal with the situation we have on project kickoffs. Of course, first, we have to talk about what do you need when you prepare one. Let's say someone says, here's a project, you need to organize a kickoff. First, of course, you need to have the objectives. What do you want to achieve with the project? And then, unfortunately, most people say, okay, let's sit down and create PowerPoint slides.

And that that might be an option. However, it's not the best one. The first thing you have to talk about is and what the first thing you have to think about is who are the team members, the direct and indirect team members, of course. With small projects, usually only meet with a project team and a couple of people around. The larger the project, the more people you have to invite to the project kickoff. When you have really large and longer projects, you, of course, should invite the suppliers you have. You, of course, should invite the direct and indirect clients or the internal external clients you have because you need to talk about what is this project about.

Way too often project start off and then many conflicts arise that could have been prevented very easily if we just had a good kickoff and talked about that before. So of course, you also need the detailed plan. However, I've never seen a single project kickoff where someone says, oh, we don't have a project plan yet. Usually, these plans are very detailed. They get talked through. Unfortunately, they often lack a background review. Give you a very simple example here.

One of my clients in Austria, they had a project kickoff. People were not motivated whatsoever to do the project. And what was the reason for that? Very simple. The company was acquired and that was just announced the week before. Unfortunately, they only said you were acquired. No one knows will there be job cuts, will there be expansions, are we a partner, are we a supplier, if it's a strategic move, are you going to close down the whole thing that you just purchased, will we all be unemployed in a year?

Do we have to move? Do I have to switch jobs?

That was simply missing. And of course, no one is motivated when you just have a detailed plan but you didn't do the background review. So any detailed plan needs to have a background review before you present it. Of course, you need to get the budget agreed, but that goes without saying usually you have a very detailed budget planning. And then, and here's the crucial part, when you want people to work together. And let's let's face it, something in the project will go wrong in one way or the other. When do people stop to be nasty?

When do people stop to be a nuisance? When are people nicer to each other? And you usually come to one conclusion when they know each other a bit better. So there's some sort of social connection. How do you get the social connection?

You need social activities. And when you now say, oh, we don't have budget for that, which is the usual excuse I hear, I can tell you first in the English speaking world, there's a lot more culture for having a social activity. However, we always upcoming an excuse that that we do not have any budget for that. Do you have budget for delayed projects? Do you have budgets for projects that did not achieve the goal? Do you have budgets for projects that on paper was successful, but nothing was adapted afterwards? I assume that all of these questions are answered with no. So when you don't have budget for that, you cannot say that you have no budget to make people work together better.

But we get back to that in a minute. So be aware that you need to have some social activity, especially when things didn't go too well before that. I just give you just give you a very simple example from one of my clients in Northern Germany, where there was a change of leadership and the atmosphere was quite mediocre to say the least. And then when a new project came in and the new leader came in, he said, first thing we do, we're going car driving, go car driving, and then we go for dinner. That doesn't cost a fortune and the whole team was immediately more motivated than they were before. So that is a very simple approach of a social activity. Of course, you can have a 1,000,000,000 other activities, but simply saying there's no budget for that, please sit down, listen to my 78 power point slides in the next 2 and a half hours, and then wonder why people are frustrated and not motivated.

You can't be serious that you really wonder that this isn't going well then. So be aware, you need to be better than that. Now let's look into how to conduct, how to perform, how to deliver the whole project kickoff. First, you need excellent presenters, speakers, contributions. There's absolutely no time then people sit down and say, okay. Here we go again. And the first speaker shows up and says, oh, yeah.

Let let me present this PowerPoint slide to you where I exactly tell you what's on the slide, what's written on the slide. I just I basically read it out. And then you have phrases such as, oh, the next slide might be a bit hard to read. So you know it's hard to read. You just don't care, obviously. And then you have Excel Excel sheets copied into PowerPoint slides where you can't read anything but someone rambles on for half an hour anyway. So you need to have excellent presenters.

When you now say and that is a typical excuse as well when someone says I am not a great presenter. Hear the news. Learn it. Many things we weren't great at. Believe me, when I did my MBA and we came to the finance part, I am not a finance person. I'm not a finance specialist. And and and if I had said, I'm not a finance person, first, there are no non finance managers.

You always have to do with financials. But if I when I simply had said, look, I'm not great at finance. They said, yeah. Well, then you either learn or fail. So in business, it's exactly the same. When you say you're not a great presenter, learn it. It is a learned skill.

It's an acquired skill, not a skill you're born with. So after that, you need to make sure that there's management commitment. Not every single project needs management commitment because some project are not that relevant to management. However, especially important projects is always good when someone from the leadership areas, someone from the higher levels of hierarchy shows up either online or on-site depending how important everything is. Then, of course, you get to the usual. You talk about which activities have to be done during the project, the timelines, the roles, the responsibilities, the accountability is very important than this. So you have some structure in your project.

Please use WBS, work breakdown structure. Every work package has a number and every sub step has additional numbers. So for example, you have work package number 7 and then you have 7.1, 7.2, and maybe there's another sub step, so you have 7.2.1. Please do not use more than these three levels. When you, for example, in a meeting after 3 months say, hey. Could we please all go to work package number 14 step 3 sub step 5? That's 7.3.5.

Anyone can follow that. When you say, hey. Could you please all look at 11.8.6. 4.5? No one knows what you're talking about. So keep it to 3 levels of hierarchy when it comes to numbering. The next one, please use CPM, critical path method.

Many people know what the critical path is. The critical path are all the activities that when they are delayed, the whole project will be delayed. You need to talk to people, and please do that before the project kickoff as well, not only during the project kickoff. Anyone needs to know which of my activities are in the critical path because they need to focus on them so they will not be delayed. Because when you delay them, the whole project will be delayed. But people need to know upfront which activities do we have in the critical path method. Another piece which now needs to follow, which is often completely missing, is the communication plan.

Who needs to communicate when to which person with which contact via which communication means in which frequency. I give you very simple example.

So who, Nielsk Brabant, when? Monday 18th November. Whatever. To whom? To, doctor Miller on the missus missus doctor Miller on the c level. Which content? Project update.

Which communication means email or SharePoint, and which frequency monthly or weekly or whatever you prefer. However, you have to you need to agree how will you communicate. If you do not have a communication plan and I can tell you an interim mandate, I do not start a single project without having a communication plan. Because if you do not have a communication plan, what happens is anyone has their personal preferences. Someone says, oh, I love Teams chat, so I'm gonna communicate with you on Teams chat. Someone else sends you emails.

Another one sends you WhatsApp messages. And someone else put puts it on SharePoint or in a subfolder of Microsoft Teams. And then the catastrophe is going to unravel. So you need to set a standard where the whole team needs to agree to. Very important is you agree to that. It is not simply obey and order. So you sit down and then you talk about what other means we have available because we get more and more means of communication every single day.

And with Microsoft Teams, the Teams chat is now added. So we have more and more channels, but we need to drill down to the most important ones. So we all know which are the means we use for communications and which are the ones we will not use. Of course, afterwards, you then talk about risk, not only in communication, but in general during the project. And of course, there's always a q and a. You must be able to answer questions from absolutely anyone. They have the right to ask questions because they want to be sure that we are all on the same page before we begin.

The goal of the whole delivery of this kickoff is to create commitment. Create commitment amongst the people who will be part of the project. And when you now say, okay, when I implement this, getting back to this phrase, we have no budget. So first, I told you how zero credible this phrase is. We have no budget. You have no budget for any kind of delays or mishaps or or missing goals. So you must have budget for social activities.

However, what's not helping is when you simply say hey give me the money. I heard this podcast, mister Ron said this, give me the money. That's not how anything works. So first, please check with compliance and talk about is there any kind of regulation because in many fields there are. When you work in the steel industry or the pharmaceutical industry or with public service, there are very strict guidelines for example clients are allowed to accept. So check with compliance first. 2nd, talk to finance.

When you talk to finance, you will find the pot where the money is and then you can talk about how to get the money out of that pot into your project. 3rd, talk to senior leaders and executives because you need to have support from other people who simply make that happen. Because you need to have budget which you then can use not only for the project but also for social activities in case of need. And after a kickoff meeting or during a kickoff meeting, social activities are important. I can tell you from 2 day long kickoff meetings off-site in great hotels. I remember one kickoff meeting we went 3 days to Vegas. Why did we do that?

It was a 2 year long project with more than 400 people involved. And we all knew it will be very challenging, and we will have very critical moments where we will probably all be very angry with each other due to the challenges. But when you know people, you simply are nicer to each other and you work together more closely. And I can tell you 3 days in Vegas, we still talk about them, although all of this happened almost 15 years ago. So very important is when you then look into compliance always check for regulatory and compliance very important. Then set a very clear limit because no finance department will give you an open budget. They will always say, okay, when it comes to these things we do zero based budgeting.

You have to justify every single penny. Tell me what you wanna do and then you get money from there. And very important is please tell them this is not a one off because I way too often have seen, oh yeah, we now do something for the kickoff, here you are. But next time, we just do the meeting room thing with cookies on the table again. No. You won't. Every single important project needs an equally important and well designed kickoff.

I do not mean that every single tiny tiny project must have an off-site of a couple of days, travel and flights, then a big party. No. It's meant for the most important ones. The smaller the project, the smaller the kickoff, the bigger and the more relevant and the more important the project is, the bigger and the more relevant and the more important the social activities around that will be as well. The bigger the project, the bigger the kickoff. Very simple. And by the way, when you then have all of that together, then you really have a piece of best practice for your organization.

Please update that frequently because many things change, behavior of clients for example, expectations of clients, also internal processes often change, organization change. And of course the law, compliance regularly changes very frequently. So please update these practices frequently. Taking all this together as a summary, we can say excellent kickoffs always deliver excellent project starts. And you know what usually follows after excellent project starts? Usually, the project goes reasonably well, if not excellent. And even if you have conflicts, as soon as you have the social activities before and you have commitment and the social knots and ties between people, people will be way nicer and more productive to each other and get things done better than ever before.

And with that, I wish you all the best and a lot of success with your upcoming projects. And when you now say, woah. I think I have about 28 aspects which I need to discuss. Very happy to do that. Just send me an email. Nbnbhyphenetworks. com. If you now want to talk about something very specific, you need a training session about that or a speaking gig, someone speaks at your conference or a coaching or whatever, We can talk about that as well, but we can also just talk about your aspects.

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