One cannot place enough emphasis on the value of setting proper roles and expectations for ANY project and the importance becomes even more glarring when there are multiple business units, vendors and mini-projects all trying to get to the same goal.

Here are a few quick must dos at project kickoff regarding this topic.  There are many others – but these 5 things should be at the top of your list when kicking off a project – and MAKE SURE you invite all known project participants to the kickoff meeting!!!

1. Clearly define and document all team member roles.  Don’t just break it down by groups, but be very clear and concise toward each individuals specific role.
2. Clearly define and document any and all owners of the various aspects of the project.  For instance, if there is a business decision conflict that comes about, who makes this decision?  The more you can dwindle this down toward one person, the better.  Decision by committee is very challenging (though sometimes it cannot be avoided), so t should be avoided if at all possible.
3. Cleary define and document the communication plan.  Who gets what when in the form of communication has to be agreed upon and the plan should be distributed to all team members by the project manager(s).
4. Define who will resolve resource conflicts by dictating priority.  Is this the PM?  Is it a business manager?  Does there need to be a meeting if one comes up?  There will be plenty of priority conflicts – they all need to be quickly resolved and having a sound game plan ready to execute when needed.
5. Clearly define and document the status update process.  Is it via email or meeting?  What is the frequency?  Who participates?   Is there a standard agenda?  These are all things you should think about.

Knowing the answers to these questions and having sound documentation distributed out to the project team will save plenty of heartache down the road.

Happy kickoff!

Matt