5 Things to Include in Your Training Project Kickoff
I start every new training project with a sense of hope and excitement. I'm ready to build a lasting relationship with my client and I feel ready because I have a proven plan for my project kickoff. I'm not reinventing it every time I have a new project.
On today’s episode, I want to share that plan with you.
Whether you're a consultant or currently working inside an organization, this approach should work for you. And hopefully, you'll feel excited and hopeful about your projects when you use it.
Listen to the episode or scroll down to read the blog post ↓
Key Points:
00:58 Starting a new training project with excitement
02:40 5 Things to include in your nonprofit training project kickoff
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5 Things to Include in Your Training Project Kickoff
I love the start of a new project. It's like the start of a new year.
Every year before school starts:
My kids get a fresh haircut, new school supplies, new shoes, and a fun lunchbox or something that they get to pick out.
We go over their school supply checklist to make sure they have everything they need.
They go to their school supply drop-off, meet their new teacher, and see all their friends again.
It's a time filled with excitement and hope for a good year ahead. And that's how I feel at the start of a new project, too.
I review the scope of work to make sure I have everything I need and I schedule that Zoom kickoff with a sense of hope and excitement.
I'm ready to build a lasting relationship with my client.
And I feel ready because I have a proven plan for my project kickoff. I'm not reinventing it every time I have a new project. I feel confident in what I need to get done. And I want to share that plan with you.
This is the project kickoff I use when bringing on new nonprofit clients, but it's also similar to what I used internally at a national nonprofit. So whether you're a consultant or currently working inside of an organization, the approach should work for you. And hopefully, you'll feel excited and hopeful about your projects when you use it.
In this blog post, I’m sharing five things that I include in my training project kickoffs:
1) Building Relationships to be a Good Learning and Development Partner
Firstly, I want to make sure I have time within that project kickoff just to get to know the team. Introductions are an important thing to include in the kickoff.
Now this was also true when I was working internally; though, I may have already had some sort of relationship with the person I was working with, I still wanted to make sure that we had time just to get to know each other a little bit better…just to check in on how things are going, how they’ve been, and what's new in their world.
Even if you know them, and you've worked together before, you don't always know the day in and day out. And so having time to either get to know them or check in with them before you really get into the project information is really valuable.
You want to make sure that you have a really good and long lasting relationship with whoever it is that you're working with.
I actually do this in every project meeting - I try to have a little bit of time at the beginning just to check in and see how they're doing. But this is really important at the beginning because you might not know each other that well yet, so spend some time getting to know each other.
2) Training Project Scope
Now, once you're ready to transition from introductions to the training project itself, one of the things I like to do is confirm the scope.
This project ended up on my plate so I know a little bit about it and what we’re trying to accomplish at this point, but I still want to confirm that with them.
As a consultant - That information may have come through a discovery call that we had a month or so before this.
Internally - That information might have come to you indirectly from your supervisor or a partner within the organization
Spend some time with that project team to confirm the scope:
Where are we headed?
What are we doing?
What is the business goal or the strategic goal that we're trying to achieve?
What is the intended impact on the organization or the people who will be affected by this project?
Why are we doing this project?
Why right now?
You're going to learn as you go through the project, so you might not have all the answers on day one but confirm what you know already.
Also, talk about what success looks like because this will help you narrow that scope.
What does it look like if this project is totally successful?
And then if you know any of the deliverables, go ahead and discuss those too.
Sometimes as a consultant, I might not know the exact solution, but I know we're headed towards a solution. And so I can confirm what those deliverables are. That's all part of confirming the scope of the project.
It just makes sure that you're all on the same page and that you all have the same vision and expectations of what the project is.
3) Training Project Timeline and Meeting Schedule
So we've spent time getting to know each other and we've confirmed the scope of the project, now we need to confirm the timeline and set the meeting schedule.
So obviously, it's starting at the project kickoff meeting. But…
When are people available?
How long do we have to work on this project?
Is there an outside deadline?
Always think ahead to the full timeline of the project, that way you can make sure you're on track to meet that.
Also, start to think through those major deliverables and if anything has a set timeline that you need to stick to.
That's really important and it's going to help you in the long run because you're going to be able to take those big deliverables and work backward to do all of your project management.
It's also important because it's going to help you set the meeting schedule.
My meeting schedule varies a little bit by project. Sometimes I meet with clients weekly. Sometimes I meet with them every other week.
It depends on:
What is needed.
How quickly the project is going to go.
How many people are involved in the project.
How responsive I think the client is going to be.
There are all kinds of different factors as to whether we're meeting weekly or every other week, but that meeting schedule is going to be set at the beginning of the project because I'm going to depend on it as I do all the project management.
I actually align deliverables so that we can have real-time discussions and decision-making in those meetings. So I need to know what your availability is and what that meeting cadence is going to look like upfront so it all becomes part of the timeline.
4) Training Project Team Roles and Responsibilities
The next thing is to confirm the project team and talk about roles and responsibilities.
You have a group of people at this project kickoff.
Is that everybody?
Is there anyone else who should be involved?
Is there anyone who's not here who should be?
Is there somebody who's going to need to review and approve later down the line, but they aren't going to be from a project team?
These are all things that you need to know so that you can plan ahead and hopefully avoid last minute changes and reviewers that may derail a project.
A great question to ask - Who else needs to be here?
Once you have established who is at the table then you can work out the roles and responsibilities of the people on the project team.
Who is doing what?
When will they have the bulk of their work?
Think through how you can make this really clear and easy.
I always say this when I'm doing a training project:
I'm looking out for the learner. You're looking out for the content. We work together to make sure we have the right content for the learner at the right time and the right way.
It really is a co-creation and a collaboration.
5) Curating Training Content and Resources
The last thing I'm going to share is a little bit unique as far as whether you're internal or external - and that is to request resources.
What already exists?
Is there a training that already exists that aligns with what you're trying to achieve?
Is there a toolkit that already exists that aligns with what you're trying to achieve?
Has someone done a one-off webinar on the topic that you are focused on?
Are there pictures out there that another team at your organization has done that you can leverage?
What are those existing resources?
This is going to help you with analysis, but it's also going to help you as you get into development.
Externally - As a consultant, I want to know if there are any templates that I need to be using because I want to make sure that we have a consistent look and feel across all of your training.
Are there brand guidelines that I can have or review? This includes logo and color palettes for example.
If you don't have brand guidelines, what can you give me to make sure that this is going to have a consistent look and feel across the organization?
Internally - You probably already have those things, but we still want to know what other resources are going to help us be successful.
Those are the five things I always include in my training project kick-offs. And just like that school supply checklist that I talked about at the beginning, having a proven project kickoff agenda will help you feel confident as you begin a new project.
To hear the full conversation I had on the Learning for Good Podcast, scroll all the way up and tune into episode 95.
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