Kick-Off Workshop

Kick-off workshop

Each project should have a starting workshop and a retrospective workshop (see below). This ensures the integrity of the team and offers a way to make long-term adjustments of the team's progress.

Before the workshop starts, get everything ready and make sure each team member is aware of the available budget for the project.

Focus Areas & Teams

Write - 37 min

During the first 30 minutes of the brainstorming activity, each participant will express what they would like to get out of the project. Inform everyone of the aim for everyone to share their input within 30 minutes. This process begins with the project manager/owner. Once they have presented their thoughts, divide the remaining time by the amount of remaining participants. Set the timer for this amount of time and use it for each presenter. As everyone presents their thoughts, each individual listening should take notes, writing down ideas for focus areas. Make certain everyone is writing.

Once everyone has presented, allow 7 minutes for silent group brainstorming.

Categorise - 5 min

Set a timer for five minutes and ask everyone to categorize the notes into focus areas and cluster them. Categorise all notes and summarise each focus area in one or two words.

Project Areas & Initiatives

Projects and Solutions - 7 min

Copy the categories from the exercise before and paste them on the horizontal Focus Areas line. Have everyone write down as many solutions to the focus areas they can think of, in a column under each challenge.

Let everyone know to write solutions in an a way that makes them actionable, by using a combination of at least a verb and optionally noun, making it sound actionable. E.g. instead of "snacks" write "prepare snacks.” These will be the functions necessary to execute the overall project.

Voting - 5 min

Ask everyone to vote on their favorite solutions and ideas in the focus areas, giving four votes to each participant.

Functions

Task Breakdown - 5 min

Copy the upvoted functions and paste them to the functions section here and write individual post-it's underneath to specify which tasks need to be done in order to successfully complete the solution. If it's clear, you can also add a duration to each task, which will make it easier to estimate the cost of the work later.

Delegation - 10 min

Ask everyone to place their name next to each task or function they think they can contribute to or be responsible for and also actively desire to volunteer for.

Review Incomplete Functions - 10 min

Some functions may have a list of tasks, but not all tasks will have contributors. Review together whether the scope of the function should be adjusted or if the function should be skipped entirely. Make sure to ask if specific tasks can be left out without throwing the rest of the function.

Decide who wants to own each function overall. This may be the person with the most posted next to a list of tasks or someone who is excited about the particular function. It’s possible that multiple people want to do something. Collect the names of those who expressed interest but did not end up taking responsibility in case it’s needed for reference in the future.

Duration & Budgets

Duration - 5 min

Copy the functions and their owners from the previous slide and paste them into the Function section.

Decide when the next check-in will be. This could be in two weeks or a month. This could be a workshop session or retrospective session. During this time, the team can discuss any budget requirements for the project. After the decided duration, we will see the results of our collaboration and be able to decide how to re-start or continue. Remind the participants that the results of their commitment will also stay with them as part of their Deep Teams profile!

Budget - 5 min

Agree on whether a function needs compensation or a budget. Evaluating the duration of each function can act as a reference to define the compensation.