Detailed Notes
In the latest episode of the “Building Better Developers” podcast, we delve into a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of project management—the Project Kickoff. This episode is part of our ongoing series on the developer journey, aiming to equip developers with the knowledge and skills to excel in their careers. The discussion provides valuable insights into the significance of a well-structured project kickoff, regardless of the project type or organizational context.
Read more... https://develpreneur.com/mastering-the-project-kickoff-setting-the-stage-for-success
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Additional Resources
* Working The Project – Consulting Success (https://develpreneur.com/working-the-project-consulting-success/)
* CYA Documentation: Getting Started With Consulting (https://develpreneur.com/cya-documentation-getting-started-with-consulting/)
* Winning Your First Project: A Developer’s Guide to Starting Your Side Hustle (https://develpreneur.com/winning-your-first-project-a-developers-guide-to-starting-your-side-hustle/)
* A Project Management and Pricing Guide for Success (https://develpreneur.com/a-project-management-and-pricing-guide-for-success/)
Transcript Text
[Music] hello I hit the record button so now we are recording we are okay not live we're live a live but we not live this episode what do we want to talk about well actually I want to pitch this one and I think you threw some others out um somewhere in the slack channel uh for those of you playing along at home if you don't use slack uh it's a really good system I actually like it better than teams I'm not going to complain too much on that's a whole other soap box issue how much has driven me nuts lately um I thinking about like what's a kickoff I think this would be something that we're sort of at a point of there is it's interesting that it's become more of a to me it's become more of a thing in the last 10 or 15 years maybe it's because of where I you know my position career-wise and stuff I was doing before that I mean there were kickoffs but there wasn't I don't think there were they were as structured as they have gotten to be now and how they they can and should be so I'm thinking this may be a good one it's like hey now you you've won a project or you know you come across Finish Line and your boss is like hey we've got a new project what should you expect from a kickoff when you should kickoff some of those kinds of things because I've seen a lot of different approaches to it um especially in the agile world it's a little different each of them there's there's different ways I've seen that done so I think it may be good worth a little uh you know discussion and and see where it goes yeah I like that then once again well hello and welcome back we are continuing our discussion of the developer Journey here on building better developers spoiler alert that developer Journey should take you to becoming a better developer that's our goal that's why we're here this is what we've done and how we want to share with you and hopefully get some feedback from you guys as well guys and gals and whatever else is you want to be my name is Rob briad I am one of the founders of developing nor building better Developers also a founder of RB Consulting where we simplify integrate and automate basically we take your your me your sprawl of Technology we take a look at what's there whether it's modern or whether it's 15 years old and it's about to go out of you know support and and all that kind of bad stuff we help you figure out what you got where it needs to go and how to best move you there and we'll even move you there if we need to we'll Supply the moving trucks you name it we'll do it on the other end is my go ahead and introduce yourself hey everyone my name is Michael malash I am also one of the founders of Envision of uh developer boy I need more caffeine I'm also a founder of Envision QA where we help small to midsize businesses and Healthcare startups and clinicians build custom software to meet their needs and review their current processes to make sure that they have the right software to do the right job and little you know Pro tip there while he was talking I took some caffeine while I'm talking he's doing the same so that's how we keep this thing going this episode I want to talk about kickoff not like football kickoff or something like that but project kickoff and this could be uh if you're working for you if you're company somewhere if you're employed it may be a new project there may like an internal project it could be kicking off your side hustle project it could be a customer that you've got if you're you do consulting or something like that and they bring you a project and this is it does vary a little bit what you're going to need from Project to project but there's definitely there are definitely some things that you want to have as a part of your kickoff now the first thing which is funny because it goes back to my first job very first job I was in I can't remember how I've been working for a few weeks something like that and something happened I can't remember if I was sick or something like that but I wasn't going to be able to make it to work on time this is before everybody had cell phones we had these big things you had to have like you two hands to like pull the dial and sort of look like Price is Right Stuff but I didn't have phone numbers I didn't have a phone number for the for the business I didn't I mean I I could look that up in this thing they called The Yellow Pages which was a book that had phone numbers in it and I could go get that but I couldn't get a hold of like a specific manager or anything and even then the business phone like never got answered basically it never got answered there were a couple of of phones that you could get to people that were you know internal but you couldn't get to the through the actual business phone you you got nothing and so I realized fairly quickly is like oh I need to have that I should have first thing when I start a job I should know like who's my boss how do I get a hold of them these days it should be like you know phone number if there's a phone number to get a hold of them email address definitely so I can get hold of them that way um anything like that you know those kinds of really it's it's just administrative stuff and now most of the time when you do a when you start a job one of the things you're going to do is you're going to have like a an orientation you're G to have something that first you know little bit first day whoops first day of your job and stuff like that you're probably filling out paperwork and they're walking through this is what your job's like this is what the company's like this is sort of what you want to do with your project one of the most important things to get going on on a project when you do the kickoff is introduce yourselves we should know it should include doesn't have to include everybody in the project but definitely the major players so if you've got a team of you know thousands of developers they don't want to have to be a part of it but you should have like the leads you should have the testing leads you should have the customer Representatives those kinds of things the people that are the for lack of a better term the executive team of the project now that may just be you and a customer but still those people need to be part of that whether they don't have to be in person but they have to be a part of that kickoff call because what you want to do is say basically this is the team this is what we've got as far as the you know from a software point of view like here's the implementation group here is the customer and this is who these people are this is their role ideally and doesn't always happen but one of the things you want to do is identify like the key decision maker or the decision and make her who are your primary contacts both ways so for the customer part of that conversation is if I have convers have questions about let's say requirements because we're going to go into the requirements phase sometime early on if I have questions about them who should I talk to or should I you know or is there a a group mailing list should we set up a group mailing list along with that it is a lot of this administrative stuff it's things like okay what happens how do we track conversation ations do we use that thing I use mentioned earlier like slack or do we use some sort of a a ticketing system or do we use teams or do we just have an email that we pass back and forth or do we have a spreadsheet that we pass back and forth is there a Wiki site how do we track this stuff and then with that is like how do we build what is our goal for building uh documentation and other deliverables are we going to you know have shared stuff is it going to be something where it sort of passed back and forth these and this is not necessarily at a specific level where you're going to have to have all your templates and everything done because your kickoff should not take you three days it should take you you know maybe 30 minutes maybe an hour depending on your team and things like that but it's essentially like here's how we're going to proceed this is the you know it's typically it's going to be a reiteration of the the project Charter or statement of work or MSA or something like that where it's just basically like okay this is what we're doing this is the team this is the you know maybe this is the phase that we're working on and this is how we want to work this is how we're going to communicate and how we're going to work together getting that is really one of the key things for your your kickoff because kickoff is not Gathering all the requirements or anything like that kickoff is really like setting the stage to say okay let's introduce everybody let's talk let's do what we need to do let's get our ducks in a row because in the next meeting we have it's almost like a pre- meeting because then the next meeting we have is where we're really going to start working on these things those are my thoughts and that's like that and however much $15 will buy you a cup of coffee these days but over on the other side there I want to see what so what what are some of your thoughts and some of your experiences with kickoffs and uh and even some feedback on some of the things that I threw out there so before I jump into my thoughts I have a couple questions for you based on how you introduced the kickoff so in today's world where we've gone away from the more waterfall approach to the more agile approach do you feel that we've lost some of that requirements Gathering piece where this type of kickoff documentation gets put together because typically we would do that at the start of the project and then over time we would update that but with agile sometimes we're moving so fast that we forget to do that like we do that at the beginning but then we're just constantly going going going we assume that that's the right document and it never gets updated what are your thoughts on that wow that's a whole that'll be the next episode we'll talk about documentation and keeping it in sync um I do think there's part of that because with waterfall you really don't move forward I in the strict sense you don't move forward until the document is done and then you don't change the document that's the waterfall thing is you get it all figured out and then you move forward that's like you know where you're running and you know you're going to run until you get to the Finish Line agile is different because it's basically saying we're going to start moving and we're not really sure where we're going to land we really we sort of know where we're headed but I'm not sure how we're going to get there and so it's sort of the difference if Columbus had come to America and he had used a zipline to get across the ocean very different from how he managed to get where he you know his trips and how he went so I think you if if the agile approach especially if you're doing like scrum with Sprints and things like that if part of it is that you are making sure you're updating document as documentation as you go if you have as part of your deliverables each time and this is something you would discuss in a kickoff would be things like we're going to take an agile approach we're going to do you know two week Sprints at the end of every Sprint we're going to have a half hour demo we're going to deliver this kind of document this kind of update blah blah blah doing that is part of I think is an essential part of that kickoff is to set yourself up from the start to say this is how we're going to do it and then if you don't at least you've said it and you've try you've got some accountability hopefully and even something that you know somewhere down the line usually it's going to be maybe the developers but a lot of times going to be the customers going like say wait a minute you mentioned you were going to do X right you were going to have unit tests to run for every deployment I haven't seen those those are the kinds of things that you want to set that stuff you set it up at first and then when you get into that first Sprint from the kickoff on that's sort of your checklist of are we doing all of these things and if you do that right then that aners that goes back to your question I know it it's a long trip to get there but I took an agile approach a set of waterfall and it's that is how you're going to we'll call it protect yourself or do it right now can you get away from it yes you can however we do what we can to try to like you know set ourselves up for Success back to you gotcha okay so I'm GNA put a pin in the documentation part of things because I I like the idea we can do that uh in the future uh discussion so to me the kickoff idea which is interesting because I've worked in a couple different companies from you know Fortune 500 to small startups to the individual uh you know Consulting businesses and our own type of businesses where we've start our es Corps and llc's essentially as I'm going into any type of job you know as developers we have kind of ingrained in us the whole software development life cycle we have this whole idea of how software gets built the processes we go through but when you walk in and you deal with any type of kickoff be it a project be it a new job be it a new position you need that critical information to do your job now it's not necessarily what it is that you're doing but you need to know the key players that you need to talk to so you're going to need things like the organizational chart of the organization how is it structured who do you talk to if your manager's out where do you go uh in some cases there is no one to go to and you're basically going to have to figure it out the key there is understanding which scenario you're in if you're in a scenario where there is someone above your boss you need to make sure you include them with that kickoff you need to make sure that you communicate to the right players at the right time for instance a couple jobs ago I was in a situation where I had moved up to being a manager the my direct manager uh I replaced the manager of our team and our d director literally within the first month of me moving up left so we had an immediate vacuum for our application well funny thing is we're in the middle of a Sprint and we have a release about to go out I immediately run into panic mode because at this point in time I had not received all of the kickoff information I needed for who I need to talk to to handle the release cycle thankfully uh I was able to finally figure out that we had a release committee that required certain players to sign off on what we we were doing so it's not necessarily just who to talk to but it also requires uh not just the tools to communicate but what you need to do to get a release out what type of release notes what type of documentation is necessary for us to do these kickoffs so again I don't want to get too far into the weats on documentation but as you're kicking off a project with with most srs's or system requirement documentations you're going to need some key information you know like Rob said you know what type of communication tools are needed who is required for what what is maybe the organizational chart who is the current project owner who is the current uh you know tester you user tester who are your testers do you even have testing some organizations don't even bring in testing till later in the cycle which is not a good thing but it happens so in these situations having something like the start of a software requirements document at the beginning of the kickoff even if it doesn't contain all the requirements you can still fill in key information that is necessary for the organization to move forward with any release or software development so again we're not getting into the software documentation per se but we are talking about that software development life cycle this is in the requirements Gathering phase and even before the requirements Gathering phase these are questions you need for to be be able to even go into the requirements Gathering paase who are the players you know who are the people in the organization who are the customers who is the end user is it internal or is it external if it's external you you may have to go a totally different route to figure out who you can talk to because it may be mobile users well okay if this is a public app who are you going to get to test your app you know you don't necessarily have one key person so you may have to go get a set of people to test or give you information on your application so that's one thing to think about as you're doing these kickoffs thoughts on that right that's actually that's an excellent point is I that I didn't touch on at all the uh third party external stuff in particular is that you've got your you've got your team that is part of this uh but it it also a lot of what you said reminds me of a lot of the uh the sort of like assessment type kickoffs I've done where you you start off talking to you know a a manager CEO or whatever it is you're talking to somebody a couple of key people leaders in the the organization but the process from there is going to be reaching out to other people in organization so things like an org chart are very helpful so you can say what do you have what you know who do I talk to to get some of this information and some of that is conversations like who am I able to talk to who you know who should I talk to and some of that even what should I know about discussions because there are going to be things where uh particularly when you get into larger organizations they may have partners that are trusted Partners where you can talk about anything and there's going to be other partners that you have very you need to be very specific in what you say or don't say sometimes I've been in situations where there are third parties and they are not supposed to know each other exist internally to the company basically you know where you've got things where it's like you're sort of playing different people against each other or or competing or however it is and so you really want to get that that lay of the land now you may not get all of that in the kickoff especially the the political details we'll we'll talk about we'll say but you want to get some of that kind of information because you do want to be able to at least get that start of who am I supposed to be talking to and then further down the line you can come back and say oh wait you're supposed you need information of that person but that's not the person you need to talk to you actually need to go talk to that person you know there's there's all of that mix so the just because they're not in the kickoff doesn't mean there's not some sort of a dotted line or some sort of need for them as you you get into your project just like there is a need for you to come back here and listen as we continue to do episode after episode we are going to continue the developer Journey we are going to continue out on YouTube where you can you can see us instead of simply just listening to us you can see all of our little hand gestures and realize why I can crank out 10,000 steps a day because sometimes I talk with my hands a little bit but more importantly you can give us feedback you can shoot us an email info@ developer.com you can put a get the contact form out at developer.com leave us a note there you can put comments out wherever you get your podcast or out on YouTube you can go out to the develop andur Channel check out all of our content including this and leave comments wherever you would like as many people do as always like subscribe all of that fun stuff that that helps us know sort of who's out there but more importantly I'd rather than us if you're thinking I could like or I could send them a comment send us a comment com I would rather have a a a useful comment good feedback than you know a score of one to five stars or something like that give us that feedback because that is what we thrive on that's how we you know sort of work our way forward on what's the next topic what's the next season uh sometimes what are we going to talk about even five minutes from now that being said we're going to wrap this one up and just continue so uh you know don't go anywhere come on back soon we'll be back with more of the developer Journey as always go out there and have yourself a great day a great week and we will talk to you next time bonus material so as we were discussing the kickoff what immediately came to my mind was that tree swing diagram and I don't want to put put it on the screen here because I don't know if it we fall under copyright with that so just go Google tree swing software development uh IC and there's multiple versions of this out there but it essentially when you're doing a kickoff you want to make sure that you have essentially all the players that are on that comic in that meeting you want to make sure you have your project owners your sales people your testers your end users you want to make sure the key players or as many of them that are available are present at the beginning or at least identifi this way before you get too far into the requirements Gathering process you have good Communications established you have good or or charts set up and then you can go through and hopefully you will have a smoother transition into the requirements Gathering building out those user stories and ultimately producing a product that everyone is happy with in a reasonable amount of time yeah that's I think that's an excellent point is to is to as a deliverable or something that is that you really want to come out of your your kickoff is something that's essentially a recap that says here's what we're going to do here's the team here's how we're going to get there you know if nothing else you you sort of set the things and you're not going to have all the details obviously but just sort of like a mission or Vision you know V mission statement vision statement something like that that's basically like this is the prog the how we're going to progress thanks for everybody nice that we got to meet you now let's get into this because that's what you you want to set that tone right away that it's like hey we're going to we're we're going to set a goal we're going to make sure that we're clear on the goal and we're going to move forward on the goal and that's just how we're going to do U you know how we're going to do this project so that we can be successful now you know if you do it right it could be similar to like the marketing kickoffs for like Marvel how they did the Marvel conference for Comics if you do the start of this correctly and you have investor you could even Inspire and get everyone motivated and therefore at the start of this everyone's going to go in with a positive attitude and be gunning to get this done that is that's actually that's a good little bonus point to have is that you really do want to come into the you know go into the kickoff with a goal of getting everybody you know essentially pumped about this like okay this is we're going to do this this is great we're going to get it done sometimes that's not much trouble you know sometimes it's very easy easy to do sometimes it can be very difficult it may be something where you're now the fifth person that's started this kicked off this project in the last year and people are a little bit defeatist about it so you don't and you may not be able to do all of that in your kickoff you may be able to you know have to do something like that as part of your first maybe your first Sprint or something like that but that is a good uh good goal to have for example it's a great goal for you to have wrapping this up because we are we're going to be we're done with this episode hope you have some good goals and some things that you can chase for the rest of your day uh hopefully this is now giving you a little bit of that oomph so you're ready to like step into maybe kicking off your next project as always like I said give us feedback wherever possible we're always happy to get that and and work with it uh we can use your name or we can leave you Anonymous it depends on what whatever you want if you want to be internet famous great if you don't that works well also so we'll wrap this one up we'll be back here again same channel same time check us out a couple times a week as drop our episodes we also have the the podcast out there you can grab that in your favorite podcast that happens to be and we will see you guys next time [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
hello I hit the record button so now we
are recording we are okay not live we're
live a live but we not live this episode
what do we want to talk about well
actually I want to pitch this one and I
think you threw some others out um
somewhere in the slack channel uh for
those of you playing along at home if
you don't use slack uh it's a really
good system I actually like it better
than teams I'm not going to complain too
much on that's a whole other soap box
issue how much has driven me nuts lately
um I thinking about like what's a
kickoff I think this would be something
that we're sort of at a point of there
is it's interesting that it's become
more of a to me it's become more of a
thing in the last 10 or 15 years maybe
it's because of where I you know my
position career-wise and stuff I was
doing before that I mean there were
kickoffs but there
wasn't I don't think there were they
were as structured as they have gotten
to be now and how they they can and
should be so I'm thinking this may be a
good one it's like hey now you you've
won a project or you know you come
across Finish Line and your boss is like
hey we've got a new
project what should you expect from a
kickoff when you should kickoff some of
those kinds of things because I've seen
a lot of different approaches to it um
especially in the agile world it's a
little different each of them there's
there's different ways I've seen that
done so I think it may be good worth a
little uh you know discussion and and
see where it goes yeah I like that
then once again well hello and welcome
back we are continuing our discussion of
the developer Journey here on building
better
developers spoiler alert that developer
Journey should take you to becoming a
better developer that's our goal that's
why we're here this is what we've done
and how we want to share with you and
hopefully get some feedback from you
guys as well guys and gals and whatever
else is you want to be my name is Rob
briad I am one of the founders of
developing nor building better
Developers also a founder of RB
Consulting where we simplify integrate
and automate basically we take your your
me your sprawl of Technology we take a
look at what's there whether it's modern
or whether it's 15 years old and it's
about to go out of you know support and
and all that kind of bad stuff we help
you figure out what you got where it
needs to go and how to best move you
there and we'll even move you there if
we need to we'll Supply the moving
trucks you name it we'll do it on the
other end is my go ahead and introduce
yourself hey everyone my name is Michael
malash I am also one of the founders of
Envision of uh developer boy I need more
caffeine I'm also a founder of Envision
QA where we help small to midsize
businesses and Healthcare startups and
clinicians build custom software to meet
their needs and review their current
processes to make sure that they have
the right software to do the right
job and little you know Pro tip there
while he was talking I took some
caffeine while I'm talking he's doing
the same so that's how we keep this
thing going this episode I want to talk
about kickoff not like football kickoff
or something like that but project
kickoff and this could be uh if you're
working for you if you're company
somewhere if you're employed it may be a
new project there may like an internal
project it could be kicking off your
side hustle project it could be a
customer that you've got if you're you
do consulting or something like that and
they bring you a project and this is
it does vary a little bit what you're
going to need from Project to project
but there's definitely there are
definitely some things that you want to
have as a part of your kickoff now the
first thing which is funny because it
goes back to my first job very first job
I was in I can't remember how I've been
working for a few weeks something like
that and something happened I can't
remember if I was sick or something like
that but I wasn't going to be able to
make it to work on time this is before
everybody had cell phones we had these
big things you had to have like you two
hands to like pull the dial and sort of
look like Price is Right Stuff but I
didn't have phone numbers I didn't have
a phone number for the for the business
I didn't I mean I I could look that up
in this thing they called The Yellow
Pages which was a book that had phone
numbers in it and I could go get that
but I couldn't get a hold of like a
specific manager or anything and even
then the business phone like never got
answered basically it never got answered
there were a couple of of phones that
you could get to people that were you
know internal but you couldn't get to
the through the actual business phone
you you got nothing and so I realized
fairly quickly is like oh I need to have
that I should have first thing when I
start a job I should know like who's my
boss how do I get a hold of them these
days it should be like you know phone
number if there's a phone number to get
a hold of them email address definitely
so I can get hold of them that way um
anything like that you know those kinds
of really it's it's just administrative
stuff and now most of the time when you
do a when you start a job one of the
things you're going to do is you're
going to have like a an orientation
you're G to have something that first
you know little bit first day whoops
first day of your job and stuff like
that you're probably filling out
paperwork and they're walking through
this is what your job's like this is
what the company's like this is sort of
what you want to do with your
project one of the most important things
to get going on on a project when you do
the kickoff is introduce yourselves we
should know it should include doesn't
have to include everybody in the project
but definitely the major players so if
you've got a team of you know thousands
of developers they don't want to have to
be a part of it but you should have like
the leads you should have the testing
leads you should have the customer
Representatives those kinds of things
the people that are the for lack of a
better term the executive team of the
project now that may just be you and a
customer but still
those people need to be part of that
whether they don't have to be in person
but they have to be a part of that
kickoff call because what you want to do
is say
basically this is the team this is what
we've got as far as the you know from a
software point of view like here's the
implementation group here is the
customer and this is who these people
are this is their role ideally and
doesn't always happen but one of the
things you want to do is identify like
the key decision maker or the decision
and make her who are your primary
contacts both ways so for the
customer part of that conversation is if
I have convers have questions about
let's say requirements because we're
going to go into the requirements phase
sometime early on if I have questions
about them who should I talk to or
should I you know or is there a a group
mailing list should we set up a group
mailing list along with that it is a lot
of this administrative stuff it's things
like okay what happens how do we track
conversation ations do we use that thing
I use mentioned earlier like slack or do
we use some sort of a a ticketing system
or do we use teams or do we just have an
email that we pass back and forth or do
we have a spreadsheet that we pass back
and forth is there a Wiki site how do we
track this
stuff and then with that is like how do
we build what is our goal for building
uh documentation and other deliverables
are we going to you know have shared
stuff is it going to be something where
it sort of passed back and forth
these and this is not necessarily at a
specific level where you're going to
have to have all your templates and
everything done because your kickoff
should not take you three days it should
take you you know maybe 30 minutes maybe
an hour depending on your team and
things like that but it's essentially
like here's how we're going to proceed
this is the you know it's typically it's
going to be a reiteration of the the
project Charter or statement of work or
MSA or something like that where it's
just basically like okay this is what
we're doing this is the team this is the
you know maybe this is the phase that
we're working on and this is how we want
to work this is how we're going to
communicate and how we're going to work
together getting that is really one of
the key things for your your kickoff
because kickoff is not Gathering all the
requirements or anything like that
kickoff is really like setting the stage
to say okay let's introduce everybody
let's talk let's do what we need to do
let's get our ducks in a row because in
the next meeting we have it's almost
like a pre- meeting because then the
next meeting we have is where we're
really going to start working on these
things those are my thoughts and that's
like that and however much $15 will buy
you a cup of coffee these days but over
on the other side there I want to see
what so what what are some of your
thoughts and some of your experiences
with kickoffs and uh and even some
feedback on some of the things that I
threw out there so before I jump into my
thoughts I have a couple questions for
you based on how you introduced the
kickoff so in today's world where we've
gone away from the more waterfall
approach to the more agile approach do
you feel that we've lost some of that
requirements
Gathering piece where this type of
kickoff documentation gets put together
because typically we would do that at
the start of the project and then over
time we would update that but with agile
sometimes we're moving so fast that we
forget to do that like we do that at the
beginning but then we're just constantly
going going going we assume that that's
the right document and it never gets
updated what are your thoughts on that
wow that's a whole that'll be the next
episode we'll talk about documentation
and keeping it in sync um I do think
there's part of that because with
waterfall you really don't move forward
I in the strict sense you don't move
forward until the document is done and
then you don't change the document
that's the waterfall thing is you get it
all figured out and then you move
forward that's like you know where
you're running and you know you're going
to run until you get to the Finish Line
agile is different because it's
basically saying we're going to start
moving and we're not really sure where
we're going to land we really we sort of
know where we're headed but I'm not sure
how we're going to get there and so it's
sort of the difference if Columbus had
come to America and he had used a
zipline to get across the ocean very
different from how he managed to get
where he you know his trips and how he
went so I think you
if if the agile approach especially if
you're doing like scrum with Sprints and
things like that if part of it is that
you are making sure you're updating
document as documentation as you go if
you have as part of your deliverables
each time and this is something you
would discuss in a kickoff would be
things like we're going to take an agile
approach we're going to do you know two
week Sprints at the end of every Sprint
we're going to have a half hour demo
we're going to deliver this kind of
document this kind of update blah blah
blah
doing that is part of I think is an
essential part of that kickoff is to set
yourself up from the start to say this
is how we're going to do it and then if
you
don't at least you've said it and you've
try you've got some accountability
hopefully and even something that you
know somewhere down the line usually
it's going to be maybe the developers
but a lot of times going to be the
customers going like say wait a minute
you mentioned you were going to do X
right you were going to have unit tests
to run for every deployment I haven't
seen those those are the kinds of things
that you want to set that stuff you set
it up at first and then when you get
into that first Sprint from the kickoff
on that's sort of your checklist of are
we doing all of these things and if you
do that right then that aners that goes
back to your question I know it it's a
long trip to get there but I took an
agile approach a set of waterfall and
it's that is how you're going to we'll
call it protect yourself or do it right
now can you get away from it yes you can
however we do what we can to try to like
you know set ourselves up for Success
back to you gotcha okay so I'm GNA put a
pin in the documentation part of things
because I I like the idea we can do that
uh in the future uh discussion so to me
the kickoff idea which is interesting
because I've worked in a couple
different companies from you know
Fortune 500 to small startups
to the
individual uh you know Consulting
businesses and our own type of
businesses where we've start our es
Corps and
llc's
essentially as I'm going into any type
of job you know as developers we have
kind of ingrained in us the whole
software development life cycle we have
this whole idea of how software gets
built the processes we go through but
when you walk in and you deal with any
type of kickoff be it a project be it a
new job be it a new
position you need that critical
information to do your job now it's not
necessarily what it is that you're doing
but you need to know the key players
that you need to talk to so you're going
to need things like the organizational
chart of the organization how is it
structured who do you talk to if your
manager's out where do you go uh in some
cases there is no one to go to and
you're basically going to have to figure
it out the key there is understanding
which scenario you're in if you're in a
scenario where there is someone above
your boss you need to make sure you
include them with that kickoff you need
to make sure that you communicate to the
right players at the right
time for
instance a couple jobs ago I was in a
situation where I had moved up to being
a manager the my direct manager uh I
replaced the manager of our team and our
d director literally within the first
month of me moving up
left so we had an immediate vacuum for
our application well funny thing is
we're in the middle of a Sprint and we
have a release about to go
out I immediately run into panic mode
because at this point in time I had not
received all of the kickoff information
I needed for who I need to talk to to
handle the release cycle
thankfully uh I was able to finally
figure out that we had a release
committee that required certain players
to sign off on what we we were
doing so it's not necessarily just who
to talk to but it also
requires uh not just the tools to
communicate but what you need to do to
get a release out what type of release
notes what type of documentation is
necessary for us to do these kickoffs so
again I don't want to get too far into
the weats on documentation but as you're
kicking off a project with with most
srs's or system requirement
documentations you're going to need some
key information you know like Rob said
you know what type of communication
tools are needed who is required for
what what is maybe the organizational
chart who is the current project owner
who is the current uh you know tester
you user tester who are your testers do
you even have testing some organizations
don't even bring in testing till later
in the cycle which is not a good thing
but it happens so in these situations
having something like the start of a
software requirements document at the
beginning of the kickoff even if it
doesn't contain all the requirements you
can still fill in key information that
is necessary for the organization to
move forward with any release or
software development so again we're not
getting into the software documentation
per se but we are talking about that
software development life cycle this is
in the requirements Gathering phase and
even before the requirements Gathering
phase these are questions you need for
to be be able to even go into the
requirements Gathering paase who are the
players you know who are the people in
the organization who are the customers
who is the end user is it internal or is
it external if it's external you you may
have to go a totally different route to
figure out who you can talk to because
it may be mobile users well okay if this
is a public app who are you going to get
to test your app you know you don't
necessarily have one key person so you
may have to go get a set of people to
test or give you information on your
application so that's one thing to think
about as you're doing these kickoffs
thoughts on that
right that's actually that's an
excellent point is I that I didn't touch
on at all
the uh third party external stuff in
particular is that you've got your
you've got your team that is part of
this uh but it it also a lot of what you
said reminds me of a lot of the uh the
sort of like assessment type kickoffs
I've done where you you start off
talking
to you know a a manager CEO or whatever
it is you're talking to somebody a
couple of key people leaders in the the
organization but the process from there
is going to be reaching out to other
people in organization so things like an
org chart are very helpful so you can
say what do you have what you know who
do I talk to to get some of this
information and some of that is
conversations like who am I able to talk
to who you know who should I talk to and
some of that even what should I know
about discussions because there are
going to be things where uh particularly
when you get into larger organizations
they may have partners that are trusted
Partners where you can talk about
anything and there's going to be other
partners that you have very you need to
be very specific in what you say or
don't say sometimes I've been in
situations where there are third parties
and they are not supposed to know each
other exist internally to the company
basically you know where you've got
things where it's like you're sort of
playing different people against each
other or or competing or however it
is and so you really want to get that
that lay of the land now you may not get
all of that in the kickoff especially
the the political details we'll we'll
talk about we'll say but you want to get
some of that kind of information because
you do want to be able to at least get
that start of who am I supposed to be
talking to and then further down the
line you can come back and say oh wait
you're supposed you need information of
that person but that's not the person
you need to talk to you actually need to
go talk to that person you know there's
there's all of that mix so the just
because they're not in the kickoff
doesn't mean there's not some sort of a
dotted line or some sort of need for
them as you you get into your project
just like there is a need for you to
come back here and listen as we continue
to do episode after episode we are going
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going to continue out on YouTube where
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us that feedback because that is what we
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work our way forward on what's the next
topic what's the next season uh
sometimes what are we going to talk
about even five minutes from now that
being said we're going to wrap this one
up and just continue so uh you know
don't go anywhere come on back soon
we'll be back with more of the developer
Journey as always go out there and have
yourself a great day a great week and we
will talk to you next
time bonus
material so as we were discussing the
kickoff what immediately came to my mind
was that tree swing
diagram and I don't want to put put it
on the screen here because I don't know
if it we fall under copyright with that
so just go Google tree swing software
development uh IC and there's multiple
versions of this out there but it
essentially when you're doing a kickoff
you want to make sure that you have
essentially all the players that are on
that comic in that meeting you want to
make sure you have your project owners
your sales people your testers your end
users you want to make sure the key
players or as many of them that are
available are present at the beginning
or at least
identifi this way before you get too far
into the requirements Gathering process
you have good Communications established
you have good or or charts set up and
then you can go through and hopefully
you will have a smoother transition into
the requirements Gathering building out
those user stories and ultimately
producing a product that everyone is
happy with in a reasonable amount of
time yeah that's I think that's an
excellent point is to is to as a
deliverable or something that is that
you really want to come out of your your
kickoff is something that's essentially
a recap that says here's what we're
going to do here's the team here's how
we're going to get there you know if
nothing else you you sort of set the
things and you're not going to have all
the details obviously but just sort
of like a mission or Vision you know V
mission statement vision statement
something like that that's basically
like this is the prog the how we're
going to progress thanks for everybody
nice that we got to meet you now let's
get into this because that's what you
you want to set that tone right away
that it's like hey we're going to we're
we're going to set a goal we're going to
make sure that we're clear on the goal
and we're going to move forward on the
goal and that's just how we're going to
do U you know how we're going to do this
project so that we can be successful now
you know if you do it right it could be
similar to like the marketing kickoffs
for like Marvel how they did the Marvel
conference for Comics if you do the
start of this correctly and you have
investor you could even Inspire and get
everyone motivated and therefore at the
start of this everyone's going to go in
with a positive attitude and be gunning
to get this done that is that's actually
that's a good little bonus point to have
is that you really do want to come into
the you know go into the kickoff with a
goal of getting everybody you know
essentially pumped about this like okay
this is we're going to do this this is
great we're going to get it done
sometimes that's not much trouble you
know sometimes it's very easy easy to do
sometimes it can be very difficult it
may be something where you're now the
fifth person that's started this kicked
off this project in the last year and
people are a little bit defeatist about
it so you don't and you may not be able
to do all of that in your kickoff you
may be able to you know have to do
something like that as part of your
first maybe your first Sprint or
something like that
but that is a good uh good goal to have
for example it's a great goal for you to
have wrapping this up because we are
we're going to be we're done with this
episode hope you have some good goals
and some things that you can chase for
the rest of your day uh hopefully this
is now giving you a little bit of that
oomph so you're ready to like step into
maybe kicking off your next project as
always like I said give us feedback
wherever possible we're always happy to
get that and and work with it uh we can
use your name or we can leave you
Anonymous it depends on what whatever
you want if you want to be internet
famous great if you don't that works
well also so we'll wrap this one up
we'll be back here again same channel
same time check us out a couple times a
week as drop our episodes we also have
the the podcast out there you can grab
that in your favorite podcast that
happens to be and we will see you guys
next time
[Music]