Hot Tub

Hot has grown from about 10 employees to more than 40 in the last few years. It’s forced me, as the practice lead for the user experience group, to think about how to codify some of the things we do. When the UX group only had five people, everything was passed along through the oral tradition. Basically that meant either me or someone else at Hot explaining to new designers how we do our work, and answering questions as they came up. But with 15 people in the UX group, I’m realizing I have to write some things down.

So this brings me to the idea of workshops. Our work is very collaborative and a lot of it happens in meeting and workshops. The first workshop we do for any project, whether we’re following a standard “waterfall” process or something closer to an agile process is the kickoff workshop. What can I tell new hires about conducting a successful kickoff workshop?

When the kickoff workshop goes well, it bodes well for the project. I’m not saying projects go perfectly just because there was a good kickoff. But if the kickoff goes well, everyone is better equipped to handle the inevitable bumps that happen along the way. A good kickoff workshop is like eating a good breakfast, it sets the metabolism for the project.

The obvious reason to have a kickoff is to make sure everyone on the project meets each other and understands their roles, the schedule, etc. But the less obvious and most important reason to have the kickoff is to build trust and to give stakeholders on the project confidence in the design team. It’s the beginning of our working relationship.

So what makes a good kickoff workshop? Here are some of the ingredients that we use in no particular order:

Preparation
Do your homework. Usually our clients have research and background documentation to share with us. The more we’re able to read, the more context we?ll have going into the kickoff about who our client is and what they’re trying to do. It will allow us to ask better questions and elicit better answers.

Inclusiveness
Kickoffs may have two people or 20. When our clients are unsure who to invite to a kickoff, we encourage them to invite anyone who will be involved in the work or has a stake in the outcome. This isn’t true for all workshops we do, but the kickoff is the time that everyone is meeting everyone and hopefully getting excited about the opportunity to do great design work together. So the more the merrier.

Punctuality
This is true of running any meeting, but it’s especially important for the kickoff. If you don’t manage time well, you are going to make a bad first impression. Start on time and end on time.

Clarity
Never assume everyone has the same understanding you do. Just because you read the proposal twelve times doesn’t mean they did. In fact, the more people involved in a project, the more opportunity there is for misunderstandings. So good kickoffs cover the basics like project goals, clear explanations about roles, process, and documentation, and a high level schedule. Everyone should leave with the same understanding about why we’re doing this project and how we’re going to work together.

Participation
Often there are stakeholders who have been burned on past projects. Maybe the design team didn’t communicate well with the technology team. Or the project went way over scope. Or strategic priorities changed midway through the process. Until people have a chance to air their concerns, they will hold back, either intentionally or unintentionally. They won’t be able to really dedicate themselves to the task at hand.

We often include an exercise in kickoffs that we call FUDs, (Fears Uncertainties and Doubts). It gives everyone a chance to say what they’re worried about. We usually follow this up with a “Hopes and Dreams” exercise where everyone has a chance to think about what a successful project would look like. This may sound hokey, but in practice it?s a wonderful way to clear the air and then align the group around a common vision.

Thought
Sometimes we’ll start the real design work in our kickoff meeting as well. If we’re working on a redesign, we might facilitate a group heuristic of the existing site or a review of competitor sites. This can be a great way to hear firsthand about people’s pet peeves with the current site and identify some design opportunities. We always try to be careful, however, that these types of exercises don’t put people on a situation where they feel they have to defend their past design work.

I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts about what makes a good kickoff. What do you eat for breakfast?