A good kickoff is not a formality or a chance to repeat the proposal back. It is where you agree how the work will actually run, and where you surface the assumptions that would otherwise become arguments.
The agenda that works
- What success looks like, in their words, and how it will be measured.
- What you need from them, when, and what happens if it is late.
- Who decides. Specifically: who signs off, and who else has an opinion.
- How we communicate: channel, cadence, response times, escalation.
- The known risks, named out loud while everyone is relaxed.
The decision-maker question
Ask directly: "Who else needs to be happy with this, and when do they get involved?" The most expensive form of rework is a stakeholder appearing in week six with opinions nobody collected in week one.
Say what you need from them
Client delay is the most common cause of missed deadlines, and it is usually never framed as a shared responsibility. Say plainly that feedback within three working days keeps the timeline, and that later feedback moves it. Agreed at kickoff this is a process; raised in month two it sounds like blame.
Write it down afterwards
Send a short recap the same day: decisions, owners, dates. It takes ten minutes and becomes the document you both refer back to when memories diverge.
Try it
Build a kickoff agenda you use every time, ending with the recap template. Run it on your next project and note which question surfaced something you would have missed.