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CONTENT

1. What is the kick-off meeting?

2. What did I do?

3. What did I fail?

4. Why did I fail?

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1. What is the kick-off meeting?

It is the beginning of a project where all the key players in the room (PMs and designers) discuss the project requirements and timeline.
The purpose of this meeting is to get the design started on a project and make sure everyone is on the same page.
After that kick-off meeting, designers are expected to leave with clear objectives, desired outcomes and a list of action items to develop the solution.

2. What did I do?

I have experienced several kick-off meetings. I struggled to be more active in the room, even though I prepared for it!

🙄 Yes! I did! But let’s lay it on the line.

I did not invest much time before the meeting. I went through the brief given by PM 20–30 minutes earlier.
Most of the time, I was overwhelmed by the information given by PM as not everything was included in the brief. When new things came, I did not know how to respond to them.
Sometimes, I put too much effort to think of a solution to give to the PM for the meeting.
Sometimes, I and PM used the whole meeting to brainstorm the solution.

The number of questions I can ask ranges from 4 to 6. Whenever my questions were out, the PM gave me the answer immediately with “Yes, because…” and “No, because…”
I felt like there was only the PM in the conversation. I was just a listener. The shorter questions I asked, the sooner the meeting finished.
When there was no more concern raised from my side, PM would consider that everything was crystal clear. I had sufficient information to develop the solution. But… the truth is not always what people expected it was. 🤷‍♀️
I started doing some research and tons of questions came up after the meeting. Now I wished the PM was here to clarify all the unclear I had, which should be addressed in the kick-off meeting. 🤦‍♀️