The Project Kickoff Meeting - An exercise in musical sight reading

Last night at the oldest granddaughter’s band concert, the director demonstrated the sight reading process they use to learn new music for competitions.  

Sight reading is basically the ability to pick up a piece of music you’ve never seen before and play it on the spot—no practice, no rehearsal.

The experience was fascinating, intriguing, and truly impressive.  And I couldn’t help but think this is what an effective project kickoff meeting looks like.

Regardless of the instrument, everyone started on page one.  They didn’t play—they verbally walked through the entire score.  Breaking down details like tempo, patterns, intensity, key changes and more.   Together they walked through everyone’s role from start to finish and reviewed what was played, who was playing, how it was played, and how it all fit together.

Too often I’ve seen project kickoff meetings where not everyone attended, the scope is not thoroughly reviewed, roles and responsibilities are assumed (and often unclear), majority of the team is multi-tasking (is that really a thing?), and the project manager doesn’t lead.

During the demonstration the director would call out a spot within the score, ask if everyone knew where he was.  Every musician would touch that same spot on their music and say ‘yes’.

There are many reasons projects struggle with timelines, budgets, quality management, and team continuity, but I believe majority of those challenges can be addressed, or at least anticipated, during a well thought out, comprehensive, and collaborative project kickoff meeting.

 Successful projects are orchestrated.  As the conductor, the project manager starts that orchestration with an effective kickoff meeting where scope is reviewed and clarified, roles are identified and aligned, and the entire team is working from the same page…just like the band did last night.

And by the way, when they played the piece…..it was amazing!