My apologies for being so late with the results on this survey, but I’m finally now getting around to the results.  The turnout was good and the responses were a bit diverse.



What I wanted to know was this:  What are the five key things you do right out of the gate on the project?  What do you do that first critical week of the project in order to get everything started off on the right foot?



After careful review and combining similar items into the same general term, here’s what we all came up with.  I wasn’t able to really narrow it down to five things because there were so many good answers in so many critical categories.  Here are the overall top answers from our readers – they fall into these seven categories:



Knowledge transfer from deal closer – the act of meeting with Sales or the account manager or whoever was critical in closing the project deal.  This is primarily to get customer insight, get any report mockups and budget info, and a chance to ask key questions as you prepare to kickoff the project.



Draft/create the project schedule – Sales may have started this for you, but now it’s your turn to take what you have – or start from scratch – and create a useable project schedule with all the details that you can put together at this point in the project.  More detail will of course be obvious as the planning portion of the project progresses.



Secure the project team – The earlier you can assemble the project team, the better, usually.  Starting too early can cause a strain on the project budget, but it is nice to have at least a portion of the team assembled by the time you kick off the project with the customer.



Identify stakeholders – Figure out who the critical stakeholders are on each side of the project.  Knowing who the main customer sponsor can be a huge plus as this first week may be a good time to engage that person in a one on one call prior to kick off.



Establish communication streams – Communication is critical on the project and understanding who is responsible and how and when the communication will happen is very important.  This sets the right expectations and accountabilities right out of the gate.



Review statement of work – Knowing the project statement of work inside and out is important for two key reasons.  It is critical input into the project schedule you are putting together and it is likely going to be the basis for most discussion that will occur at the project kickoff meeting with the customer.