Designing the Start
Begin your liftoff with an introduction. Welcome participants and reiterate the reason everyone is present. Review the meeting agenda. Describe meeting norms for the event. Show support with statements from executives and sponsors.
Establish the tone with activities that reinforce your intention right from the start, and maintain a consistent tone throughout the event. For a mission-critical effort, you might want to start with a serious, no-nonsense approach. Alternatively, a product or service that relies on innovation or disruptive technologies needs people to think in new ways. For these liftoffs, use a playful, creative tone.
You affect tone in several ways. The way you frame the invitation, the way you introduce the various topics and activities, and the activities you choose all affect the tone. The following sections describe various activities that set the tone from the start.
Introductions
The people attending your liftoff need to get to know one another to work together. If everyone is well acquainted, you won’t need introductions. When people don’t know one another, small groups or pairs can exchange names and job titles. Find an introduction activity that fits the tone you want to set. Relevant icebreakers that relate to the matter at hand can work well here. You don’t need to do a deep dive, because people will get to know one another more through the other liftoff activities.
Sponsor Statement of Support
Ask your executive and business sponsors to say a few words. They can describe their support for the liftoff and why it’s time to do this work. They can also emphasize why it’s important to the business and its internal functioning or customers. Their presence underscores the importance of the work. Executives’ expressions of appreciation for those who will do the work can have a powerful impact.
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Every liftoff needs a sponsor or executive introduction. Every team needs to hear directly and unambiguously from the top. Team members need to know they have organizational support and commitment for their effort. If your sponsor can’t make time to show up, maybe the product launch isn’t a top priority, after all. Their presence or absence sends a message. |
One Word Check-In
Ask each person to say a word or short phrase that summarizes that participant’s state of mind or attitude at the beginning of the liftoff. For example, you might hear them say things like “concerned,” “excited,” “still tired from the last project,” “waiting to hear more,” or “enthusiastic!” This works best with groups of fewer than twenty people.
Speaker Q&A
Bring in a domain expert or a customer expert to give a short briefing. That briefing tells the team how this work fits within the business direction or customer use. Plan to follow it with a few minutes of clarifying questions and answers.
Graphic Check-In
Use a graphic check-in to gauge team members’ assumptions at the start. Here’s a sample activity: cover each table with white or light-colored paper (nonsticky flip chart pages will work). Provide a set of colored markers or crayons, stickers, and other drawing supplies for each table group. As people enter, ask them to create a graphic image of what they currently know (or think they know) about the product and how they’ll approach the work. Generally, people have a difficult time recognizing their assumptions. Asking about what they know—instead of assumptions—makes it easier to have a discussions about the lists in their heads, even if their understanding is based on rumors or hearsay. Allow a short time for table groups to work together. After other introductory activities, ask each group to show its drawings and explain them. You can also organize a 3D check-in, using modeling clay, pipe cleaners, building toys, or other supplies to create three-dimensional models.
Retrospective
One way to start the liftoff is by looking back. Retrospectives can provide an effective way to start a new effort. Often, we enrich the liftoff agenda with an initial retrospective. We gather the wisdom from past efforts with the focus of making this team the best so far.
Retrospective activities work for newly formed teams, too. Members draw from a considerable body of collaborative experience. These team members can compare experiences and choose the new team culture they’d like to cultivate. When most team members don’t know one another (or haven’t worked together), they can still share past experiences. They can still learn from one another’s history. It can help strangers become better acquainted and begin team forming. If all the team members are new to the organization or the area of practice, they may have fewer relevant work experiences to share.
Futurespective
Another way to start a liftoff is to look forward—far forward. In futurespective activities, participants imagine a desired future in detail. Then they work backward to identify behaviors and actions in the near term that would get them there. A futurespective activity is described in The Retrospective Handbook: A Guide for Agile Teams [KL13].