Ending Your Liftoff

End your liftoff in a memorable way. It’s important to choose activities that keep participants connected to the work, even after they leave the meeting. With a good ending, you seal the deal. Here are the most popular activities for ending a liftoff.

Brief Reports

Summarize the outcomes and relevant outputs of the activities. In a larger liftoff, groups of participants have had different experiences. You can include brief reports from each group to inform one another of progress. For example, in a liftoff for more than one team, you might display all the teams’ draft charters for the whole group to view.

Next Steps

Provide participants with information about what to expect next. You can point to other resources that’ll help teams get started. Teams will create artifacts. Remind everyone to take photos. Save flip charts, whiteboards, physical models, or other supporting materials. Teams can use some of their materials as information radiators in their team work spaces. Using a Lean Coffee format, the group can discuss the implications of various next steps.

Appreciation

End your liftoff with gratitude for everyone’s attention and effort. The person who welcomed the group returns to hear about the team’s outputs and also to express gratitude for participation. Make time for team members to offer appreciation to one another. They’ve done work together to get a good start.

Provide Feedback

Choose ending activities that gather initial feedback on participants’ experiences in the liftoff. Ask for an evaluation of the liftoff as a whole or request feedback on each agenda topic. Give participants a way to offer ideas to improve future liftoffs. For more on how to get feedback and make future liftoffs more effective, see Chapter 8, ​Soar from Liftoff to Flight​.

Evaluate the Design

Remember to pause to evaluate the design for your liftoff. If you can, pull together a small group to review it. Review your answers to the planning questions from ​Planning the Liftoff​ and the design principles throughout this chapter. What did you hope to accomplish? How did you do? Make adjustments as needed.

Rest assured, the liftoff won’t go exactly according to your design plan. Still, it’s better to have a design and improvise than not to have one at all.