How to Conduct an Instructional Design Project Kickoff Meeting
When you’re new to instructional design or eLearning development, the start of any project can seem chaotic. It’s easy to become overwhelmed trying to meet with the right people, collect all of the right content, ask the right questions, and make sure all of the moving parts happen the way they’re supposed to. After all, the success of any instructional design project on the back end hinges squarely on the planning that happened on the front end. And this is where conducting an instructional design project kickoff meeting comes into play!
Although the purpose of a project kickoff meeting might seem self-explanatory, it’s not always obvious what should occur during the initial meeting. Who should you invite? When should you schedule it? What questions should you ask? What decisions must you make?
So, in this article, we’ll take a look at how to conduct an instructional design project kickoff meeting with your stakeholders and subject matter experts.
What is an Instructional Design Project Kickoff Meeting?
Now, before we dive into the details of how to properly conduct a kickoff meeting for your instructional design project, let’s first make sure we’re on the same page about the purpose this meeting serves in the instructional design process.
The first thing we need to acknowledge is that the execution of an instructional design project rarely happens in a silo. Whether you’re creating something as simple as a job aid or as complex as an eLearning course or instructor-led training, you will likely be working with other people in order to get it done. This may include a subject matter expert providing content for your project, an LMS admin helping to publish and distribute an eLearning course, or anyone else who will assist in the design, development, and implementation of what comes from your project.
Whatever the case might be, it’s important that any project contributors have a clear idea of what their role is in the project, how much time they need to dedicate to the project, and what the primary goal is for the project. And ideally, this information is made available before the project begins. Otherwise, you run the risk of running into delays and scope creep.
So, an instructional design project kickoff meeting is your opportunity to align expectations and gain agreement about the goals and scope of the project. However, every kickoff meeting is different depending on the project, what information is already available, and who’s involved.
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How to Conduct an Instructional Design Kickoff Meeting
While there’s no single “right” way of conducting a kickoff meeting for your instructional design project, it’s important that you invite the right people, discuss the right topics, ask the right questions, and set the right expectations.
So, here are four key priorities when conducting an instructional design project kickoff meeting:
1. Invite the Right People
The first step for conducting an instructional design kickoff meeting is to make sure you invite the right people. While there are no hard and fast rules for who should be involved, if any particular individual has responsibilities that can affect the successful delivery and completion of the project and/or they have a vested interest in the outcome of the project, it’s usually a good idea to invite them.
So, at the minimum, you should include:
Yourself: This might seem obvious, but it’s worth mentioning. As the instructional designer, you are likely the one doing the bulk of the work on the project. As such, you own the project, and so the kickoff meeting is yours as well. It is your responsibility to schedule it, facilitate it, and make sure everyone else understands their roles.
Subject Matter Experts: Your SMEs are the ones you’ll be working the closest with during the design and development process. They’re the ones providing the content for your training and providing feedback on what you create.
Stakeholders: Even if they aren’t directly involved in the design and development of the project but have a vested interest in the outcomes, it can be beneficial to include these individuals. Depending on the project, this may be your direct manager, an executive leader who is sponsoring the project, etc. Their presence alone can provide a sense of weight or importance to the project, which can help encourage participation from any reluctant project contributors.
LMS Admin: If your instructional design project includes the development of an eLearning course, it’s usually a good idea to involve your LMS admin, if you have one. Not only will they want to be aware of a new course that they’ll likely be responsible for configuring in the LMS, but they can also help provide guidance and answer questions on the implementation of the project.
Facilitators: If you happen to be designing and developing a course that will include a facilitated experience, like an instructor-led training or virtual workshop, you’ll want to include those who will be responsible for delivering the training. Many learning and development teams include dedicated facilitators that you may need to work with to schedule train-the-trainer sessions, organize the logistics and scheduling of the training, etc.
Other Designers & Developers: Depending on the structure and workflows of your learning and development team, it may be a good idea to involve any other designers or developers contributing to the project. For example, if you have a graphic designer who will be creating custom illustrations or a developer building an eLearning course, then they should be included.
2. Discuss the Right Topics
The second step for conducting your instructional design project kickoff meeting is to make sure you discuss the right topics. Now, this is the tricky part, as what you discuss depends on where you’re at in the instructional design process.
Have you conducted a needs analysis? Do you fully understand the performance issue you’re attempting to solve through the project? Are you ready to start designing and developing the training? The answers to these questions will have a direct impact on what you discuss during your kickoff meeting.
For example, If you haven’t conducted a needs analysis, then the focus of your kickoff meeting should be to understand the goals your stakeholders are seeking to achieve, the performance issues they’re experiencing with the target learners, how you can go about measuring and identifying the root cause of the issues, and next step for conducting a needs analysis.
However, assuming you have conducted a needs analysis, then the focus of your kickoff meeting should be to discuss the results and recommendations from your analysis, along with the next steps for design and development.
This may include but is not limited to, discussing:
Project deliverables
Obtaining the learning content
Collaborating with subject matter experts
Managing review cycles and feedback
Implementation and evaluation of the training
3. Ask the Right Questions
The third step for conducting an instructional design kickoff meeting is to ask the right questions. Remember, your kickoff meeting is just as much about information collection as it is about information sharing. However, what questions you ask depends on what information you already have, where you’re at in the design and development process, how much of the project is fully scoped, etc.
With that said, here are some questions you may ask your stakeholders and subject matter experts as part of your instructional design project:
Questions for Project Scope
When does this training need to be available / completed?
Who are the target learners for this training?
How much time can the learners dedicate to this training?
Questions for Desired Outcomes
What do learners need to be able to do differently after the training?
What goals or metrics are most affected by these behaviors?
What is the current level of performance, and how can we validate that?
Questions for Course Content
What do learners need to know to perform the desired behaviors?
What existing resources, best practices, or training are currently available?
What has and has not worked in the past for training on this topic?
Questions for Course Development
What’s your familiarity with the design and development of training?
How often do you expect to review our work?
Who needs to review and approve this training?
Questions for Course Implementation
How will this training be communicated to learners?
When do learners need to complete the training?
How will we ensure everyone completes the training?
4. Set the Right Expectations
The fourth and final step for conducting your instructional design project kickoff meeting is to make sure you’ve set the right expectations with your stakeholders and subject matter experts.
Here’s the thing: as an instructional designer, the purpose of conducting a kickoff meeting might seem totally logical and obvious; however, you never want to assume your stakeholders and subject matter experts have ever participated in an instructional design project, let alone a kickoff meeting.
So, as you conduct your kickoff meeting, make sure to dedicate some time to:
Define what makes a good training experience: Many folks outside of learning and development often mistake training as simply the delivery of information, rather than behavior change or performance improvement. And so, it’s important to explain how designing performance-based training can help your stakeholders and SMEs achieve their goals. A great way to do this is to include them as you create an action map.
Outline the design and development process: If you’re working with stakeholders and SMEs who have never participated in an instructional design project previously, they may not fully understand all that goes into it. For some, they think you’re simply going to convert their PowerPoint into “training,” upload it into the LMS, and call it a day. So, dedicate some time to explaining each phase of the design and development process, along with its purpose. For example, if you’re creating an eLearning course, explaining the eLearning development process can help your project collaborators understand the purpose of drafting a storyboard or developing a prototype.
Explain the importance of review cycles: It’s very common for your stakeholders and subject matter experts to underestimate how much time they need to dedicate to being involved in your instructional design project, especially as it relates to review cycles. So, make sure to explain why and when you’ll be seeking their feedback during the design and development process, along with what type of feedback you’re seeking. It’s also worth highlighting how their desired project deadline is dependent on their timely delivery of feedback.
Next Steps
Alright! So, that’s an overview of how to conduct an instructional design project kickoff meeting. But what’s next? Well, again, it all depends on how much you’ve already accomplished thus far in the project.
Next steps after your kickoff meeting may include…
Finalizing the scope of the project.
Documenting the project with an instructional design document.
Creating an instructional design project timeline.
Creating an action map.
Scheduling a time to interview your subject matter experts.
Scheduling ongoing project meetings, review cycles, and an end-of-project retrospective.
The Bottom Line
There’s a lot that goes into conducting a productive instructional design kickoff meeting. And while the process may seem time-intensive, it’s an investment that will help you avoid project delays, misunderstandings, and frustrations later on.
So, what other tips do you have for conducting a kickoff meeting for your instructional design or eLearning development projects? Share them by commenting down below!