Kick-off Pt 1 - The role of Leadership & Hierarchy

Highlighting the dangers of neglecting key kick-off activities, Rebecca explores the importance of an effective kick-off, with a focus on the human-centric, relationship-based factors which are essential to setting teams up for success.

This is Part 1 of 3 articles -

Part 1 — Understanding the role of Leadership & Hierarchy

Part 2 — Building Trust & Communication — who, what, when, how

Part 3 — Scheduling — when now doesn’t mean now!

Why is kick-off so important?

When kicking off a new project I have seen far too many Agile teams jump straight into Discovery, before taking the time to execute an effective kick-off phase.

Depending on the scale of your project or programme of work, the amount of time needed will vary. In Agile we look to keep this phase to a minimum.

As a Consultant with any new client I’ve learnt the importance of establishing strong working relationships from the outset. This takes time, and investing in a solid kick-off ensures this foundation is built. My examples in this article are based on my experiences with Consultant-Client relationships, and multinational teams and clients.

What we gain from a detailed kick-off sets us up to ensure the Discovery phase and the subsequent delivery cycles will be a success.

What we all gain -

• An alignment of vision, strategy, goals and objectives

• A deeper understanding of each other’s business, culture, ethos and goals

• An alignment on ways of working

• A shared understanding of each others roles, responsibilities and communication preferences

Dangers of not executing a proper kick-off -

• Going down a rabbit hole

• Wasting client budget

• Eroding your margin

• Wasting valuable delivery time

• Demotivating your Agile team

• Damaging client trust in your abilities

I’m a British expat working in Dubai, this amazing cultural melting pot of expats and an international business hub. The official state religion is Islam, which shapes much of the countries laws and culture. This mix of cultures has presented a dizzying array of new experiences and challenges for me. I’ve found a valuable resource in ‘The Culture Map’ by Erin Meyer.

Her Culture Mapping tools have given me some great insights when navigating multicultural relationships with new clients and teams — https://erinmeyer.com/tools/

Taken from “The Culture Map” by Erin Meyers

Grasping the nuances of leadership and hierarchy when engaging with a new client, partner or team is key to avoiding painful misunderstandings. As a British consultant, I come from a fairly egalitarian working environment. Working in the Middle East and with teams in Bangladesh and APAC, I’ve encountered more hierarchical ways of working.

Let’s say I’m engaging with a new client on a multi-million dollar programme of work. I’d absolutely want at least 2 days to undertake a series of kick-off workshops, attended by the client’s core stakeholders, plus my core team leads. I’ve learnt that getting everyone in a room to look each other in the eye and assess personalities, characters, concerns and challenges is always of massive value.

Prior to any face to face kick-off (be it in real life or via video call), I’ve found a pre-kick off call with the main stakeholder is very beneficial. It gives me a chance to run through what they can expect and, more importantly, it helps me understand who might be ‘in the room’ from the client’s business. Thus giving my team valuable insights into who the key decision makers might be. For example, knowing in advance that we have the CTO and CIO in the room means we can do some LinkedIn stalking (research!) and get some insights into the backgrounds of these very senior individuals.

Part of the kick-off phase should involve establishing a stakeholder map and RACI Matrix. For example, I could assume that I can go straight to the CTO with a question, because I’ve seen she is an open, approachable fellow Brit working for an Emirati company. Perhaps this would be OK. What if my day to day contact is the Indian Digital Product Lead? This leap-frogging of him could be seen as circumnavigating him and showing great disrespect, undermining his position. This would be a terrible way for me to start my new relationship with him!

This doesn’t mean that there won’t be a time when it makes more sense to drop the CTO an email, but establishing if this is OK with all parties first is key. This is where your stakeholder map is gold, not just for you as an Agile Lead but for any member of your client-facing team.

As Erin Meyer outlines in her book the differences between an egalitarian vs. a hierarchical leadership environment are many and nuanced. Where we find ourselves on the scale above as individuals, as a team or as an organisation may be very different to other people or teams we interact with, even in the same organisation. This is especially true if they are based in another country or from a different work environment to ourselves.

Conclusion:

As an Agile Lead you are part coach, part subject-matter expert, part-mediator, part-anthropologist! This is especially true in an increasingly borderless business world: the need to understand cultural norms, establish client relationships over Zoom, and effectively bring together distributed teams on new engagements, means navigating a slalom of obstacles on an often intimidating slope of hidden crevasses!

You can never be all things to all people all of the time, but with knowledge comes understanding and the means for you to build relationships with the right foundations.