Abstract
Sometimes, a company outsourced his notebook PC development activity to a business partner out side of its country. PMI recognizes one of the most important tools is a facilitated kick off meeting. This paper describes how the author executed facilitated kick off meeting with the joint development partner using the actual examples which resulted in successful product shipment to the field. The objectives of a project kick off meeting are to share the project over view, plan, assignments, team member contact list and to set the common goal and objective for the team. In the case of internal development, since the project manager is familiar with the development process, mission, scope of work, individual skills and responsibilities, the kick off meeting can be done in a disciplined manner based on the standard and process. Meantime, in the case of joint development with business partner in abroad, there are so many unknown factors and difference in the meaning of technical terms in development cycles. A preliminary session was required to have mutual understanding on the terms and own development process prior to the official kick off meeting. Not all members can attend the kick off meeting due to overseas travel budget restriction. To improve this situation, the member list with photo, e-mails, and its assignments was used. It was so effective to have the common goal by having the tangible target in their own language and simply review those at regular review meeting. In this paper, actual tools and method to be used for team-building process as a kick off meeting are concretely described.
