Hybrid working & running the best kick off meetings

In this episode I wanted to talk about two things;

Hybrid working - can you effectively do Scrum with new Scrum teams on new projects? This question came about after my talk at Keele, & I thought it was a great question & one which needed unpacking a bit. Running a good kick of meeting (or any meeting) Hands up how many meetings are you in that are an utter disaster? Try of course doing that hybrid or remote & you can be almost guaranteed to fail - I briefly explain the five things I do to help run the very best meetings.

Step One: Know Your Purpose Before you even send the invite, ask yourself: What is this meeting actually for? If your answer is "because we always do a kickoff,” start again. A great kickoff meeting does three things: It aligns the team on goals, scope, and approach. It builds relationships and sets expectations. It uncovers potential risks early. If your agenda isn’t doing these things, rethink it.

Step Two: Get the Right People in the Room One of the worst mistakes? Inviting everyone because you don’t want anyone to feel left out. That’s how you end up with a meeting where half the people are checking emails and the other half are confused. Here’s who should be in the room: The key decision-makers—Product Owner, Delivery Manager, Tech Lead. The core delivery team—engineers, designers, testers, analysts. Key business stakeholders who need to understand the project direction. Anyone else? Optional or async. Keep it lean, keep it focused.

Step Three: Set the Tone with Energy, Not Slides Nobody wants to sit through a 40-slide deck on “Why This Project is Important.” Instead, open with energy. Be clear, be concise. I like to start with three things: The Why: Why are we doing this project? Who does it benefit? Why does it matter? The What: What are we actually delivering? When? What does success look like? The How: How are we working? Agile? Scrum? Kanban? What’s expected of the team? If you can’t explain these things in under five minutes, your project is already in trouble.

Step Four: Get People Talking—Fast The best kickoff meetings aren’t monologues, they’re conversations. Get the team talking as soon as possible. Here are a few great ways to do that: Ask the team: What excites you about this project? What concerns you? Run a mini Futurespective: If this project is a disaster in six months, why? Map out early risks and dependencies together. Engagement isn’t about hearing information, it’s about owning it.

Step Five: End with Action, Not Abstraction A weak kickoff ends with “So yeah, let’s get started.” A strong kickoff ends with clear next steps. Summarize in three bullet points: What’s happening this week? (First sprint, onboarding, requirements deep-dive?) Who’s doing what? (Lead engineer setting up repos, BA refining backlog, etc.) What does success look like by next check-in? End with clarity. No open loops. Follow Mario De’Cristofano: 🔗 LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariodecristofano 🐦 Twitter/X:https://twitter.com/mariodc 📸 Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/mariodc ✍️ Medium: https://medium.com/@mariodecristofano 🧠 Blog:https://www.mariosblog.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.