Change Management Programme Kickoff Meeting Agenda
This is a practical guide to building a kickoff meeting agenda for a change management programme project — the agenda that aligns the team and stakeholders at project start, adapted to the realities of delivering large-scale organisational change.
What a Kickoff Meeting Agenda is
A kickoff meeting agenda is the agenda that aligns the team and stakeholders at project start. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Kickoff Meeting. On a change management programme project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Change Management Programme project
Change Management Programme projects live or die on delivering large-scale organisational change. A well-built kickoff meeting agenda gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how change management programme projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Purpose and objectives
- Scope and plan walkthrough
- Roles (RACI)
- Ways of working
- Next steps
Change Management Programme-specific considerations
Tailor the kickoff meeting agenda to the risks that most often derail change management programme projects:
- Resistance to change
- Sustaining adoption
- Leadership alignment
Example
On a real change management programme project, the kickoff meeting agenda would be shaped by delivering large-scale organisational change. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — resistance to change, sustaining adoption, leadership alignment — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.