Confluence Best Practices
The Power of Icons in Confluence
Visuals speak louder than words. That’s why we’re going to show you how to elevate
You’ve got your team, your project, and your deadlines. But before diving into the work, there’s one thing you can’t skip: a solid kick-off meeting. This first step is key to making sure everyone’s on the same page and ready to tackle what’s ahead. It helps set expectations, clarify roles, and get everyone excited. Without it, things can quickly go off track.
So, what exactly should you cover in your kick-off to make it a success? In this article, we’ll walk through the essentials and share some best practices.
In project management, a kick-off refers to the initial phase of a project where planning, team alignment, and goal setting take place. It’s the starting point that sets the direction for the entire project lifecycle. This phase ensures that everyone involved has a clear understanding of the project’s objectives, timelines, deliverables, and responsibilities.
A kick-off meeting is the specific event where the project officially begins. It’s the first time your team, stakeholders, and sometimes clients come together to start the project. You’ll go over the project’s goals, timeline, roles, and any potential obstacles. It’s the moment where everyone’s expectations are aligned, and the real work begins.
Without this meeting, you risk confusion, missed deadlines, and the dreaded scope creep. Kick-off meetings also help to set the tone for the project—if it’s well-executed, your team will feel more connected, confident, and prepared for the challenges ahead.
While the core purpose of a kick-off meeting is to align everyone on the project goals, the approach differs depending on whether you’re meeting with your internal team or external clients and stakeholders. Here’s a breakdown of both:
When you’re kicking off a project with your internal team, the focus is on clarity and logistics. This meeting is all about aligning everyone on the tasks, roles, timeline, and expectations.
The meeting is often more informal and can be conducted virtually or in person, depending on the team setup.
The internal team kick-off happens early in the project, after project planning but before work starts.
The client or stakeholder kick-off meeting serves a similar purpose but with a few important differences. It’s the first real opportunity to establish a relationship with your clients and ensure their expectations are aligned with what your team is delivering. This meeting is about understanding their vision, setting expectations, and reassuring them that the project is in good hands.
This meeting is often more formal than an internal team kick-off.
The client or stakeholder kick-off meeting typically happens after the internal team kick-off. You should have already gathered your internal team, aligned your goals, and started to define the project scope.
Introductions and Team Overview
Project Overview and Goals
Roles and Responsibilities
Timeline and Milestones
Communication Plan
Risks and Potential Challenges
Now that we’ve covered what needs to be addressed during the kick-off meeting, it’s time to look at the steps you can take before, during, and after the meeting to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Prepare Your Agenda
Creating a clear kick-off agenda is essential for a successful kick-off meeting. This will help you stay focused and ensure you cover all the necessary topics.
Align With Stakeholders
Before the meeting, make sure you’re aligned with key stakeholders, especially if you’re planning a client-facing kick-off call. Get their input on the project scope, objectives, and any other elements that need to be discussed.
Confirm Attendees and Time Zones
Make sure all relevant parties can attend the meeting. If you’re working with remote teams or clients across time zones, double-check the meeting time and make sure it’s convenient for everyone.
Welcome and Set the Tone
Start by welcoming everyone and setting a positive, open tone for the meeting. Remember, the first impression sets the stage for the entire project!
Walk Through the Agenda
Go over the meeting agenda at the beginning, so everyone knows what to expect. Make sure you allow time for questions and discussion as you go along.
Clarify Roles and Responsibilities
This is where everyone’s responsibilities should be outlined clearly.
Align on Expectations
Make sure everyone understands what success looks like. What are the project’s key deliverables? When are they due? What are the non-negotiables? Get agreement on these points, so there’s no confusion later on.
Address Risks and Concerns
Acknowledge any risks or potential challenges upfront. Use the meeting as a platform to discuss how these challenges might be tackled.
Create a Communication Plan
Clarify how communication will flow throughout the project. How will feedback be shared? How often will you meet to review progress? Be sure to set the expectations early on.
Follow-up with Meeting Notes
After the meeting, send a follow-up email or document summarizing the key points covered—roles, deliverables, milestones, and next steps.
Share a Project Dashboard
Everyone should be able to see at a glance where the project stands. Keep the dashboard updated regularly, and make it accessible for everyone involved.
Set Up a Kick-Off Task List
Breaking the project down into manageable tasks will make it easier for everyone to know what they need to focus on next.
Stay in Sync with Regular Check-Ins
Keep the momentum going by scheduling regular check-ins after the kick-off. These can be brief but should focus on progress, issues, and any adjustments to the plan.
Adjust as Needed
The kick-off meeting is just the beginning. As the project progresses, things may shift—timelines might change, priorities might need adjusting, or unforeseen risks could arise. Be flexible and adjust accordingly, but always make sure the changes are communicated clearly to the team and stakeholders.
Now that you’ve covered the planning, communication, and follow-up, it’s time to talk about tools. No kick-off is complete without the right technical infrastructure to support it. Tools like Confluence, along with its powerful macros, are perfect for managing and streamlining the kick-off process.
Confluence is a collaboration powerhouse. It allows you to create detailed, easily accessible documentation, share meeting notes, and track project progress all in one place. By using powerful add-ons like Aura Content Formatting Macros or the free Karma page builder, you can unlock a whole new level of functionality in Confluence.
Aura is a powerful suite of content formatting macros designed to enhance Confluence pages and make them more engaging, structured, and visually appealing.
With Aura, you can break your page into organized sections, make information stand out, track progress, and much more. Below, we’ll dive into the best Aura macros to use for your project kick-off.
The Tabs macro of Aura is ideal for structuring your kick-off page into clearly defined sections. Instead of having all your information crammed into one long scroll, you can divide the content into different tabs, such as “Agenda,” “Project Overview,” “Roles & Responsibilities,” and “Timeline.” This approach makes your page cleaner, more accessible, and easier to navigate, ensuring that your team can quickly find what they need.
For example:
Tab 1: Kick-Off Agenda – Detailing meeting flow and discussion points.
Tab 2: Roles & Responsibilities – Clarifying team members’ tasks and objectives.
Tab 3: Project Timeline – A visual roadmap of milestones and deadlines.
The Panel macro is your best friend when you need to highlight important sections of your kick-off page. Whether it’s key project goals, specific deadlines, or high-priority tasks, the Panel macro adds a border around your content, making it stand out. You can use it to draw attention to important deliverables or even potential risks, making it clear what needs immediate focus.
Example:
A panel with “Project Goals” or “Immediate Next Steps” could draw attention to crucial tasks, ensuring your team knows exactly where to focus first.
Aura’s Progress macro is a great way to visualize the project’s status and track your team’s progress through various phases. By adding this macro to your kick-off page, you can show the percentage of completion for key milestones or overall project goals. This adds a dynamic element to your page and keeps your team motivated as they see tasks move from In Progress to Completed.
Example:
Use a progress bar to visually represent the completion of major project phases, like “Requirements Gathering” or “Phase 1 Deliverables.”
The Status macro allows you to create real-time updates on project tasks and deliverables, ensuring that everyone is on the same page regarding the project’s progress. You can assign status labels like In Progress, Completed, or Delayed, making it easy for the team to see what needs attention.
If your project kick-off involves a lot of detailed information that needs to be split into more specific sub-topics, the Child Pages macro is perfect for you. You can create linked child pages for deeper dives into specific areas, such as “Detailed Project Plan,” “Risk Management,” or “Budgeting and Resources.” This keeps your kick-off page clean while providing easy access to additional resources.
Example:
Under the main kick-off page, you could have child pages for each section of your agenda or project phases, each containing more detailed content.
If you have external resources or documents, such as Google Docs, Miro boards, or Excel sheets that are relevant to your project, Aura’s Embed macro allows you to display them directly within your Confluence page. This ensures that your team doesn’t need to switch between multiple platforms to access important files.
Example:
Embed a Google Drive link for the project brief or a Miro board showcasing brainstorming sessions, making all relevant resources accessible directly from your kick-off page.
Karma is a free page builder for Confluence that allows you to design visually appealing, easy-to-navigate pages using a simple drag-and-drop interface. It’s an intuitive tool that helps you create pages without any coding knowledge, while still giving you the flexibility to add interactive, professional features.
One of Karma’s best features is its drag-and-drop editor, which makes page building incredibly easy. With this feature, you can quickly organize your kick-off meeting agenda without the need for any technical skills. Simply drag elements like text blocks, buttons, headings, and images into your page layout, and customize them on the fly.
Karma comes with over 200 predefined templates, including several perfect for project management. Templates such as headers, cards, galleries, and buttons make it easy to create a polished and functional kick-off page that encourages interaction. For instance:
Cards: You can use cards to highlight important sections of the project, like roles, responsibilities, and deadlines. Each card can be linked to a more detailed page or used to break up sections of your kick-off meeting.
Buttons: Add action-oriented buttons that allow attendees to quickly navigate to sections like “Project Overview,” “Meeting Notes,” or even “Follow-up Tasks.”
Icons: Add visual flair with icons to represent different project elements (e.g., a clock for the timeline, a checklist for deliverables) for easy scanning.
A well-planned kick-off meeting sets the stage for project success. With Aura and Karma, you can take your meetings to the next level. Organize, highlight, and track progress with Aura’s macros, or use the free Karma’s drag-and-drop builder to create engaging, interactive pages. Get your team aligned, informed, and motivated right from the start.
Try Aura now and get Karma for free to see how easy it is to create impactful, visually stunning kick-off pages!
Supercharge your Confluence
Visuals speak louder than words. That’s why we’re going to show you how to elevate
First things first: Before starting a project, you need to schedule a kick-off meeting to
To fully encourage your employees, you should set up an enterprise social network. We’ll tell
You are currently viewing a placeholder content from Wistia. To access the actual content, click the button below. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.
More Information