Alignment with Project Sponsor
Before a sprint starts, the setup meeting with the sponsor is the right time to align expectations and pave the way for a smooth iteration.
Danny Locher
Business Design Coach
Content
1. Purpose
Once the Project Charter "Sprint" has been drafted together with the Project Sponsor and the Team Manager, meet the sponsor again before the sprint kicks off. Use this meeting to finalise the charter, clarify open questions about the team and the project, and align expectations.
This is also where the ambition of the sprint gets confirmed. Ten weeks per iteration are fixed, and a single iteration rarely produces a market-ready business — two to three are the norm. Say that out loud and have the sponsor agree on what one iteration delivers: e.g. a partly validated Business Model, with the success-critical hypotheses answered by facts instead of opinions. A sponsor who expects a finished business case after ten weeks will be disappointed at the end, and the team will take the blame for it.
Agree on what the sprint is for: creating project results, enabling people or stress-testing the innovation system. Pick one — a sprint that chases all three delivers none. Step 1: Setup describes the three outcomes and what each of them costs.
The setup meeting has the following agenda:
Discuss the Project Charter "Sprint" — motivation, problem statement, objectives, team, schedule.
Agree how the Team Members will be relieved of their daily tasks for the ten weeks, so they can spend the 1.5 to 2.5 days a week the sprint needs. "Very busy, but I'll make it work" is not a commitment — settle it here, not in the kick-off workshop.
Recap what the team will do with customers. In Step 2: Discover they contact and talk to customers and non-customers; in Step 4: Validate they put real offers in front of real people. Make sure the sponsor knows this, and that they discuss it with the sales team themselves before the sprint starts.
Collect the operational and strategic background on the project.
Align the expectations of sponsor and Team Manager — including what one iteration will not deliver.
Fix the sponsor's own dates: the motivational speech at the beginning of the Kick-off Workshop, the Sponsor's Sneak Preview and the Decide Workshop. A sponsor who cannot commit to these dates cannot decide at the end of the sprint.
As an experienced coach, you can often see trouble coming — a problem statement that covers three problems instead of one, for example. Name it and share your assessment with the sponsor.
The Team Manager documents the outcomes by sending a short email to the team coach, the project sponsor and the innovation manager right after the meeting.
2. Duration
60 minutes