Engagement Setup

Take an engagement from "we just won this work" to "the project is running." This covers the opening weeks: preparing the kickoff, mapping stakeholders, designing discovery, and setting the operating rhythm. For standalone facilitated sessions later in the engagement (strategy offsites, innovation sprints), see workshop-facilitation.

The goal is shared understanding and momentum. Not a stack of templates. Every artifact here earns its place by driving alignment or unblocking work. If it does neither, cut it.

Ask the client for real inputs (names, dates, volumes, org data) before filling anything in. Where you sketch an example number to show the shape of an analysis, label it as illustrative and flag it for validation. Never invent stakeholder positions, benchmark figures, or dollar impacts.

Phase 1: Pre-Kickoff Preparation

Before anyone gets in a room, do the homework. The quality of the kickoff is set here, not on the day.

Stakeholder Identification

Build the inventory early. You need it for invitation lists, interview scheduling, and knowing who can actually make a decision versus who only talks like they can.

Internal stakeholders (client side):