Agile Kick-Off Checklist

This checklist provides a list of items for consideration during the inception/discovery phase
of a project. It is intended as a guide to help you consider your readiness to begin your first
sprint.

This should not be seen as an exhaustive list – what is needed will vary for each project.
Neither should it be seen as a list of mandatory items that must be completed before starting
– projects will always start with a level of uncertainty, and the initial focus should be on
determining the minimum set of what is required for work to start.

Agile / Scrum Knowledge  Comments/Details

 Overview provided for team The need for this will depend on the
experience of the team.
Could also run a short 1 week sprint for
the team to familiarise them with the
Agile rituals (but ensure purpose is
clear).
 Any training identified e.g. team participation in Agile training
and/or tools like Trello. Ideally, all team
members should have gone through
training. The “Agile Crash Course:
Agile Project Management; Agile
Delivery” is recommended.
 Any coaching /support This could also include joining other
requirements identified project’s scrum activities, or having
more experienced representatives from
other teams join yours

Team Work Practices  Comments/Details

 Team Roles defined Confirm who is fulfilling each role, and
(Scrum Master, Product Owner, etc.) identify anyone assisting them or
acting as a proxy.
For experienced teams, the scrum
master role could be rotated.
 Confirm Sprint duration and timing Sprints are usually 2 weeks.
Consider starting sprints during the
week rather than running them Mon –
Fri, but work out what is best for you
and your team. Each work environment
is different.
 Daily stand-up time and location Find a suitable time and location that
works for everyone.
 Team location Ensure suitable accommodation for
team (co-locate if possible), ideally with
wall space for the scrum board, post-
its, etc.
Determine how will you manage team
 communications and interactions if
everyone is not co-located.
 Team values and expectations The team should determine what they
expect from each other – e.g. working
hours, participation in stand-ups, open
and effective communication, shared
responsibility, identifying failure.
 Definition of Ready and Definition of Project specific definitions of when a
Done story is ready to go into a sprint, and
when it is done. Make sure everyone
agrees on how this will be managed. It
could be as simple as everyone
agreeing a user story is ready to go
into a sprint and everyone agreeing a
user story is complete after team
discussion or testing results.

Product/Project Vision  Comments/Details

 Overall vision & goals clearly Could be captured in a number of ways
defined for example: - Elevator pitch, In/Out of
scope list etc
 Minimum Viable Product identified Identify the minimum that can be
included in a first release, that will
deliver some customer value and
provide feedback
 Priorities/Trade-offs defined Confirm what is most important for this
project - scope, quality, cost or
schedule
 Key risks, constraints and What could make the project fail?
dependencies identified Identify early on, mitigate or eliminate
where possible.
 Key stakeholders mapped Determine who the key players are,
and what their level of
interest/involvement is

Solution, Tools & Technology  Comments/Details

 High-level solution architecture Ensure any key decisions around the
defined solution architecture and technologies
to be used are made and agreed on
 Path to production Do processes and data need to be
migrated from old systems to the new
one?
Are migrations through different
environments required?
 Infrastructure/environments Are all the necessary environments
identified and available for
development, testing, training etc?
 Development tools All development tools are available
and configured
 Scrum tools Are you using a physical Kanban
board, digital Kanban board (e.g.
Trello) or a combination?
Have these been setup/configured and
does the team know how to use them?
 Test tools Any test tools are available and
configured (e.g. Jira Capture, unit test
frameworks)
 Team communication tools Any team collaboration tools are setup
(Phone/Video Conferencing, Skype,
Slack,Trello, Teams, etc.)
 Individual Equipment All team members have necessary
equipment (phones, computers,
network access etc)

Initial Backlog  Comments/Details

 Key Features/functions identified Identify key features and functions of
the product
 Initial backlog of stories ready for Use above to create an initial list of
development stories for development.
Prioritise and estimate story points for
each user story
 Agile plan/schedule Develop an initial rough plan/schedule
for the work that can be refined as it
progresses

Socialisation  Comments/Details
 Initial communications Send out any initial project
communications to begin engaging
stakeholders
 Kick-off meeting to engage Hold a kick-off meeting with the wider
stakeholders stakeholder group (Business and
Management, Operations and Support
groups etc) to socialise vision and
high-level plans