The Kick-off That Kicked Me Back: Lessons from My Worst Project Start
Jun 26, 2025Authored By Funmilola Babarinde
Most project managers remember their first successful go-live. But the ones we never forget? The disasters. The awkward silences, derailed agendas, and tense “follow-up” meetings that follow. That’s where the real lessons live — and sometimes, the ones that shape how we lead forever.
For me, that project was ASPFEP — a mouthful of an acronym and a monster of a fintech integration. We were rolling out new ATM and POS connectivity, card issuance, real-time SMS alerts, and multi-vendor APIs for a national bank. It was a high-stakes, public-facing, and complex endeavor. I had every deliverable mapped; every dependency tracked.
But still, my kick-off crashed and burned.
And not because I didn’t prepare. I had timelines. RAID logs. A pristine deck with color-coded phases. But none of that mattered, because I’d missed the most important piece: alignment. Not just task-level alignment, but emotional, strategic, and political alignment across a very diverse group of stakeholders. And as I learned the hard way, without shared clarity, no amount of planning can save you.
Setting the Stage (And Missing the Plot)
The ASPFEP project had one primary objective: to modernize the bank’s switching and card issuing infrastructure. Faster transactions. Real-time fraud detection. Better customer experience. On paper, it was transformational.
We were integrating:
- A new switch for ATM and POS transactions
- An in-house debit card issuance system
- Real-time SMS alerts for customers
- Multiple third-party vendor APIs
I’d spent weeks preparing. I had dependencies lined up across agile sprints, mapped risk owners, and even dry-ran my kick-off slides the night before. The deck looked like a masterclass in structure. But I’d made a fatal assumption: that everyone on the project cared about the same things in the same way — and that they were all ready to start. They weren’t.
The Moment It All Fell Apart
Ten minutes into kick-off, just after I’d launched into the project background, the sponsor from the bank’s retail team cut in: Can someone explain again what ASPFEP solves for us today?
I paused. Not because I didn’t have an answer, but because I knew immediately, we were in trouble. The vendor jumped in with technical terms about ISO 8583 messages and fraud rulesets. The fraud and compliance lead looked puzzled — she wasn’t sure if SMS alerts were even finalised. The internal ops lead was under the impression that the ATM rollout was scheduled for Phase 2, not immediately. What followed was 30 minutes of back-and-forth confusion, with competing timelines. Mismatched expectations. Siloed knowledge. And the worst part? Passive-aggressive silence. When the sponsor muted herself and didn’t unmute again, I knew: I had completely lost the room.
Rebooting: From Kickoff to Clean-Up
I closed the call politely, thanked everyone for their time, and said I’d “follow up shortly to clarify a few items.” Inside, I felt like my stomach had dropped through the floor. My first instinct was panic, but my next move was a strategic one.
Within the next hour, I scheduled a “realignment session” for 48 hours later. I knew we couldn’t start anything until we fixed what had just happened.
What I did in those 48 hours is what launched the project.
With stakeholders: I called every key player: the sponsor, vendor leads, engineering, compliance, customer operations, and finance.
And on each call, I asked just three questions:
- “What’s the one thing you’re expecting this project to solve?”
- “What concerns you most about where we’re starting?”
- “What does success look like for your team?”
The answers were wildly inconsistent. One stakeholder believed that SMS alerts were part of Phase 3. Another thought, the card issuance had been dropped altogether. Some had never seen the complete roadmap. The engineering team was unsure who was signing off on the test results. The fraud team didn’t even know which APIs were in scope.
We weren’t misaligned — we were orbiting different planets.
Rewriting the Kickoff: I threw away my deck. Literally. Instead, I created a 5-slide visual summary. No timelines. No acronyms. No process jargon. I asked questions like:
- Why we’re doing this now (from the bank’s perspective)
- What each team owns
- What’s in Phase 1 vs Phase 2
- What success looks like at go-live
- Who needs what from whom
And for the re-kickoff, I didn’t start with objectives or deliverables.
I started with: “Here’s what each of you told me this week — and here’s how we’re solving for it together.”
It changed everything. The tone shifted. People leaned in. There was less defensiveness and more curiosity. I could see lightbulbs going off: “Ah, so that’s why compliance was pushing back.”
“Got it — so engineering is blocked unless the vendor shares X.” It was still messy. But now we were aligned on what we were solving and how to do it. There was mutual understanding, shared ownership, and actual momentum.
What I Learned the Hard Way
That failed kick-off reshaped how I manage not just meetings, but people. It taught me more about leadership than any textbook or certification ever could. And here’s what stuck:
What I’d Do Differently Next Time
- Never launch cold. Alignment isn’t something you “facilitate” in the kickoff. It should already be done.
- Pre-wire your people. Meet stakeholders early. Hear their concerns. Check their assumptions. Give them a stake before they get the stage.
- Lead with empathy, not process. Gantt charts don’t manage power dynamics. Relationships do.
- Simplify the narrative. Most stakeholders are more concerned with how something affects them than with how it works.
- Show, don’t tell. Visual stories beat bullet points every time.
What to Watch Out For
- Silence is a signal. Confused or disengaged stakeholders usually won’t speak up — they’ll disconnect quietly.
- Alignment agreement. People can nod in meetings and still be fundamentally misaligned underneath.
- Don’t confuse structure with safety. You can have a perfect agenda and still create an unsafe space for real conversation.
- Egos, agendas, politics. They’re all part of the project. Plan for them. Anticipate them. Navigate with care.
What Still Stays with Me
Years later, ASPFEP is live. The ATMs now run on the upgraded switch. Real-time alerts are working. Fraud detection is more stringent, and the platform has scaled accordingly.
But the real success wasn’t the code, the integrations, or the infrastructure. It was what happened in that 48-hour window after the failed kick-off — the reset, the clarity, the willingness to admit we got it wrong and regroup.
That moment taught me that a strong kick-off isn’t about perfect planning. It’s about creating shared understanding and psychological safety. It’s not about showing how much you know — it’s about surfacing what others might not.
As project managers, our job isn’t to “run the meeting.” It’s to create the conditions where alignment can happen. Ultimately, no project fails because of bad slides. They fail because of an invisible misalignment that no one dared to say out loud.
Contributor Bio
Funmilola is a digital transformation project manager with a wealth of experience leading service delivery, fintech, and infrastructure programmes across the UK and Africa. She excels at the intersection of people, process, and technology, with a strong commitment to human-centered project leadership.
Connect on LinkedIn: Funmilola Babarinde
