The moment you find out about an upcoming web project, work closely with your account lead to get as much information together as you can. The two of you will outline the project charter and a draft statement of work. You’ll also need to make sure your account lead drafts a creative brief that can be run by the creative lead. If you’re wearing multiple hats and also happen to be the account lead you just saved yourself a step and can coordinate this effort on your own.

At this point you’ll be ready to call a meeting of your core team. As we learned in Defining Web Project Roles and Responsibilities, your core team consists of the “Fantastic Four” model – you as project lead, your account lead and your creative and tech leads. Immediately getting your core team leaders on the same page will help get your project off on the right foot.

I like to call this meeting a “pre-kickoff” gathering, where the core team leaders have the opportunity to vet all the available information, start formally defining the project scope and identify any holes that may impede progress. This is where you add the most value to the project by capturing the vision of execution in the final statement of work and creative brief.

Once you and your core team are in agreement with what you believe the project scope to be you’re ready to present this information to the client. This will be your opportunity to get key questions answered before you officially move forward. It is critical that the client is involved from the very beginning. This will avoid miscommunications going forward and give them a feeling of higher investment and empowerment in the project.

In one of the pivotal scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones says “I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go along.” Everyone should realize you’ll never get all the information you need at the beginning of a project because it doesn’t exist yet. It’s the ongoing chicken and egg dilemma of project management, so your goal is to make the most educated guess and best assumptions you can. Imagine as much as possible the way you think your project should be framed out and document your assumptions along the way. When your core team has ideally confirmed or imagined 80% of the project scope, you’ve documented the remaining 20% as assumptions and your client has approved it all you’re ready to call a project kickoff meeting with your larger team.