Preparing for your kickoff call
The kickoff call is your first live conversation with your Fractional Digital Engineer (FDE) — 30–45 minutes that set the direction for your entire first month. An unprepared kickoff produces introductions and a second call; a prepared one ends with your first sprint scoped, your training plan agreed, and a written summary in your inbox the same week. This guide covers how to arrive ready.
You book the call in step four of the onboarding wizard. If you haven’t started the wizard yet, do that first — your FDE prepares for the call using the objective and documents you provide there, so an empty workspace means a colder start.
What the call covers
Your FDE runs the agenda, so you don’t need a presentation or a formal brief. On the call they will:
- Review the objective you set during onboarding and sharpen it with you
- Ask clarifying questions about the documents you uploaded
- Explain what gets built in your first month, and in what order
- Walk you through the platform features you’ll use most
- Answer your questions about the process, timeline, and team commitment
Afterward, they send a summary with action items: the workflows in the first sprint, any additional documents they need, a timeline for first deliverables, and the date of your next check-in. Full details are on Book your first call.
The week before: gather context
Everything your FDE learns before the call is build time saved after it. Four things to pull together:
Complete all five steps, including a specific objective — a number and a timeframe, like “reduce manual data entry in invoicing by 50% within three months”. Setting objectives shows the pattern. A rough objective beats an empty one; the kickoff call exists to refine it.
SOPs, process maps, and anything that describes how work actually flows through your business today. Upload the best two or three through the wizard and have the rest within reach for the call. The data preparation guide covers formats and priorities.
For each process you want improved, estimate hours per week spent, how often errors occur, and turnaround time. Estimates are fine — you’re ranking opportunities, not auditing. These numbers become the baseline for the ROI conversation later.
Concrete beats abstract. “Someone copies CRM data into a spreadsheet every morning” gives your FDE something to build against; “we’re inefficient” doesn’t. If you’re stuck, Identifying opportunities has a framework: look for repetitive tasks, copy-paste between systems, and templated communication.
The day before: align your people
The engagements that move fastest share one trait: the right people were on the kickoff call.
- Bring a decision-maker. Your FDE needs someone who can say yes to a workflow change without convening a committee. If that’s not you, get that person on the call.
- Decide who gets trained. Education runs in parallel with the build from day one, and each trained team member needs two to four hours per week for the first eight weeks. Come with names, or at least candidates.
- Collect questions from the team. Skepticism surfaces better on a call than in a hallway afterward. Ask your team what they’d want to know, and bring the list.
Questions worth asking
The summary email covers logistics, so spend your live minutes on the questions that shape the engagement:
- What will ship first, and what does “done” look like for it?
- What access — tools, data, accounts — will you need from us, and when?
- How will we measure whether the first system worked?
- What should our team learn before the first education session?
- What’s the fastest way to reach you between calls?
What Advizr does and what you do
| What Advizr does | What you do |
|---|---|
| Reviews your objective and documents before the call | Complete the onboarding wizard at least two days ahead |
| Runs the agenda: clarifying questions, first-month plan, platform tour | Bring a decision-maker and your pain-point list |
| Sends a written summary with action items | Read it the same week and action your items |
| Scopes the first sprint and schedules education sessions | Confirm who takes the 2–4 hours/week training commitment |
| Requests the specific documents and access the build needs | Respond to requests within a couple of days |
Kickoff preparation checklist
Kickoff preparation — client checklist
The week before
[ ] Complete the five-step onboarding wizard
[ ] Set one specific, measurable objective
[ ] Upload 2-3 documents that describe repeatable processes
[ ] Pull rough numbers: hours per week, error rates, turnaround times
[ ] List your top three pain points, with concrete examples
The day before
[ ] Confirm a decision-maker is attending
[ ] Decide who gets the 2-4 hours/week training commitment
[ ] Collect questions from your team
[ ] Check the calendar invite and video link
After the call
[ ] Read the summary and action items the same week
[ ] Send any additional documents your FDE requested
[ ] Confirm the first education session dates
[ ] Book the next check-in in Book if it isn't already scheduledIf you need to reschedule, do it from Book — moving the call costs nothing before it happens, but going in unprepared costs you the first sprint’s momentum.
Keep going
- Your first 30 days — what happens after kickoff, week by week
- Data preparation — getting your documents ready for upload
- Session formats — every live session type in the engagement, including kickoff