How to kickoff a meeting for the development of an e-commerce website?

Immerse yourself in the enchanting world of haute parfumerie, where virtual reality, the magic of 3D and artificial intelligence intertwine to create an unprecedented luxury e-commerce site.

Discover how a daring team embarks on this technological adventure, juggling digital fragrances, virtual shopping and cybersecurity challenges.

Read our holiday-style story, where codes are casually blended to create the e-commerce site that will carry the international success of the new fragrance “Éclat Mirage” l’essence liberté pour Elles 🌬️ .

On the eve of August, a 10-strong team at a web agency in Vietnam is hard at work, while their colleagues are already on vacation, basking in the sun.  The team is motivated and ready to embark on an exciting new e-commerce project.

Team members include:

• 1 functional project manager
• 1 3D developer
• 1 tester
• 2 integrators
• 3 PHP developers
• 1 cybersecurity manager
• 1 customer project manager

This team, which is still going strong after the summer vacations, is meeting today in a bright and spacious meeting room to start a long project kick-off meeting, to build the backlog for an e-commerce site dedicated to the launch of the new high-end women’s fragrance “Éclat Mirage”.

This new e-commerce site, which will be rolled out internationally, blends a variety of the following technologies:

• PHP development,
• Virtual reality,
• 3D,
• not to mention AI.

As this first meeting is a crucial step in the project lifecycle, it must not be rushed. Team members will define the elements to be included in the project scope and establish a solid work plan.

This meeting takes place in several stages.

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STEP 1 (BEFORE THE MEETING) – Prepare the meeting objectives

Before the meeting, the project manager (the Product Owner) prepares the meeting through the following tasks:

• defining the objectives of the meeting,
• gathering relevant project information,
• identifying the key participants to be invited.

For the “Éclat Mirage” e-commerce site, the main objective of this meeting is to build the initial project backlog based on 3 main elements:

• the main functionalities of the e-commerce site,
• specific requirements,
• and the customer’s objectives.

STEP 2 – Define major functionalities

Let’s get started! The meeting begins with the people essential to the project’s success.

The team begins the meeting by identifying the major functionalities to be implemented in the e-commerce site. These functionalities group together specific user operations such as:

• site navigation using virtual reality,
• 3D personalization of the various fragrances in the product range,
• the use of AI to recommend products,
• the purchasing process with international specificities.

STEP 3 – Developing user stories

Each major feature is then broken down into user-stories, or smaller, manageable units.

For example, the “virtual reality navigation” functionality will be broken down into the following stories:

• 1. The user selects the desired fragrance in virtual reality mode.
• 2. the user visualizes the fragrance in 3D, from every angle
• 3. the user drags and drops to add the perfume to the shopping cart, immersed in virtual reality.
• Etc.

STEP 4 – Prioritize the user stories in the product backlog.

The team discusses and prioritizes stories based on the following factors:

• their importance,
• the added value they bring to the project,
• customer needs.

The aim is to determine the order in which stories will be added to the backlog and developed.

STEP 5 – Estimate

Each user story is estimated in terms of complexity, development effort and the resources it requires.

The team agrees to quantify the user-stories in complexity points, in man-days. A measure they consider relevant to this project.

STEP 6 – Building the backlog

The team at our web agency in Vietnam is finally ready to build the product backlog. The team begins to build the backlog, listing the user-stories in the order of priority discussed earlier.

The backlog is organized in the form of a list of items to be completed: from the most important to the least important, with complexity points opposite each story.

STEP 7- Define acceptance criteria

For each user story, they must now agree on clear acceptance criteria. These criteria describe the conditions to be met before a user-story is considered complete and ready for delivery to production.

STEP 8 – Define working methods throughout the project

The team discusses how they will exchange, collaborate and monitor the project’s progress, by specifically using the Kanban method.

They then decide to set up the following:

• validation workflows,
• rules governing the ways in which they exchange information (Slack, email, WhatsApp) and the times at which they do so (no Slack after 8pm),
• how new tasks are added to the backlog (user-story naming rules)
• etc.

STEP 9 – Creating a Kanban board

The team then starts creating a digital Kanban board with appropriate columns such as:

• ‘To Do’
• ‘In Progress’
• ‘In Testing’
• ‘Done’
• ‘Blocked’

The stories will be placed in the corresponding columns based on their progress status.

STEP 10 – Plan the first iterations

The team at the Vietnamese web agency ultimately decides to plan the initial development iterations by selecting a certain number of user stories from the backlog to be developed during the first work cycle.

These user stories are then moved to the ‘In Progress’ column on the Kanban board.

STEP 11 – Define meeting frequency for the project

It’s time to determine the frequency of project follow-up meetings (often called ‘stand-up meetings’) to discuss progress, encountered obstacles, as well as to adjust the workflow as needed.

The stand-up meeting will be held every weekday from 10:00 AM to 10:15 AM.

All 10 team members will gather for a comprehensive review lasting 2 hours every 3 months.

STEP 12 – Conclusion of the meeting

The meeting concludes with a recap of decisions made, assigned tasks and the next established steps to be taken. Everyone is delighted with this very effective meeting. They now have a clear understanding of what is expected of them and the workflow to follow.

It’s important to note that this kickoff meeting only marks the beginning of the development process. The Kanban board and the backlog will evolve over time based on changes, priorities and insights gained from project execution. Regular meetings and adjustments will be necessary to ensure the success of the launch of the ‘Éclat Mirage’ e-commerce site.

Here’s to the fragrant success of the ‘Éclat Mirage’ e-commerce site!”