The kickoff call is the first working session of your Continu implementation. Walking in with the right people, the right decisions made, and the right information collected makes the kickoff productive instead of a discovery meeting. This guide covers what to prepare.
Who should be in the kickoff
A kickoff with the right people in the room is the difference between landing on a real plan and re-running the meeting in two weeks with the missing decision-makers. Aim for these roles, named ahead of time:
Project owner. One person who is accountable for the implementation overall. They run the project, hold the schedule, and make the calls that don’t require executive escalation. Without a single owner, decisions stall.
Executive sponsor. A leader who is invested in the launch and will surface for escalations, QBRs, and any cross-functional alignment needed. They don’t need to attend every working session, but they need to be named and aware.
HRIS lead. The person who owns your user data source — whether that’s an HRIS team, an IT systems team, or a single admin. If you have multiple HRIS sources, all of them. The HRIS lead doesn’t have to attend every minute of every call, but they need to be in the kickoff because the sync design starts here.
IT or integration lead. The person who can connect Continu to your SSO, your video conferencing tools (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet), and your messaging tools (Slack, Teams) for Eddy. Sometimes this is one person; sometimes it’s several, depending on your IT structure.
L&D / training program lead. The person who owns what learners actually experience — the content, the assignments, the compliance programs. They’re the voice of “what does the learner see and do.”
Compliance lead (if applicable). If you have regulated compliance training, this person needs to be in the kickoff to flag jurisdictional rules, audit requirements, and reporting expectations.
For multi-brand orgs, each brand should have a brand lead representing the same roles for their brand. A common pattern is one cross-brand project owner plus brand-specific HRIS and L&D leads.
Decisions to make before the kickoff
Bring answers to these questions to the kickoff — or at least the people who can make the call live. Going into the kickoff without them turns the meeting into a Q&A session.
Unique identifier
Will you use customer/employee ID, or email, as the unique identifier for users in Continu? The customer/employee ID is the safer default for most orgs. Email addresses change when users marry, change names, or update their preferred email, and each change creates a duplicate Continu account if email is the unique identifier.
Sync mechanism
SFTP, SCIM, or manual? Most enterprise customers go with SFTP because they want HRIS data driving assignments. If you have multiple populations (internal + external, for example), expect to use more than one mechanism.
Multiple sources or one?
If your org has multiple HRIS instances feeding into one Continu instance, decide that going in. See Running Multiple HRIS Sources Into One Continu Instance.
SSO provider
Which identity provider will Continu integrate with — Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace, Microsoft Entra, OneLogin, something else? Confirm the version (SAML 2.0 vs OIDC) and that your IT team can support it.
Launch target date
What are you committing to externally? A realistic kickoff-to-launch timeline is 12–16 weeks for a standard enterprise rollout, longer for multi-brand or complex compliance programs. Going in with a date helps the kickoff plan backwards from it.
What you’re migrating
If you’re moving from an existing LMS, decide what content is migrating, what stays in the old system, and what’s being created fresh for the new one. Most launches under-estimate this; bring an honest assessment.
Information to gather
Pre-kickoff, the implementation team typically sends a short survey or info-request. The fastest kickoffs are the ones where the survey is filled out completely beforehand. Common questions and what to bring:
Org structure. A simple org chart showing how your departments and locations are organized. The hierarchy doesn’t need to be perfect; it needs to be representative enough to design field structure against.
Audience use cases. A short description of three to five concrete use cases you want to support on day one. Examples: “auto-assign anti-harassment training to all California-based employees,” “give every new hire a 30-day onboarding Journey,” “track quarterly compliance completion across the org.” Use cases drive the design conversation more cleanly than a feature wish-list.
Compliance requirements. If you have regulated training (anti-harassment, GDPR, industry-specific), bring the list. Include which jurisdictions, which deadlines, and which audit reports you need to produce.
Integrations needed. Beyond SSO and your HRIS, what else does Continu need to talk to? Video conferencing (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet)? Messaging (Slack, Teams)? Content (SCORM, xAPI, external knowledge sources for Eddy)? Your CRM (Salesforce)?
Existing pain points. What isn’t working in your current setup? Be specific. “Reporting is hard” is less actionable than “I can’t easily pull a completion report by department and date range.” Specific complaints become specific implementation requirements.
Success metrics. How will you know the launch worked? Common metrics: time-to-completion on key training, percent of employees engaged in the first month, compliance audit pass rate, reduction in admin overhead. Pick the two or three that matter most to your sponsors.
What to expect from the kickoff itself
A standard kickoff runs 45–60 minutes and covers:
- Introductions — who’s on the Continu side, who’s on your side, who owns what
- Goals and success metrics — what success looks like for your launch
- Timeline — the kickoff-to-launch path, with phase-level dates
- Roles and responsibilities — who does what during implementation (RACI-style if helpful)
- Implementation process overview — what happens between now and launch
- Resources and tooling — where to find help, who to contact, what’s in the customer portal
- Next steps — what each side owns going into the next week
The kickoff is intentionally light on technical detail — the working sessions on SSO, HRIS sync, content migration, and so on happen separately, usually weekly, after the kickoff lands. The kickoff exists to align on people, plan, and goals, not to design the file format.
What happens after the kickoff
The week after the kickoff, expect:
- A customer portal link with detailed timelines and assigned tasks per role
- An invite to weekly implementation working sessions (usually a recurring 30–45 minute call)
- An invite for admins to the admin certification training
- Provisioning of your Continu instance and admin access
- Working session schedule for the specialty areas — typically separate calls for HRIS, SSO/IT, content migration, and pilot launch
The first working session usually focuses on the HRIS sync design, because that’s the longest pole in most implementations and depends on aligned field structure across your sources.
Common pitfalls
| Pitfall | Symptom | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Project owner not named going in | Kickoff ends without clear next-step ownership | Decide on the project owner before the kickoff; communicate it in the survey |
| HRIS lead not in the kickoff | First working session re-runs the kickoff conversation | Have the HRIS lead at the kickoff even if they only stay for 20 minutes |
| Launch date set without backwards-planning | Implementation slips, launch date misses | Commit to a date in the kickoff with the timeline mapped backwards from it; renegotiate the date in the kickoff if it’s not realistic |
| No success metrics defined | QBRs can’t tell if the launch succeeded | Bring two or three metrics to the kickoff |
| Pre-kickoff survey returned partially | First half of the kickoff spent on discovery | Fill out the survey in full before the kickoff; flag any open questions explicitly |
| Multi-brand kickoff run independently per brand without alignment | Each brand designs differently; cross-brand reporting decays | Run brand-specific kickoffs but schedule a joint alignment session for HRIS structure within the first two weeks |
Pre-kickoff checklist
- Project owner named
- Executive sponsor named
- HRIS lead identified for each source
- IT/integration lead identified
- L&D / training program lead identified
- Compliance lead identified (if applicable)
- Unique identifier decision documented (customer ID vs email)
- Sync mechanism chosen (SFTP, SCIM, manual, or combination)
- Single-instance vs multi-source decision made
- SSO provider confirmed
- Launch target date proposed
- Migration scope outlined (what’s moving, what’s being recreated, what’s deprecated)
- Pre-kickoff survey completed
- Org chart shared
- Three to five day-one use cases documented
- Compliance program list (if applicable)
- Integration list (SSO, video, messaging, content, CRM)
- Two to three success metrics defined
See Also
- Provisioning and Sync — for the sync design conversation that follows the kickoff
- Running Multiple HRIS Sources Into One Continu Instance — if your org has more than one source
- Pilot Launch Playbook — for the pilot phase between configuration and rollout
- Change Management for an LMS Launch — for the communication side of the launch