The project is started with a kick-off meeting where the parties involved in the project get to know each other. A positive attitude is important to give a good first impression. The Requirement Specification is thoroughly examined and critical items are discussed. The project timetable is agreed on. Project follow-up is planned with check points along the work. Also, the persons responsible for different parts of the project are named.

The minutes of the meeting are usually written by at least one member of both the orderer's and deliverer's group, but it is common for the groups to agree, that only one "official" version of the minutes is to be written, and the group responsible for this version is agreed on at the beginning of the meeting. Quite often the deliverer is the one chosen, as they are perhaps more interested to get all the necessary information written down. After the meeting the minutes are sent to the other group for approval. During the course the deliverer is responsible for saving the memo to Moodle.

In the meeting, at least three issues with the requirement specification have to be cleared out.

All the requirements for the automation application should be documented well enough for the programmer to be able to create the application using only the requirements specification. In practice the specifications will always be more or less ambiguous or erroneus. To rectify this, the deliverer reads the requirement specification in detail and addresses any unclear descriptions in the kick-off meeting. The orderer clears these out and the specification is updated accordingly. All this is documented in the minutes of kick-off meeting.

This is one of the obligatory tasks in the course: you must have at least three clarifications described in the minutes of the meeting.

If any issues rise during the project, the minutes of the meeting (approved by both sides) is a conclusive document. The memos have to be truthful, extensive and accurate as they may be the decisive documents when large sums of money are on stake in the court of law.