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What Questions to Ask During the Kick-off Projects with Clients

This post was originally published on The Data School blog between 2018 and July 2025, before our program was renamed to MIP’s Analytics Career Accelerator. References throughout this article to “The Data School” or “DS” all refer to what is now MIP’s Analytics Career Accelerator. The program, its people, and its commitment to launching outstanding analytics careers remain the same – just under a new name.

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Hello everyone!

This blog is more for the Data Schoolers in training rather than the public because it relates to the clients’ projects.

So as you may already know, during the 4 month training, you will have a total of 7 projects and on the first day of the project’s week, you will have the opportunity to talk directly with the clients. During our projects, I realised that sometimes we didn’t ask enough questions, especially some of the very critical questions, like the priority of requirements when the clients asked for too many things which couldn’t be done within a one week project, or the clarification of the data. When these happened, we had to contact with the clients again, but not always they would respond quickly. So the strategy is, ask as many questions as possible! Here are some of the questions that you can use to ask your clients:

  1. The purpose
    • Why do you want to do this project? What kind of problems are you facing?
    • What do you currently have? What’s not working?
    • Do you want to make changes on an existing process, or do you want to start from scratch?
    • How is it going to help the business?
  2. The details
    • When will I receive the data?
    • What data source are you currently using?
    • Does it require data cleaning?
    • Do you have a guide style for the dashboard? Any colour palette that will be provided? Does it need to be colour blind friendly?
  3. The audience
    • Who are the users?
    • What is their data literacy?
    • Who do you hand this dashboard to?
    • Who is the main contact?
  4. The deliverables
    • What area, key metrics are the focus?
    • What do you want to see on the dashboard?
    • Style of the dashboard i.e. exploratory or explanatory
    • What’s the priority? What is must-have and what is nice-to-have?

Out of the questions above, don’t forget to ask a lot of questions around the project itself, if you’re not sure about anything, clarify with them instead of making assumptions. And after the meeting, the project leader should write an email to the clients, summarising what you’ve got from the meeting and double check if you have missed anything during the meeting.

I hope my blog help you prepare better for clients’ projects. See you all next time!

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