The signed contract isn't the finish line — it's the start of the part where most engagements actually go sideways. The first week sets the tone for the entire relationship, and the consultants who onboard well aren't the ones with more talent, they're the ones who worked from a checklist instead of their memory.
Here's what belongs on it, in the order it usually needs to happen.
1. Get the contract signed and filed before any real work starts
This sounds obvious and gets skipped constantly. Work begins on the strength of a verbal agreement or a friendly email thread, the contract circulates for signature in parallel, and three weeks later nobody can point to a filed, countersigned copy. Confirm the agreement is fully executed — both signatures, correct fee and term — and store it somewhere you can find it in six months without searching your inbox. If a scope change comes up in week one, you want the original document in front of you, not a memory of what you think it said.
2. Collect access and logins before the kickoff call, not during it
Nothing wastes a kickoff call faster than spending the first fifteen minutes waiting on an IT ticket for a shared drive login. Send a short access request ahead of the call: the tools you'll need (project management, shared drive, analytics, communication platform), and who on their side can grant each one. Chase anything that hasn't arrived 48 hours before kickoff — access requests routed through a client's IT department routinely take longer than either side expects.
A mid-size engagement typically needs five things: Slack or Teams channel access, a shared drive folder, login to whatever analytics or CRM platform the work touches, calendar visibility for the primary contact, and a billing or PO number for invoicing. Request all five in one email the day the contract is signed, with a line next to each: "granted by [name], due [date]." Anything still outstanding two days before kickoff gets a direct follow-up, not a second broadcast email.
3. Schedule the kickoff call — and put a real agenda behind it
Get it on the calendar within the first few days, while the engagement still has momentum from signing. A kickoff call without an agenda turns into a scope-restating exercise. A good one covers: confirming the scope and timeline out loud, introducing everyone in the room and their role, agreeing on the communication norms below, and setting the date for the first check-in. Send the agenda ahead of time so the client's side can flag anything before you're live on the call.
4. Start the stakeholder list — you won't get it all in one call
Don't wait until you've met everyone to start the list. Capture names, roles, and how each person touches the engagement as soon as they're mentioned — including people who aren't on the kickoff call but get referenced in it ("you'll want to loop in our ops lead for that part"). A stakeholder who surfaces in week three with a different opinion than everyone on the kickoff call is far easier to handle if you already have their name and role logged, instead of discovering them mid-engagement with no context.
5. Agree on communication norms explicitly — don't let them default
Response-time expectations and preferred channels feel too minor to put in writing, which is exactly why they cause friction later. Without an explicit agreement, the client defaults to assuming you're reachable the way their internal team is, and you default to assuming normal business-day turnaround. Neither assumption is wrong, they're just different, and the gap between them is where "why haven't you responded" complaints come from. Set it during kickoff: preferred channel for quick questions vs. formal requests, expected response time for each, and who the backup contact is if you're out.
Once the checklist is done, the paperwork side of the relationship isn't — a lot of consultants treat the signed contract as the end of the documentation step, when the retainer terms, fee, and scope boundary from that agreement are what you'll be referencing all week. The free Retainer Agreement Generatorturns those terms into a document you can actually hand the client and file, instead of a scope you're reconstructing from an email thread.