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Help6 Things Project Managers Can Teach You About Event Organizing
How does an event organizer imagine the perfect event? Flawless. Effortless, even! However, behind that effortless flow of an event, there’s a lot of work involved. In a way, you’re managing a project in all its aspects. In fact, you wouldn’t be wrong if you started calling yourself a project manager.
You’ve been managing projects all this time, but perhaps didn’t realize that real project managers could teach you plenty. These 6 lessons will help you become better at your work and closer to the flawless, effortless events you’re envisioning.
1. BEFORE YOU START MANAGING A PROJECT, YOU HAVE TO IDENTIFY IT
How do you identify an event? You get instructions and do what you need to do, right? Wrong! Identifying a project gets a bit deeper.
- What are the goals?
What are you supposed to achieve with the event? Is to increase awareness about a cause? Is it about promoting a product? A public discussion, maybe? Set some tangible goals! For example, you may set the goal to send 500 invitations and get at least 400 of them approved by a precise deadline. You may set a goal to sell 200 items at the event, or raise a particular amount for a charity cause.
- Who takes part in it?
Who will be part of the team managing this event? Make sure to pick the right people and assign specific tasks to each of them. Ask for constant updates on the progress and keep them on schedule!
Project managers usually have marketing directors, stage managers and speakers, but writers as well. They need people who write press releases and promotional articles for the project, using something like AssignmentMasters for advanced project management techniques to provide writing services. Event planners can opt for event automation tools to simplify their management process
- Identify the possible obstacles and predict solutions
When a manager plans the development of the project, they think of all potential constraints. They have solutions before the problems even occur. In event planning, your obstacles might include bad weather, problems with the venue, insufficient budget, or lack of audience. Think how you can prevent those problems. For the ones you can’t prevent, such as the weather, think of solutions (including what event software meets your objectives), just in case those obstacles occur.
2. ENCOURAGE TEAMWORK
Every project manager knows that the success of every project depends on teamwork. You have to encourage communication between the team members. Everyone should inform you about their part of the responsibilities, but they should also collaborate between each other.
You can use tools like Asana, Trello and Basecamp to foster teamwork. These platforms allow you to assign tasks and see the progress. They also connect the members between each other through a chat feature.
3. HAVE A PLAN
A project manager always has a timeline. You have the date of your event, but do you have a precise timeline?
The date of the event will be the final deadline, but you’ll have smaller ones towards it. You’ll have a deadline for scheduling a venue, another one for paying the venue, and another deadline for sending invitations. You’ll have smaller steps for each deadline while maintaining open communication with all your vendors, too. That’s proper planning. If you avoid it, you’ll be frantic trying to accomplish too many things during the last few days.
4. SET MILESTONES!
Project managers don’t just set deadlines. They also set milestones. That’s a good lesson to learn! For example, the goal of sending out 500 invitations and have at least 400 of them approved is a milestone. Attracting an important speaker is also considered a milestone. It’s an achievement that will help you measure the success of this project.
When combined with the deadlines, the milestones will get you a nice plan to follow.
5. EVALUATE ALONG THE WAY
Why did you need all that planning? Why were you setting milestones? Project managers do that because they need to measure the success of the team’s work. They don’t measure after they wrap up the project. They do that along the way.
How do you measure the success of your event project? See how well you’re achieving the milestones. Are you and your team staying on track with the deadlines?
Gantt charts are an evergreen technique for planning projects and measuring results as you progress through the milestones. Pair this with your event data and you’ve got a strong foundation for future event planning.
6. STAY CONFIDENT, BUT FLEXIBLE
A successful project manager handles things gracefully. What does that mean? They convey self-confidence through everything they do. When they have doubts about a particular milestone, they don’t show it. Still, they are very flexible. If they see that things are not going as planned, they think of alternative options.
You can implement that attitude in event organizing. Always be confident when you talk to your clients or team members. However, accept the fact that things can change in the last minutes, and be flexible to accept alternative solutions.
When you get into a project manager’s mindset, you’ll be able to see all details within the whole picture. Hopefully, the 7 tips above will turn you into a better event planner.
Guest Author Bio: Kate Simpson is the talented member of Assignment Masters dissertation service. Alongside her vital editing duties, Kate also contributes her own insights as a writer of AM news section.
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