
Business functions are the lifeblood of any organization’s
development and exist as social platforms for connection, unity, and proving
company supremacy. Whether it’s a convention of executives the launch of a new
product and service, or even an annual company retreat, it cannot be overstated
that such events are vital and that flawless planning, coordination and
execution are critical. Event Manager Blog reported that eighty-five per cent
of event professionals consider teamwork and communication as significant
aspects of the success of the event.
However, co-ordinating an event team has its challenges. It
is almost impossible for organisers not to get caught in the quagmire of
coordination, timeline, cost and quality. Failure to properly coordinate the team
often results in working beyond the agreed timelines, going over the agreed
budgets and unsatisfied stakeholders. This is important for a company such
as Felicities
Corporate Events, through which team coordination is vital in achieving
effective event management.
These action-oriented strategies describe best practices for
improving coordination at the team level within corporate events. That way, no
matter whether you oversee a small, internal team or a large cross-functional
working group, the following observations can assist you in achieving your
event goals while simultaneously enhancing the execution process of events.
1. Begin with a Vision Understand and Specific Objectives
Nothing can be as effective as having a clear purpose when
conducting every event. Whatever you want to achieve – from enhancing general
brand awareness, and improving employees’ satisfaction levels, to developing
business relations in your field, your objectives will define the event
parameters.
How this fosters team coordination:
- Setting goals and objectives effectively provides every
working team member with the “purpose” behind their work.
- It generates unity, reducing the chances of
misunderstandings during the events planning process.
Pro Tip: These tools include for example Asana or Trello you
can share the objectives and time of the event with your team. Develop an
event-produced checklist as a team review tool to keep track of progress
collectively.
2. Build a Cohesive Team
The easiest approach to managing events is to first bring together the right
kind of people. Make sure you have on your event team people with different
strengths; the coordinators, the visionaries, the planners, the number
crunchers, and the technological gurus.
Key roles in an event team:
- Event Coordinator: It creates the schedule of the event and
supervises its running.
- Budget Manager: Keeps records of expenditures and
maintains the organizational asset’s fiduciary responsibilities.
- Tech Specialist: Is responsible for the audiovisual and
information and communication technology aspects.
- Marketing Lead: Sells the event to the target market.
How this fosters team collaboration:
When responsibilities are well defined and assigned, there
will be performance efficiency and accountability.
Therefore, implied in the success of any event is the
contribution made by each member in their area of specialty.
3. Emphasize Team Communication
One of the most typical issues in managing an event project
is the lack of communication. It is also evident that different employees
attributed 86 per cent of workplace failure to communication breakdowns. To do
this, make sure that you have a clear framework through which communication
within your team can be done.
Best practices for event team communication:
- Hearings should be held a fixed intervals to review the
event plan, emerging issues and possible resolutions.
- If it is not possible to run weekly meetings, always take
advantage of the notifications on instant messaging platforms such as Slack for
any new updates.
- Capture key decisions made in the course of the process
and make them available in a central supporting database.
Pro Tip: Choose SPOC for each functional area to avoid
confusion due to numerous intermediaries passing information from one person to
another.
4. Develop a Comprehensive Event Timeline
This is a guide on the type of event timeline: Even from the
conceptualization phase, create a timeline of all activities that need to be
done prior to the event itself and after.
Key elements of an event timeline:
- Dates by which venues ought to be selected and bookings
made.
- Purchases from vendors and deliveries.
- Marketing and promotional timetables.
- Rehearsals and setup times.
How this fosters team coordination:
It also prevents situations where the project blurs all over
with every member working without having the same calendar in mind.
They help in the early detection of likely delays useful in
making adequate contingency provisions.
5. Master Event Risk Management
Many times, even when we make all the preparations
necessary, we encounter some stumbling blocs that will always be there. Any
time something can go wrong—malfunctioning equipment, non-arriving sellers, or
any assortment of precision hitches. Before they arise, the likelihood of such
impediments must be foreseen with solutions pre-sought; this is event risk
management.
Steps for event contingency planning:
- Identify issues at risk whether in the performance of
organizational objectives or otherwise.
- Increasingly, backup plans should be already created for
crucial issues such as technology, transportation, and catering.
- Share with your team, documented or informally, your plans
for contingencies, so that they can act on them in the event of an emergency.
Pro Tip: Conduct an organizational meeting with a team to
increase awareness of the emergency procedures in case of an occurrence.
6. Foster Team Leadership and Motivation
The role that leadership bears in team coordination cannot
be underestimated. If the event team has to bring in a leader who must be a
strong one who can help solve disagreements and direct the entire team to the
vision.
How to be an effective event team leader:
Practice good attitude and behavior both through body
language and words by modelling the appropriate approach to conflict.
Reward the effort of the team to motivate the people working
in the team.
7. Leverage Technology for Streamlined Collaboration
Hi-tech communication tools take an important place in
improving the planning of modern events. Integrate apparatus identified
specific to the context of event planning and management of the work team.
Essential tools for event management:
- Event management software: Today, many helpful tools such as Cvent and Eventbrite help with registration, scheduling and
management of attendees.
- Communication tools: While other tools such as Slack and
Microsoft Teams provide a great communication environment, interactions on Zoom
are efficient.
- Budget trackers: Mint or creating your small budget
tracking Excel sheet guarantees the actual-time budget check.
How this fosters team collaboration:
- The technology minimizes human mistakes as results or next
steps are computerized, and there is an immediate upload of new information.
- Take feedback provide constructive criticism and allow
employees to freely speak their minds.
Creative Storytelling Insight: Suppose there is a speaker
who at the last minute has informed that he will not be able to speak. A
proactive leader immediately reorganizes the work, organises the replacement
activity and helps the team to turn it into a positive result.
8. Evaluate and Learn Post-Event
When an event is over that is when the evaluation starts.
Also, the assessment of the event is important in the evaluation process that
seeks to show what planners did right and what they did wrong.
Best practices for event evaluation:
- Gather information about the event from the attendees,
stakeholders and members of the respective event team.
- Review successes: All over the country, participants’
satisfaction, budget consciousness, and meeting goals all need to be measured.
- Schedule a debrief with the team to talk about what one
might have gained from the exercise.
Pro Tip: Don’t forget to evaluate your performance after
most events to make changes to future ones and better the operation of your
team.
Conclusion
Proper coordination is central to managing corporate events,
which is why it is known to be the cornerstone of any great corporate event. By
laying down clear goals, encouraging dialogue, adopting technology effectively
and risk management you establish a structure that provides for effective
implementation.
Just a quick reminder, everyone: that implies clarity of
purpose, mutual trust and, of course, cooperation. Any attempt made towards
building a good team is going to see positive returns in terms of your event
coordination. In the long run, you collectively achieve efficient event
planning and execution, in addition to having a motivated workforce.
When the team is well coordinated and interrelated, the
outings are evident to everyone, and productive programs create a lasting
impression on all stakeholders.
Felicities
Bringing Coroprate events to life with expert planning, management, and seamless execution for events that leave a lasting impression.