Ultimate Guide to Event Management 4

By: Dr^Waqipedia

Part 1.2: Project Planning & Working Paper

90/10 Rule:

"First 10% of your time that you spend planning and organizing your work before you begin will save as much as 90% of the time getting job done once you get it started."

Previously, I shared with you all the Triangle of Vitalities which is essential in 'creating your vision'. Having that in mind will lead you to the next stage; project planning.

In the corporate world, to understand the project planning, you need to familiarize yourself with certain terms such as corporate planning, strategic planning, marketing or operational planning.

However, I would like to emphasize on two types of planning which would be of great help when you are working on the event-based type planning. They are;

• Strategic/Long-Term Planning
• Operational/Short-Term Planning 

Strategic planning works like future-oriented planning, it determines the long term objectives of an organization or team as a whole with a time horizon of more than 3 years. The strategic plans will contain the framework to stay competitive, live up to the core values, get rid of any threats and take advantage of opportunities. The distinctive attributes to it are your vision, mission, core values, future goals and the strategies. 

Next, the operational planning or short-term plan. It is a specific, smaller scale project which has been planned according to the strategic planning or after looking throughout the big picture. The plan works out on a smaller basis once in 3 months or 3-4 times per year depending on the planning. In simpler words, strategic planning is the big picture and broad spectrum whereas the operational plan is drafted to be focused and specific.

Refer here for more detail on Project Planning.

Normally, we lack strategic planning since we are less likely think 'big' of what we are doing. Most of us, especially guys, are operational type based. They love to work on something real, operative and team-working. They don't like to be in meeting rooms with long discussions or dwelling with administrative stuff such as working paper etc. Therefore, they need to appreciate the management team; the main-board and main committees for their hard-work dealing with administrative works. 


Working on strategic planning can be done with the help of the Triangle of Vitalities. List a draft and then work on the operational plan. For this operational part, a lot of people can work on it. However, the most problematic one is how you want to get cumulative agreement on what you are planning for and get people involved in the decision making. Therefore, the usage of Event Model Canvas can be really helpful in solving the problem while at the same sharing and brainstorming all details.

The Event Model Canvas (refer here for detail) can be used in the first meeting by drawing the boxes (according to the model) on the board. Place everyone in a circle and start drafting. Each committee can give their opinion, suggestion or argument on the planning. I stress the usage of event model canvas because it's really helpful. Reasons:

• The Event Model Canvas shows all project committees in a visual way, the big picture, their own roles in it and interdependencies. 
• It saves hours of explaining, arguing and misunderstanding 
• It translates the operational plan into job scope and working processes 
• As a reality check, to stay focus on track and prevent from getting stuck in the future

Next, after specifying any tasks needed and dividing the major tasks to the person(s)-in-charge, the documentation work is up. Of course in the first meeting, every head committees' first task is to get people for his sub-committee, brainstorm their job scope in detail and start drafting the working paper. Now, the administrative work starts and the person who will take most of the responsibility is secretary. The project manager and the vice needs to help in order to get the most satisfying quality working papers which fulfills the approval criteria and to get fundings from any sponsors.

I need to highlight the importance of administrative works because it involves the documentation and file-keeping. The fact is it's very time-consuming, boring and less people will appreciate this kind of work. The type of people most suitable for this work is 'melancholic' type. These are among the first checklist of things need to be prepared for administrative work in event management (click them for further reference);

• Working proposal paper
• Minute meeting & memo
• Letters 
• Sponsorship letter
• Additional: Reference number, recommendation letter from Student Council, support letter

The checklist above will be helpful for the next stage; going through the procedures and fulfilling pre-requisites; before going through the execution stage.

Next: Procedures & Fulfilling Pre-requisites