Event management is very much about project management.

When a project managers approach a project, they take very clear steps that can be borrowed and used in the event industry.
Let’s take a look at these steps, and how they apply to planning your event:

Step 1: Identify the Project
Identifying your project falls into four subsets:

1. Identify the project goals– List the goals and break them down. You need to identify your event’s goals. There are both tangible and intangible goals. Alongside and supporting the goal the overall objective needs to be considered along with the strategy, plan and actions required. Tangible goals are measurable, and intangible goals are immeasurable, but just as important. Common intangible goals for events might include raising awareness, recruiting, or holding a discussion. Meanwhile, common tangible goals might be to attract attendees, sell products or entry tickets at the event, or raise million's for a charity. In many cases, the intangible goals you set will drive the tangible goals.
2. Identify the project constraints – Constraints are boundaries that must be operate within. In event planning, your constraints will include budget, venue, or a short planning phase. There’s not much you can do about certain constraints. This is why it’s important to formally identify them and keep them in mind as the planning progresses. Constraints can be viewed as opportunity to exercise creativity.
3. Identify the team members and stakeholders including potential suppliers – In some instances these may consist of different groups but more than likely, they will overlap a bit. Your Event Manager & team are the resources who will be helping to put on a great event (lighting, stage direction, marketing, etc.), and the stakeholders are the decision-makers. You’ll likely have both internal and external stakeholders. For example, internal stakeholders might include yourself, the marketing director, the stage manager, etc. On the other hand, external stakeholders will likely be sponsors, exhibitors, attendees, speakers, any organizations involved, etc. The purpose of identifying your team is so that you understand your resources; the purpose of identifying your stakeholders is so that you know the decision-makers involved. Successful events assign a decision-maker or facilitator (AKA stakeholder) to each team who filters communication between other teams.
4. Identify all tasks – This will also help you figure out exactly what help you’ll need. Big, scary undertakings, like securing the venue, can be broken down into bite size tasks that seem much more manageable. When reviewing all that needs to be done, list out all your big tasks first, assign them their due dates, and then break those big tasks out into the individual steps it takes to accomplish them. For example, when it comes to securing a venue, your individual steps might include research, in-person visits to a certain amount of venues, signing the contract on your chosen venue, and submitting the down payment.

Step 2: Set Deadlines and Milestones:
Deadlines are the ultimate date that a task should be done by and are set in stone and milestones are guidelines that you set along the way to measure success. 
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Before embarking on a new project, set the deadlines that the team will need to hit along the way. Start by identifying the deadlines that are beyond your control such as:

• Your event date (THE ultimate deadline!)
• Venue booked and down payment submitted by x date

Once you’ve gotten these nailed down, immediately begin filling in your self-imposed deadlines. These deadlines are what you and the internal stakeholders control, such as:

• Receive signed contracts from all speakers by x date
• Sign catering company by x date
• Announce event publicly by x date

When setting the self-imposed deadlines and milestones, expert project managers and event organizers don’t start with the first deadlines they need to hit; they start at the event date and work backwards. Here’s an example of how working backwards will look:

• Your event is October 3rd
• For this event, you need to be done selling tickets one week before the event – September 26th
• You’ll need to have announced all speakers three months before the final ticket is sold – June 25th
• You’ll need to have all speakers signed six months before announcing them – December 20th
• You’ll need to start contacting and booking potential speakers two months before signing them – October 20th
• Working backwards can be a lifesaver—and event saver—due to many sequential tasks.

Once you’ve mapped these tasks out, you and other stakeholders can work together to create milestones that help measure your success along the way. These milestones might include:

• Sell 200 tickets by x date
• Secure five sponsors by x date

Since the effect of every great event should be felt beyond just one day or weekend, you may want to set deadlines for after the event, such as:

• Follow up with attendees via email by x date
• Upload photos from photographer to social media by x date

To take it even further, you can set milestones that you hope to reach after the event (these will likely tie into your goals):Sell 200 products by x date

• Raise $1 million for charity by x date

With all this talk about deadlines, it’s worth mentioning that many project managers have soft deadlines and hard deadlines. Some call these nice to have by and must have by deadlines. Soft deadlines and nice to have by deadlines create a nice, gentle landing for a task. No sweating required as there is a nice bouncy cushion of time if it’s missed. Hard deadlines bring on sweating (and perhaps more unpleasant reactions) if they’re missed. Here’s an expert tip: if possible, set your hard deadlines with a bit of time padding to avoid sweating and other unpleasant reactions in case it is missed – just don’t communicate the fact that there is a time buffer!

Step 3: Communicate:
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” 
Oh, this is so true! When you think you’ve communicated enough, communicate and clarify some more.

Proper communication is key to a successful project, and it’s key to a successful event.
Initial Communication is important throughout the project, however, its especially important at the beginning of the project. Here’s what you can do to ensure that everyone is on the same page:

• Clarify roles: Work with the other internal stakeholders to ensure that every role has been filled, and that everyone knows what’s expected of them
• Communicate the deadlines: Stakeholders should communicate these deadlines to the rest of their team members, seeking feedback with on the mind. You’d be surprised to learn what team members are aware of that stakeholders are not: strong potential speakers, great deals on vendors, or more frighteningly, perhaps a competing event on the same night, in the same town. Communication goes both ways.

On-Going Communication doesn’t stop after the first week. Keep the lines of communication open until your event, and beyond.

Planned communication at regular intervals is a great way to keep everyone up to date. This can go top down, but also from the front-line up. Perhaps every Monday you send out an email with plans for the week, and every Friday you provide a report on where the team landed with those goals. Without a plan, communication can easily become sparse or even conjure up rapid fire email trains, which have the ability to create a toxic and stressful experience for all involved.

While in-person meetings and communication may be preferable to digital communication, realise that not everyone needs to meet each week. Since your team members are divided into teams, empower the internal stakeholders to schedule their own team meetings, and then schedule regular meetings between the internal stakeholders to review decisions made, progress, and communicate.

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Step 4: Involve your Team:
Many great project managers strive for a team that is adaptable and flexible  At the center of this is delegation and empowerment: if you want to lead a engaged event team, take those two words to heart. This removes all the power (and stress) from one or a few individuals’ shoulders and distributes it throughout the team. Therefore, if you or one of your stakeholders have to switch priorities, progress halting is the last thing you’ll have to worry about

Step 5: Track your Progress:
The best event planners regularly track progress towards the event goals checking mile stones and ensuring all parts of the goal and adhered to. Look back on the GOSPA for each goal and ask yourself:

• ​Are we still on track to achieve this Goal?
• ​Are all parts of the Objective communicated to all team members responsible?
• ​Is the Strategy been followed and understood?
• Has the Plan been effectively communicated and have everyone's buy-in?
• Are the steps and Actions been undertaken to achieve the Plan, meet the Strategy, adhere to the Objective and ultimately achieve the Goal?

In Step Number Two we reviewed deadlines and milestones. There are as many ways of tracking goals, deadlines, and milestones as there are event organizers. While it’s important for you to find out what works best for you and your team, it’s also important to stay aware of technology that can help make your life easier in this arena.

Step 6: Exhibit Leadership and Confidence:
The most successful project managers are confident and are great leaders; the same can be said about event organizers. We’ve combined leadership and confidence into one section because they’re so interconnected that it can actually be hard to tell the difference. It may be tough to hear this but, not all event organizers are leaders. The one thing that separates these individuals from the rest is confidence. Without confidence in yourself, in your event’s mission, and in your team, you won’t be able to lead others towards the shared vision of your event.

Step 7: Be Flexible:
While flexibility might seem to contrast with confidence, they truly do go hand-in-hand. While having confidence helps you to keep to your vision and goals, it also gives you the strength to listen and be flexible. Being flexible is king in event planning as things come up last minute on a regular basis when organising an event. However, being flexible also means that you’re a team player who has the confidence to listen to others and be flexible in your stance when you’re presented with alternative opinions. Just like in project management, things change last minute with events, and everyone must adapt.

Step 8: Deliver a Great Finished Product:
Project managers know that the process is important, but what really matters is the quality of the finished product. For Event Manager, that’s your event! No matter how great (or not so great) things are behind the scenes, the final outcome is what people will remember and talk about. As you spend several months focused on your event, keep in mind the impact that it will have on your attendees. You want them to be reminiscing and talking about it for years.

Step 9: Debrief. In the project management world:
Debriefing is an important final step in the timeline. The event is done, but the learning is never-ending. Once your event has passed, schedule a meeting with key individuals to review lessons learned for next time. This is a great time to refine your project management process since you aren’t under the same time crunch you were a few weeks before.

Take it from project managers on how to plan an “effortless” event that attendees will be talking about for years to come.
As you begin your planning process, keep this quote from Stephen Covey, leadership expert, in your mind: “All things are created twice; first mentally; then physically. The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blue print of the desired result.”