Backwards but Brilliant

As Certified Meeting Professionals (CMPs) we do this all the time. It’s so ingrained in how we operate, it’s not even something we do consciously. We plan events backwards. For 20 years, I have successfully planned events. Ok, not every event went off without a hitch, but most people would never know that. I’ve got event planning checklists. I’ve created timelines, identified milestones, and set up countless team meetings. I’ve helped keep scores of teams of people moving in the same direction to accomplish the same goal: the event. But someone asked me lately how I’d start planning a new event from scratch.

Let me tell you, there’s nothing new under the sun for me these days, so I wouldn’t exactly be starting “from scratch.” There are documents in my arsenal that I can adapt to fit just about any event coming my way. If you were asked to plan an event that you’d never done before, I hope you’d reach out to your network of event planner-friends before you reinvented the wheel. However, if I were to have to start over, in the words of Joanne Dennison, CMP, I’d “start with the end in mind.”

Event planning is 95% planning backwards. You need to know what outcome you want before you can begin building everything else. Think about it. Timelines can’t be created until you know the end date. Once you know that, you can calculate backwards to schedule milestones, while taking into consideration time for design, review, printing, shipping, holidays, and vacations. There will need to be time for phone calls, creating, thinking, dreaming; then recruiting, purchasing, packing, and unpacking. To create a schedule, you have to understand the important things that must happen and by when so they’re completed by the time needed and it all comes together for the event date.

Not only logistically for task management do we plan backwards, but creatively as well. The team needs to determine what they want the event to look and feel like, what they want the attendee to walk away with, and the goals and objectives for the event before the rest of the planning can take place. Once that’s finalized, speakers can be engaged to deliver the right messages, locations and venues can be selected to meet event needs, and things like the agenda, event theme, time of year, and F&B menus can be determined.

After thinking big-picture, the end drives the nitty-gritty means as well. Details like song selection, stage design, and technology needs for general sessions can be hammered out. Room setups, numbers and types of hotels, transportation, and decor can all be planned. Even timing of the site visit, event planning meeting schedule, and opening of ticket sales are planned in reverse. Knowing your target allows the team to predict the right dates to be on-site to review the venue for any cosmetic changes or construction, plan meeting dates for the foreseeable future, and calculate an escalating ticket pricing schedule.

Honestly, as event planners, depending on the types of event we plan, we’re living years into the future, sourcing venues, and preparing for events we have coming up. We’re living in reverse, learning from events we have executed to make future ones even better. And, we still have lives with spouses, children, grandchildren, parents, friends, jobs, hobbies, and other things that require us to live in the present. It’s amazing we know what day it is at any point in time at all!

Leave a comment about your planning backward experience, or send me an email!

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