The Work of Organizing the Event - Essay Example

INDIVIDUAL REFLECTIVE REPORT and Introduction An event for all persons with Indian origin hadbeen planned in May/June 2014. The work of organizing the event was allocated to different groups that included operational group, finance group, market group and design group. The operational group tasks were to send the budget to finance team, doing the connections between all departments, catering, health and safety, venue, registration, structure of the day, attendees, and allocating people tasks. The group did its work in the form of a plan. This report is non-biased and is based on the work done by the group. The report refers to areas the group performed very well while others it required to improve. Key Milestones Venue and Time The plan has ensured that the location and date are secured. In the plan, the venue for the event has been established at the University of Greenwich Council Room. The place has extra benefits it can host all the participants and provide for an allowance for additional participants. The room has also been booked to avoid inconvenience when the event starts. The date has also been set to be held on 10 June 2014, and the event runs from 2-7pm. In addition, all speakers have been contacted to confirm availability. Flexibility in Budget The planners have also obtained catering and accommodation facilities to the participants, who are fifty. The plan has also ensured that there is flexibility in increase in the number of participants and allocated an additional budget of ten people (Bramwell, 1997, p.67), (Allen, 2009, p.180). The plan has also detailed on who is responsible for the budget as GOPIO and the stakeholders. It has established the site of potential expenditure and income, and then they created a framework to monitor the budget. A control mechanism was set maximize revenue but minimize costs. Composition and Competence of Members The selection of members was done according to abilities and competence on managing and planning (Ash and Dabija, 2000, p.35). The group initially comprised of inexperienced people that inconvenienced the event planning because the event is large and was a high profile event that required high expertise in planning. However, a selection of experienced group members was made to allow easier planning and members had to resolve their differences in order to continue with the work (Abbott and Geddie, 2000, p.77). Unity in Team In the planning committee, the members acknowledge the importance of unity in the process. A disunited planning committee has conflicts that may lead to the process to collapse (Shone and Parry, 2004, p.7). Group members learn to listen, understand each other, and respect the opinion of others in the panel. If they are to disagree, they do so politely (Jago, et al., 2003, p.68). Organization of Registration Process Registration process and procedures have been made to ensure event is organized. Each speaker has been allocated about twenty-five minutes in the presentation, which allows the planning of total time available for the event and budget for a limited time. The group has also identified challenges and problems that could face them. Some challenges may occur while organizing the event (Jago, et al., 2003 p.56). Challenges such as negligence or ignorance could occur because of inexperience of members or the belief that they cannot happen. There are also conflicts that result from having people in the group because they have different opinions and leadership. Identification of Risks The group identified the risks that they could face in the process of operational event planning. Every event planning that has risk is likely to suffer from the blows of those risks (Getz, 2002, p.21). The group had initially ignored problems that arose from interactions. However, they identified them later and sought mitigation measures to avoid them (Getz, 2002, p.44). Quality and Communication The group has also planned for its activities and tasks. Planning help to determine service quality standards and determine ways to achieve them. Service quality is achieved through reliability, responsiveness, assurance and tangibles (Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons, 2006). It also clarifies responsibilities and tasks in the event to improve clarity of performance, teamwork, and allows members to perform the tasks. It also aids to communicate information to relevant stakeholders both internal and external stakeholders. Planning helps in the allocation of time and resources (PMBoK, 2000, p.34). Team leader The group has a leader. The group leader ensures that the team members perform their tasks as per the objectives. They also disseminate information to other stakeholders in the events such as management because they link the group and other groups or stakeholders. They also inspire team members and guide them. It is also the role of the leader to resolve conflicts in the group and ensure group members have abilities. Setting Procedures The group has ensured that procedures are followed keenly in stages (Goldblatt, 2002, p.12). Planning involves following a chronology of events and failure to follow the steps may increase the risk of the event. The group has solved this problem by ensuring that it has put control measures. The group has also consulted widely to identify and avoid errors before they occur (Abbott and Geddie, 2000, p.78). Evaluation and Monitoring The group has also set an event evaluation procedure for the event delivery and use in finding ways to monitor the event to assess what might succeed or fail and identify ways of improving future events (Bowdin, et al., 2006, p.414). It also helps to reappraise the whole process by correcting the mistakes while emphasizing on the right steps to be taken (Carlsen, Getz, and Soutar, 2000, p.29). Monitoring and evaluating the event is done while looking at the quantity and quality of the event (Yolum and Singh, 2002). Monitoring is important to identify what needs to be done and by which time it has to be done. It also ensures that the work in progress is done at the merited standard. Evaluation helps to ensure efficiency towards the improvement of subsequent tasks, streamline efforts and is always precious for the budget. The group opted to use the qualitative and quantitative (Jago, et al., 2003, p.12). The group could conduct interviews and ask participants of the UK GOPIO Roundtable to give them their thoughts on service delivery of the event. The group could achieve this through providing them with questionnaires where they write their opinions about the quality of the event. The group could also employ individual observation on the users of the services by paying attention to the body language and the reaction of the consumers to know how they feel about our services (Carlsen, Getz, and Soutar, 2000, p.61). It would also help us identify weaknesses and strengths of the event so that they can improve the next event. Role definition Roles are also clearly defined and individuals responsible are notified. There is a reporting mechanism to each task to ensure that there are no individuals sharing similar tasks, and all are aware of their roles (OToole, Harris, and McDonnell, 2005). There is use of work breakdown structure that helps to reduce complex activities to a number of tasks so that tasks can be overseen more efficiently and in a simplified way (Globerson, 1994). It also assigns a cost to each task to ensure they do not exceed the budgeted cost of the event, track progress of a task, and identify already completed tasks. Jobs are also ranked according to their importance to ensure urgent tasks are given more emphasis (Ritchie, 2000, p.77). Communication management means having the proper skills of communication to help converse with the right people, using the proper organizational, routing and control of information. Committee members are emailed every week on the following week’s work program. Challenges The challenges for the event planning are that it has not included the campus activities and asked whether the time would be convenient to the audience. It has also not included the visitors in the preparation of the event. It has also failed to explain how revenues are to be raised, whether payment is on participation or members are to contribute. It does not include after-event activities such as sending or giving visitors thank you notes, returning borrowed items such as audiovisual equipment. The plan indicates functions that are not performed by group chairperson such as overhauling committee. Conclusion The operational group did a commendable work in achieving their set goals but they still need improvement in other tasks. The group organized the venue and date for the event. They also organized catering and accommodation for the visitors. They put control measures to ensure that the event was within budget and costs would not exceed amount budgeted because a plan was already established. Group members were selected by focusing on competence and abilities and experienced members were later included to improve on input and quality. Registration was done in a well-structured and procedural way to ensure that there was no overcrowding and unnecessary delay. The team also planned enough for the event to reduce the chances of unnecessary errors occurring that could lead to lower performance of the important event. However, despite the success of the plan, the group failed to check the participation and convenience of the audience to the event. 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