Event Planning for Administrative Professionals, Pt 1: Launching the Planning Process

Edit 10/23/23 - As requested by many of you, I have added a template at the bottom of the post!

I started my new role at the end of April and spent the next 4.5 months planning a 60+ person week-long offsite. Due to the vast amount of varied work that went into planning this offsite, and the amount of requests I’ve received to share my process, I am launching a blog post series outlining different aspects of the planning process that I walked through, and how I worked through the process of executing a successful event. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and insights as we move through this series together!

Part 1: Launching the Planning Process

On the first day of my second week in my new role, my executive told me that a large project I would be taking on would be planning a large offsite meeting in a neighboring town. I had a moment of panic, thinking about how difficult it could be to take on the event while still learning about the organization and industry. But after taking a deep breath, I thought about a few projects I had completed in the past that I could look back on and recall my experience, struggles, and learnings, all of which would have prepared me for this event. For example, in 2019 I was the trip planner and onsite coordinator for an 18-person trip to Washington DC. With that event I did a hotel room block, arranged the activity itinerary, worked with various restaurants for bookings, scheduled and mapped out the metro travel, and arranged meetups with various Alumni who lived and worked in the city. Over my time at the university I assisted with so many special events, both on campus and off, organized meetings, planned team building activities, and booked travel arrangements. Looking even further back into my professional history, I thought of my time working as an “Attractions Hostess” (aka, ride operator and crowd control) at The Disneyland Resort and how we were trained to handle problems with world-renowned customer service skills, and to ensure smooth operations by being fully versed in your plan and your contingency plan. After that reflection, I was determined to pull all that I learned through my years of experience and apply it to this event. So with that mindset, I was ready to jump in.

I would highly recommend starting your planning process by creating a centralized spreadsheet (Excel or Google Sheet) to keep track of everything in one place. As we go through this blog series, I’ll let you know when to add a new tab but, for your reference, I had the following tabs on mine:

• Main Agenda

• Task List

• Secondary Agendas (we had an executive session and small group discussions)

• Food/Menu Schedule

• Seating Charts

• Master Attendee List

• Room Block

• Flight Arrivals w/ Ground Transport

• Flight Departures w/ Ground Transport

• Teambuilding Activity Teams

• Budget

• Vendors

For today’s blog, we will be focusing on the first two tabs: Main Agenda, and Task List

The first, and most important, part of the planning process, is to create your basic, foundational timeline, from beginning to end, in your master spreadsheet. While the timeline is going to ebb and flow as the event gets planned, having something documented to start with will help you process through what actually needs to be planned. From there you can work with your leader on what items you will be responsible for, what they will be responsible for, and what items will be assigned to others. Here are some questions to ask as you are putting this basic timeline together:

• Who are the anticipated attendees?

  • Who needs to be involved in getting the attendee list put together, and where are the attendees from (local, domestic, international, etc.)? These questions will affect the beginning stages of the planning process, in particular with choosing the meeting location and accommodation needs.

• When is the meeting starting and ending?

  • For us, this was originally going to be Tuesday 8am - Thursday 9pm. However, about 3 weeks prior to the meeting, we changed it to start Monday at noon.

• Depending on when the meeting is starting/ending, how early will people need to arrive, and when would they be departing?

  • Answering these questions will provide clarity on things such as how many nights you will need to book, what meals will need to be provided, etc.

• Meals…are we providing them all?

  • I’ve been to some events where only breakfast and lunch are provided, and attendees are on their own for dinner. Other events, only lunch was provided. We opted to provide all 3 meals per day, which meant that we needed to determine which ones would be onsite and offsite.

• What are the basic happenings of the meeting itself?

  • Who needs to be involved in the planning process for the agenda? While you don’t need to know immediately what the exact agenda will be, you need to know the basics of what you need to plan for, such as:

    • Keynote

    • Presentations

    • Group Discussions

    • Special Activities (such as a team building activity, local event, reception, special dinner, etc.).

Based on this, begin putting together a timeline in a spreadsheet, roughly blocking out each thing. Some things you won’t know exactly what time it will be, and you won’t know the content that will be presented, but it is important to give yourself a starting place. Here is an example of what this could look like.

Be sure to download the template at the end of the blog!

Once you have your basic time blocks in, it is time to start creating your centralized task list! Create a tab on your centralized spreadsheet and name it something like “To-Do List” or “Task List”. Make sure you have the following columns:

• “Tasks” (to outline what needs to happen)

• “Responsible” or “Assigned to”(to mark who is responsible to do it)

• “Due Date” (everything should have a due date!)

• “Comments” (document updates, insert helpful links, etc.)

• “Completed” (to place an “x” when the task has been finished)

To make the task list easier to use, I not only sort by due date, so that I have a timeline, but I also use conditional formatting to help me quickly identify what needs to be done. If you don’t know how to do conditional formatting, I would encourage you to search for “Conditional Formatting Excel” or “Conditional Formatting Google Sheets” on YouTube to find a step-by-step tutorial on how to do it.

Here are the three conditional formatting techniques that I use to help me easily identify my next steps:

• If the due date is within the next 2 weeks, turn the row yellow.

• If the task is overdue, turn the row red.

• If I put an X in the completed column, remove the colors from each row and strikethrough the text.

To ensure that your conditional formatting is done correctly, I would recommend that you use an AI chat bot such as ChatGPT and ask it to give you the formula that you need. Here is a sample prompt: “I am using Microsoft Excel, and have headers on row 1, so my content starts on row 2. I want to set up conditional formatting so that a row turns yellow if the date in column D is within the next two weeks. Can you please give me the correct formula and step-by-step instructions to ensure that this is set up correctly?”

Now that you have your basic timeline in the “Main Agenda” tab and you’ve created your “Task List” tab, it’s time to start building out your tasks! Start with the first thing on your timeline, and determine all of the little tasks that will need to happen in order for that thing to happen. For example, if you are going to have a dinner at a restaurant’s private room one night, some of your starting tasks would be:

1. Research restaurants, and get quotes

2. Officially book restaurant

3. Pay deposit

4. Determine/book group transportation to/from restaurant

5. Determine A/V needs

6. Finalize Menu

7. Create a seating chart

8. Determine if there is anything special needed on the tables (i.e. personalized menus, namecards, centerpieces, etc.).

Don’t forget that you don’t have to know every single task right now, you are simply giving yourself a place to start from and build off of! Work through each item on your timeline, documenting all of the tasks that you currently know that you need to do onto your task list tab in the Master Spreadsheet. Give each item a conservative due date; if you know that you absolutely need something completed by December 1, give yourself a due date of 1-2 weeks earlier. This will ensure that, as things come up, you remain on schedule, and if you get something done earlier than required, even better!

Congratulations, you have just launched the planning process for your large event! As I wrap up this first part, I just want to say how exciting and rewarding it is to plan an event like this, even with all its challenges. Each step, from setting up that initial timeline to nailing down the tiniest details, really shows how adaptable and resilient we are as administrative professionals. This series isn’t just about my journey; it’s about us learning and growing together. I’m super excited to hear your thoughts and stories as we go through this process together, so be sure to leave a comment below, and stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll chat about picking the perfect vendors to make your event shine. Happy planning!