Event management involves bringing together a wide range of people to deliver an event. This can involve organizing events from a small gathering to a large-scale conference or wedding. The skills involved include planning, coordinating and executing the event, as well as managing the attendees and suppliers. It also includes budgeting, scheduling, reporting and analyzing data to make future decisions.

An effective event manager must be able to handle the various aspects of the event in the most professional way possible. This means creating processes that minimize the risk of failure and keeping everyone informed about those risks so that they can plan accordingly.

A key part of that process is delegating tasks to team members in a manner that allows them to succeed. Assigning team members their own areas of responsibility helps them stay clued into their small pieces of the larger whole and avoids confusion, extra meetings or a mad scramble when it’s time to pull everything together. This approach can also be used to build a sense of ownership in team members.

This is important for a team that’s working to be as productive as possible on a project that can be highly stressful. To that end, building a core checklist for the event can help you keep things running smoothly. To do this, create a project in Asana and add a task list with due dates. When you’re done, click… and select Save as Template. This will let you copy your project for every new event you manage and save you time re-creating the same items each time.

Once the basics are in place, you can start doing more involved research for the event. Depending on the type of event you’re organising this might involve finding venues, vendors and speakers. This is a crucial step and will likely be the most time consuming part of your preparations.

It’s important to pick a date and time that makes sense for the type of event you’re planning. It’s not going to be a good idea to hold the event too far into the future as people may already have other plans, and it’s not ideal to hold it too close either as guests might be less inclined to attend.

If you’re hosting an event with a speaker or special guest, it’s wise to set up a back-up plan in case they aren’t available at the last minute. This might involve providing an alternative speech or arranging extra entertainment, and it should be planned in advance.

Using an event management solution like Airtable can help you create automated workflows and collaborate with your team in flexible views ranging from calendars to Gantt charts. It’s easy to set up tasks with due dates, assign them to a team member and track progress on a timeline. You can also use the platform to store images and contracts, create budgets, track guest lists and communicate with team members in private and public channels.