Planning events are slightly different that creating project or action plans because the end result is an experience whether it's a wedding, speaker, environmental cleanup or corporate retreat. Event planners, like project managers, have to create deliverables, manage many details and stick to deadlines. Event planners who are more organized - get more business and referrals.

Often, the structure of planning events is the same so PlanDone's rapid task development environment is particularly well suited to this industry due to the fact that action steps can be copied from existing tasks eliminating the redundant process of entering the same data over and over. Plus, it saves time from searching for and documenting the process if it is a recurring event, and the planning committees change each year. Keeping this process online will be more efficient that taking notes on paper and passing them around because people tend to lose paper and emails.

In the planning phase, questions arise such as: What is the purpose or goal of the event? Where is it going to be held? What is the budget? What are the risks? How many people are going to attend? Where and when is it going to occur? How is it going to be publicized?

Here is a common process:

1. Gather preliminary high level information about the general requirements that must occur on the event day. Get buy-in and approval from the organizers.

2. Break out smaller tasks and set deadlines. For example, if it is a corporate Christmas party, select a caterer based on quality of food and price - interview them and get samples 2 weeks before event day.

3. Break down the task into smaller action steps that are shared among various team members. Delegate pieces and prioritize them so they always know what the next thing to do is. For example, select menu items based on preferences of the guests as some are vegetarian. Ask a team member to sample tofu for freshness.

4. Communicate status via chats, comments, or related documentation with organizers and team members to stay on track and on deadline. Real-time estimates based on rate of step completion give an accurate date on whether the deadline will be met.

5. Publicize event - communicate event to invited audience. Build the mock-up online and get approval.

6. Measure results - how did the event go? Report generation shows progress and timesheet for invoicing and billing.

PlanDone has been used for large city-wide planning events with volunteers and has seen dramatic improvements in the process.

Try it out online by taking the Live Demo NOW.