The close relationship between Event and Project Management

When I became interested in project management, I discovered that the organisation and management of an event, in synergy with various other realities and stakeholders from the beginning to the end, falls within the concept of a project. The credit for my interest in the peculiarities and problems of project management goes to a colleague, who told me about the benefits of such practices in the organisational sphere. Intrigued, I began to read articles on the web and other readings, until I embarked on a path that would lead me to certification as a Project Manager according to the UNI 11648 standard.

When the national magazine “Il Project Manager” – created to spread the culture of project management in its various aspects – asked me to write an article, I made the premise that the organisation of events, sporting and other, is often reported among the areas of intervention of project management, but that there are few experiences reported and described consciously according to this approach.

In that article I described, among other things, the change management applied in 2020 at ‘Ristogolf’ (Golf Association of Restaurateurs, Hoteliers & Co.), where I decided to lead the transition of the project and the organisation due to the pandemic situation.

But what is meant by change management? The need to identify changes at an early stage and initiate appropriate programmes to accompany or counteract them in a timely manner, hence the responsibility to foresee and launch appropriate actions to implement the transition and prepare stakeholders for the new set-up, encouraging their acceptance of the change. Sharing a vision and a strategy that must be constructed, explained and accepted as the best possible for the organisation in that situation and at that time.

At Colloi Plus, we make extensive use of our know-how in project management. Starting with the project life cycle divided into phases, which in fact represent the planning of the event: an initiation phase, followed by the feasibility phase, the design phase and finally the implementation phase.

In the project plan we make use of different tools/techniques, such as

– work breakdown structure (WBS), which represents the hierarchical distribution of the different activities;

– organisation breakdown structure (OBS), which is the breakdown of the organisational structure in order to highlight the internal team and the external team as well as the suppliers;

– RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) matrix , a tool that provides a clear view of the relationship between the resource and the specific activity;

– logical grid, which reproduces the sequence and dependency of activities, as well as the critical path method to highlight the start and end of activities;

– Gantt chart, providing the temporal graphic representation with the links of the logical grid.

In conclusion, the organisation of events offers considerable opportunities for the application of the concepts and discipline of project management, which I hope will developed more widely, in order to increase the opportunities for success and efficiency of the events themselves, and with greater satisfaction of all stakeholders involved.