Goal Setting & Needs Assessment

Goal Setting & Needs Assessment 

Is anybody sick of hearing the term ROI?  Well, isn’t it one of the most powerful questions you can ask in business…what is your return on investment?   Your boss always wants to know why, your stakeholders and always looking for an angle to make more money, and you need to make sure that your next event is actually achieving its goals so you can continue to do the work you have done.

A few steps in your event planning cycle that often get missed.

• Ask Yourself - Just like any other business decision you should make sure that you do some goal setting around your next event.  Ask yourself…
• Why are we doing this event again this year? – What do we need to change to make it more successful? – Do we actually have the business/clients/staff to support this celebration? – Is our business better because of this event?

• Decide - Once you have determined the answers to these questions then you need to make that “go” or “no go” decision for your event.  Identify 3 or 4 goals – funds generation, number of attendees or just overall satisfaction are some examples.  Then at this point you are free to proceed in your planning. 

• Evaluate – Take the extra step to evaluate the success after the event.  Hold a de-brief session with your stakeholders and look at the pros and cons of this event.  Take a good hard look at how your event performed and which of your goals were met or no met.  Take vigorous notes so that the next year you can use this as a starting point, and you can easily refresh yourselves on where to start.

Most importantly, having an outside person mediate this conversation can be invaluable to deciding the goals and needs of your next event.