Processes Mapping: extracting the essentials

There are many repeated actions when creating and managing an event. Likewise the actions are repeated for other events, regardless of the culture, country or type of event. Extracting these and describing them is the aim of process mapping. Why is this important? A large organisation such as a bank, telco or city government may have a bewildering array of events. These must be managed is a way to minimize the risk and maximize the returns. In the modern business there must be an accountable system. The process mapping achieves it. The events team will be too concerned with day to day operations to establish the system. It must come from people with wide experience in events as well as high level knowledge of systems thinking and process mapping. There are subtleties in organising an event and these must be understood in the process mapping.

An example of one process is the Approval Process. It is not a universal process and is only used at certain times in the event project. It is part of the stakeholder management and can be used for external stakehodlers, such as the Police, as well as internal stakeholders such as Finance Department. It is second nature to experienced event managers - but it still needs to be mapped. It is worth pointing out here that the process mapping is vital for training new events staff as it summarizes the tasks.

For more information go to Events Feasibility and Development textbook, purchase the EPMSCDROM. and/or contact events @ epms.net