Using the TARGET framework for your events
Today’s topic is the TARGET framework and how it will help you create an incredible and successful event!
In the previous lesson, I mentioned that therce are six areas that make an event successful. They are team, audience, revenues & costs, goals, eventualities and timetable. These six topics form an acronym called the TARGET framework, which is the today’s subject. We’ll see what the areas are and where you have to get to in order to have a successful event. We will work on it together.
When I was creating an advanced event organization course, called the Toolbox Event Course, I realized that there were several topics that are not covered by traditional courses.
I went to look at my own trainings for my teams and everything was there. So, what you will see, and what you find in my Toolbox course, is a compilation of these trainings. I already use it to train the people who work with me and who are event organizers themselves.
The six areas of the TARGET framework.
In the previous lesson, we covered Team and Goals. Let’s talk about the others briefly now.
The first factor is Team, which we already discussed, so a quick recap. Here it is not about having a complete team for you to organize your event. It’s more important that each person, even if it is one or two, knows exactly the functions they will perform. Remember: a person can have one or more roles (of those six that I mentioned).
For you to rank well in this position, you need team members that know their roles and their objectives. You need to define the objective of each, so they know if they are doing their job well or not.
The second factor is Audience, we will talk about how to deal with the public. A mechanism that I use in my events is to have an audience management team. Its function is to deal with unforeseen events, provide assistance, organize your audience and the like.
Next, we have the Revenue & Costs of your event, that is set up the budget. If your event is funded by the company you work for, you may need a budget to better shape your priorities. Not having a well-defined budget can take the shine off your event’s success when you extrapolate the loss.
Imagine having to buy gallons of water for 10,000 people out of nowhere? I don’t even want to think about that.
The other half of the framework:
The fourth point, which we saw in the previous lesson, is Goals. The name of the framework is TARGET by no accident. The only factor that will make your event successful is … remember: you fulfilling your goal. Only that. So it is very important that you have the purpose of your event spelled out.
As a fifth point, we have Eventualities, referring to the contingency plan for your logistics team. As there is no way for me to define a logistical structure that fits all types of events, it is easier for me to talk about what should not happen at events.
Here is what happens: no contingency plan will prevent things from going wrong or getting out of hand. You need to put together a contingency plan and a manual on how your event logistics is supposed to work.
Finally, we will talk about Timetable, your schedule. It can be a simple schedule, which is ok to set up, but a lot of people get lost in estimating deadlines and, even worse, I’ve even seen it with teams of experienced people, not noticing what is critical in your project. Let’s get into those details.
TARGET framework’s structure:
This entire TARGET framework is focused on two things: ensuring that your event is successful (you achieve your goal) and that you experience little stress, which is the number 1 cause of people not liking to work with events. We will solve these two things.
If you noticed, it goes counterclockwise. Because? Because I am Aquarius and am against rules? No, but it could be, my friends would say so. But it’s because it doesn’t matter. It is not a straight line that you will complete in order, it does not work like that. You start where you feel most comfortable.
I prefer to start with Target, Team, then Revenue, for example. There are people who will choose the Team. This depends a lot on your context. If you’re starting in events, follow the order and you will do fine.
How to use the TARGET framework:
It works like a radar graph, going from 1 to 3. For each point, there is a sentence that corresponds to your current situation. It’s not a test of knowledge or skill, so you don’t have to worry about getting top marks here. The idea is for you to have a faithful picture of your current situation.
Even I, being an instructor in the field, opt in certain events for lower scores on some points out of convenience, or because I trust my ability to improvise. I’m not preparing you to take an exam, but for you to be a competent professional, so I’m not going to tell you to study to get the highest grade.
If you don’t fit any sentence, your score is 0 for that attribute, right?
Watch the video to learn how to fill it out with me.
Interpreting the graph and the results:
Awesome, now looking at the results of the TARGET framework you have a better perspective of where you should work on. Each of these points does not say much on its own, but at least you are aware where that is a flawed point. But to further help you, I have grouped them into three categories:
Team + Goals reveal if you are in the right direction. An event that has well-defined goals and an aligned team is, at least, headed to the same direction, on a positive path towards its goals. It does not mean that it will work or that you have the capacity to get there.
The well-scored attributes of Audience + Eventualities reveal your execution ability, that is, to deal with unforeseen events, logistics, people, eventualities that every event has.
Keep your event on track using the framework:
If you are in the right direction and have a good execution ability, chances are great that your event will work out. Now, if you only have the ability to execute it, you can’t say that your event will be successful, because in the end, you may have managed your audience well and ensured that they left your event enjoying the experience, but it doesn’t mean you achieved your objective. Here is also one of the reasons why your event will go wrong: disorganization of information. Remember this.
Finally, we have the cohesion of the plan, identified by sum of Revenue and Timetable. This dimension reveals whether your train is likely to get off the tracks, even if you are going in the right direction.
Here is what happens: a low score here will cause a lot of stress for your team, you will rush to meet your deadlines that will expire (or have already expired), you will not have the money to purchase things (which you probably left for the last minute), well… Here it is where it causes a lot of stress in the pre-event and where is the second reason why your event will go wrong: not meeting deadlines.
If you score 0 in any of these three dimensions, you must stop and solve it before organizing your event. There is not much choice.
Final considerations on how to use the TARGET framework.
This framework will allow you to do a self-analysis of how you and your team are getting started to organize your event. The cool thing about doing it together with your team is that you start to raise points of attention in your plan and what you can do to improve.
In the worst case of haste and in a situation where you don’t have much flexibility to implement any action plans, you can do this exercise in 5 minutes alone. It is important to do so for you to be aware of what your weaknesses are and where it will hurt the most during the production of your event.
It is also worth remembering that it is one TARGET per event, and it is not about your ability to organize events, but about the current situation. Even though you have years of experience, you can still come across a poorly structured event.
As we say in my hometown: better than that, just twice that.
The article’s treasure:
In the end of each article, I will write a final recap for you to memorize the main takeaways.
This is what I presented in this article:
- We got to know the TARGET framework and how it helps you make a self-analysis of your capacity and on how prepared you are to organize your event.
- We filled it out together for you to see how it goes.
- As homework, I left the material available for download and for free, just you go and get yours and download, how about that?
Follow me on other platforms:
Make sure you subscribe to my channel to follow the lessons! Like the video if you think it can help you and share it with your colleagues and coworkers — or even on Linkedin.
Always look both ways. See you in the future.
