What are the best ways to make your event planning team more innovative?

Contrary to some general advice I find that good critical discussion with diverse viewpoints in environment where kindness prevails, ego is in check and "hard" questions of others are taken as opportunities to find new angles and ideas leads to much better results than just throwing ideas on the wall (which is not bad in early phase, but very rarely leads to any breakthroughs on itself).

There is a study by Psychology Today that shows 72% of people from eight countries said they have the MOST CREATIVE ideas in the shower. More than anywhere else, including the boardroom. The reason for this is self care and some hot water lifts the brain fog, gets the blood flowing and the creative thoughts flow!

As a photographer, I wholeheartedly agree that regular brainstorming sessions are essential for generating fresh and diverse perspectives. Collaborating with a team in a fear-free environment allows for the free flow of insights and suggestions, resulting in more innovative ideas. It also allows those who capture the event (photographer/videographer) to have a clear understanding of what needs to be captured, and how to tell that story.

I believe that imagination it’s everything and the key to standing out is tapping into your own creativity. I think simply writing ?? and quiet time allows one's imagination to create solutions. So encouraging this type of creativity will allow your event team to come up with fresh innovative solutions. Having a team that knows how to create boosts confidence and allows you to dominate because people will come to you for your unique event solutions.

From my experience the after-event brainstorming sessions is the best way to reflect, evaluate, and consider. This process allows the team to come together and reflect on what guest enjoyed the most and other processes that could be revamped and more streamlined to run the event more smoothly.

The best to learn more about event planning is to attend more events. Have a stipend for attending events, encourage your team to attend few events that are outside of the event types that you typically run. Help them share their network of other event planner, send them to your vendor’s customer event so they can meet other event planners and find new and innovative ways within your mar-tech stack. Have a monthly meeting of new ideas, where they present new ideas and sprinkle them through your annual event roster to track effectiveness. Ask your HR team if your team can help plan some internal events to test ideas for small internal events

I agree with attending more events as a way to expand creativity; however, I believe that the types of events matter a great deal. We tend to gravitate toward selecting events and functions that interest us, things we like mainly due to familiarity. Deliberately looking outside the box when choosing or even having the team select events for one another; not based on what we think they might enjoy but rather things that may spark creativity would boost imagination as well.

One thing I've found helpful is leve raging diverse opinions. It’s a known fact: diverse opinions, viewpoints, cultural backgrounds, and experiences yield better solutions. Don’t just invite the designers to the collaboration. Bring people whose varied experience and ideas will provide a unique perspective to the creativity of planning the event, then provide a safe, comfortable space to explore ideas.

In my experience, this is true and my team and I did a lot of this. I would caution you to make sure you are designing the events for your clients' best outcome and not for the award application. Sometimes they are one in the same, but not always.

Inclusion and Diversity can be a huge asset for event planning. If you have a team member with personal insight and experience from a multitude of cultures and backgrounds, it allows you to provide better customer service.

In my experience as a social media manager, I find that I'm able to help my events colleagues experiment by creating new opportunities through my skill set. So when you're planning your events, think about ways that you can implement different colleagues or departments that can help you make those experimental leaps.

A great way to create trust on a team is to ask, listen to, and adjust from feedback. After each event, there should either be a discussion, survey, or structured debrief where feedback can be solicited and adjustment considered for future events.

Something else to consider...time off. People need white space to be creative. If someone is constantly in the weeds working long hours, day after day, in execution mode there's no time or brain space for them to innovate or iterate. Saying "give people time off to bee creative" is a bold statement but it's absolutely true. I and my team were never more creative than during the pandemic and guess what we had a lot more of? Time.

The best ways to foster innovation in your events team is to: - take time off - go to events within your sector and outside - and to provide a safe space to work collaboratively All three combined allow for individuals to explore ideas and receive feedback that take those ideas to the next level.