FINLAND'S FOUR SEASONS - EVENT

One of our projects this semester was an Experimental Afternoon Coffee Event for exchange students. In this post, you find what the event was, what each team did, and my thoughts on my role as a Project Manager.

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THE EVENT

One of our projects this semester was an Experimental Afternoon Coffee Event for exchange students. The goal was to teach about Finland with different senses, organize a classy afternoon coffee occasion and work well as a team.

We decided to name the event Finlands Four Seasons and teach about Finland's culture via different seasons. At the beginning of the project, we voted on the project manager. I was one of the three candidates. This time I got selected. We also divided our group into different teams, Communication & Marketing, Decoration, Catering, Program, and Safety & Budget. Every team had a team leader who were Johanna Kytömäki in Communication & Marketing, Ida Hieta in Decoration, Ella Männikkö in Catering, Markus Makkonen in Program, and Aino Virta in Safety & Budgeting.

We only had a short time to plan and get everything ready. We also had a few difficulties marketing our event to our customers, but in the end, we got their attention. The event was a success, and everyone enjoyed it!

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DECORATION

The decoration team was responsible for designing decorations, making them, planning the ground plan for the event, and being a waiter at the event. The decoration team designed four tables with four different seasons winter, spring, summer, and autumn as you can see from the picture above.

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CATERING

The catering team was responsible for designing the menu for the event. For the summer appetizer, we served rye crisps with salmon or paprika filling, and the opening toast was sparkling spruce shoot. Autumn's main course was harvest pie with lingonberry jam and berry juice. Winters' dessert was gingerbread ice cream with lingonberries and mulled wine. For summer we had cake pop-styled doughnuts and mead. All the dishes you can see in the picture above.

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PROGRAM

The program team's responsibilities were to plan and execute activities during the event. They decorated the room with lights and designed videos and sounds that were shown on the screen during the event. Their team leader Markus Makkonen also hosted the event. They organized a live music performance by two of our students Jerry Penttilä and Niko Mannonen, held a quiz about Finland, and had a pantomime contest with Finnish themes. At the end of the event, we threw balloons up in the air and everyone blew serpentine.

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COMMUNICATION AND MARKETING

The communication and marketing team was responsible for our SharePoint page, social media, invitations, taking pictures of the event, selling the event to customers, feedback, and making the product card. ​I worked a lot with our communication and marketing team. We went to sell the event for our customers and a lot of cooperation together.

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MY ROLE AS A PROJECT MANAGER

I worked as a project manager for Finland's Four Seasons - Coffee Event.

My job was to arrange meetings with the whole team or with the team leaders. I made sure that we stayed on schedule and that everyone knew what needed to do next. I also communicated between our teachers and our team.

I made a schedule for every meeting and all the deadlines for different documents. I made sure that the documents were done, such as the product card and product brochure. I made a base for the blueprint that I filled with team leaders. You can see the example down below. I also helped all teams with different tasks. Before the event, I made decorations with the decoration team and I discussed the schedule with our program team.

At the event, I helped with the decorations and monitored that everything was ready before our customers arrived. I mostly stayed behind the scenes coordinating the event, but at the beginning of the event, I gave a welcome speech. At the end of our event, I also gave a thank you speech. We also needed to sort our timetables between the program-, catering- and decoration teams.

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WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

Even though I made sure that the project's timetable was scheduled well, and everything was on time, I forgot to schedule a rehearsal. When I noticed the mistake, it was already too late, and the event was too close so that I could get every team together at the same time. Communication was a lot better between everyone than in our Study Tour project. Still, I wanted more communication between me and some of the team leaders.

I was a behind-the-scenes kind of project manager. I feared that I would be too controlling and pushy which might have affected my presence. Some of the team leaders tried to take the lead, which complicated my work quite a bit. I should have given feedback to them right away. During the event, I should have been more active in greeting our customers when they arrived. Now I was more on the set helping everyone. I also should have written my speeches on paper, so I could have read them when I forgot the words.

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WHAT WENT WELL

Overall event's execution and planning went very well. I'm so proud of my team and what we achieved! I made sure that we had enough meetings with team leaders and with the whole team so that everyone was on hold where things were. I hold smaller interval meetings and bigger ones when needed.

I developed most in delegating tasks to others, instead of just doing them all by myself. I could trust others and I knew that everything will be done on time and well. I still was very actively helping teams if there was a need. The best and most successful thing was the team spirit and teamwork. Even though there were a couple of bumps in the road during the event, no one stayed put. Instead, everyone started to fix them together. Everyone did tasks without any complaints that were not in their job description.

I learned many new things about my classmates during this project. I got more experience in working with different personalities. I learned to plan and coordinate an event. I also stressed a lot less than I anticipated at the beginning of this project. ​