# How World Press Photo produces a traveling exhibition in 45 countries #withAsana > World Press Photo proves that small teams can still host big events. Take a peek at how they run events and get event planning tips for small businesses. Source: https://asana.com/resources/event-planning-tips-world-press-photo ## How World Press Photo produces a traveling exhibition in 45 countries #withAsana Picture this: you’re walking through a space, seeing photos of children in war-stricken zones, the Philippines’ most overcrowded jail, a turtle entangled in abandoned fishing gear, or a tennis player diving for a forehand shot. You might be in a local museum, plaza, or at a festival. Let us frame things a little more for you: What you’re looking at is a collection of award-winning photographs, featuring the best work from visual journalists and storytellers across the globe. This exhibition is produced by the [World Press Photo Foundation](https://www.worldpressphoto.org/), and four million people across one hundred cities will see it this year alone. For the World Press Photo Foundation, “Freedom of expression, freedom of speech and freedom of the press are indispensable, and quality visual journalism is essential for the accurate and independent reporting that makes these freedoms possible.” Their mission is to develop and promote the work of visual journalists and storytellers. They run a variety of activities, from an annual photography contest to a festival, and of course, their traveling exhibition—which features the contest’s winners. Asana is a big help for us to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks. Even the smaller steps of our process are in Asana—little details are the key to a successful event.How they do all of this is no small feat. They deliver on their mission with a team of just twenty-six who are headquartered in Amsterdam but travel often. By working with around 80 partner organizations across the globe, they produce the traveling annual exhibition and surrounding events, such as openings and awards ceremonies. But doing so involves many moving pieces—and time zones. As a small team, The World Press Photo Foundation relies on several key practices to produce the best events possible. We spoke to Suzan van den Berg, exhibitions coordinator, to get expert advice on how they pull it off, time and time again. ## Focus on the guest experience With multiple exhibitions across the world and millions of people visiting them, it’s crucial that the World Press Photo Foundation provides a superior guest experience for all visitors. To do so, they work closely with partners to choose compelling venues and rely on regular communication to iron out details like layout and attendee flow. Thinking of your events from your guests’ perspective is a great first step to creating an experience that will leave a lasting impression. Good questions to ask include: - What do we want our guests’ first impressions to be? - How will guests interact with each other or our event? - How can guests share their experience? - What does the layout of the event look like? - What do we want our users to see, experience, and learn during our event? The World Press Photo Foundation focuses on answering these questions in the initial planning stages of their exhibition process. Up to a year ahead of time, they put together a proposal for an event to share with their partners. Then they work with an external logistics company to evaluate risks and optimize the guest experience. This full process—from preparing event layouts and guest invitation lists to booking team travel and checking in with the local embassy—is managed in Asana. This process ensures the Foundation offers an engaging guest experience. After all, their mission is to develop and promote the work of visual journalists—a mission that can’t be achieved without people to see those journalists’ works. ## Have a workback schedule—and stick to it With an ideal guest experience in mind, you can set to planning your workback schedule. This schedule will guide everything you do leading up to, during, and after the event. For the World Press Photo Foundation, this involves a template project in Asana that consists of four chapters, as they like to call them: - Before the exhibition - During exhibition building and opening - When exhibition managers return to the office - After an exhibition is over Each chapter covers a specific period of time in their event planning process. With a standard workback schedule in place, they ensure their entire team—most of whom are traveling—know who’s doing what, by when. “Asana is a big help for us to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks. Even the smaller steps of our process are in Asana—little details are the key to a successful event,” says Suzan. It’s also important that your workback schedule includes time not just for planning and the execution of events, but also to unpack the event and tie up loose ends afterward. Here’s a template event planning project that might be useful: _To manage their events around the globe, World Press Photo creates an Asana project from a template, which is set up similar to this._ ## Plan for setbacks No event is without its setbacks. For the World Press Photo Foundation, setbacks can come from dealing with censorship laws, constant travel, customs and immigration, and working with a large number of partners. Their method for staying ahead of setbacks—and handling them quickly and efficiently when they arise—is to evaluate risks in detail with partners when kicking off work and communicating often during the process so issues can be dealt with. Setbacks are common for events, but they don’t have to be. Planning for potential problems is easy when your team involves all stakeholders early on, evaluates risks upfront, and has a process for handling issues when they arise. _World Press Photo in Budapest_ ## Communicate clearly and often With a small and distributed team, communication is one of the most important parts of the World Press Photo Foundation’s [success in producing events](http://blog.asana.com/2017/03/event-management-tips-tools/). “Our team is committed to communicating clearly with everyone, always,” says Suzan. To do this, they rely on several tools depending on stakeholders—email, Slack, phone conferences, and of course Asana. Asana tasks include detailed notes that may otherwise get lost in the shuffle. Whether you’re communicating with your immediate team or with an outside vendor or partner, it’s crucial to keep key stakeholders in the loop. Finding a cadence for communication (that’s not related to an immediate need) is important, whether that’s a weekly call or quarterly update. For more immediate communication, set up guidelines for the best medium for the team to communicate with each other so everyone’s on the same wavelength. When the World Press Photo Foundation team is in the office, they can just turn around and chat with each other, but they know when someone’s traveling, they need to set up phone calls for regular check-ins. Find a way that works for your team to communicate, and the steps to producing a successful event will feel like a walk in the park! ## Always debrief after the event Finally, Suzan and her team rely on debriefing as a key way to keep their events successful. Her team discusses with partners how the exhibition and events went for them, and what her team could do better. They also debrief with their own internal team, looking at how many visitors attended, the press the exhibitions received, and how they can keep evolving their events. When you don’t have to sweat the small stuff, you can focus on creating events that provide the best possible experience for your attendees.Sometimes, debriefs raise previously unknown issues or needed actions that can be proactively addressed for future events—such as the need to complete specific customs documents. The team may add a new task to their Asana template to make sure it’s noted for future events. Debriefing after an event is crucial to helping your team produce high quality, engaging events. By reviewing what went well, what could go better, and new ideas that may have arisen, your team will have the chance to keep evolving your events so guests are delighted over and over again. ## Create great events When you don’t have to sweat the small stuff, you can focus on creating events that provide the best possible experience for your attendees. With a streamlined process, the World Press Photo Foundation has been able to focus on evolving their events. For example, they now have an annual digital storytelling contest in addition to their annual photography competition, providing more compelling content for the traveling exhibition. They’ve also been able to keep up with the evolution of visual journalism: one of their 2015 winners snapped their photo with their smartphone. _Want to learn more about planning events and managing other marketing programs successfully? Get our_[free guide](https://asana.com/how-to/marketing)_on how to create effective processes that turn your marketing strategy into results._ _**Photo credits:**__Evert Elzinga and Werry Crone_ - [專案規劃](/resources/project-planning-archived) - [制定應變計劃以預防業務風險的 8 個步驟](/zh-tw/resources/contingency-plan) 專案管理 專案規劃 #### 作者 沒有人希望 A 計劃失效，但準備一份強大的 B 計劃是應對任何情況發生的最佳方式。有了可靠的後援計劃，您就可以有效應對非預期事件，並且盡快讓事情重回正軌。應變計劃是一種主動策略，能夠協助您處理事態惡化並確保業務持續進行。在本文中，深入瞭解如何針對非預期事件制定應變計劃，並且制定恢復策略，以確保您的業務維持健康狀態。什麼是業務應變計劃？業務應變計劃是一種策略 ... - [How Asana’s digital team used work management to refresh our brand](/zh-tw/resources/asana-on-asana-brand-refresh) 專案規劃 工作管理 #### Head of Digital 作為 Asana 的數位主管，我對跨多個團隊和工具的複雜專案並不陌生。 當我們決定在 Asana.com 上推出重大的數位品牌更新時，我知道我們需要的不僅僅是成功的好點子，我們需要清晰的溝通、精確的規劃和堅實的執行策略才能完成。 幸運的是，我們有 Asana 的功能來支援我們的每一步。 我很高興分享我們如何利用自己的平台從頭到尾管理跨職能計劃，以及您如何利 ... - [Ready for blast off: 5 steps to successfully managing product launches](/zh-tw/resources/successful-product-launch-marketing) 專案規劃 將新產品推向目標受眾需要大量工作，更需要讓他們嘗試或購買。 無論您是進行小型功能更新還是全新的產品線，通常都會有多個團隊參與產品發佈。 隨著里程碑、時間軸和策略不斷變化，讓每個人都能維持資訊同步可能會很困難。那麼，成功發佈的關鍵是什麼？ 制定可靠的流程。 以下是我們建立萬無一失的發佈流程的五大步驟，可幫助您每一次都成功將產品推向市場。 想要瞭解如何成功執行 ... - [How Asana uses work management to drive product development](/zh-tw/resources/asana-on-asana-product-development) 工作管理 專案規劃 #### 內容撰稿人 現代產品開發不僅僅是最新功能或趨勢使用案例。 在 Asana，我們透過創新的方式聆聽和回應客戶，從而重新定義產品開發。 透過與我們的工作管理平台合作，我們可以更輕鬆地將這些回饋轉化為行動。 在許多公司，客戶回饋無法超越面向客戶的團隊。 如果產品開發團隊不知道回饋，他們就無法對其採取行動。 這是一個錯失的機會。 在我們的 Asana 工作創新實驗室 (Wor ... - [How World Press Photo produces a traveling exhibition in 45 countries #withAsana](/zh-tw/resources/event-planning-tips-world-press-photo) 專案規劃 工作管理 Picture this: you’re walking through a space, seeing photos of children in war-stricken zones, the Philippines’ most overcrowded jail, a turtle entangled in abandoned fishing gear ... #### 85%《財星》百大企業使用 Asana¹