The definitive guide to large scale events. Team. Budget. Content.

GDG Lviv (Ukraine) team is going to share experience and practical tips from organizing few of the biggest IT conferences in the country.

We'll cover how did our team organize the work, structure of the team, our budgeting approach, and content selection.

Transcript

1. The definitive guide for running
   DevFest on a scale
   Team. Budget. Content.
   Vitaliy Zasadnyy
   Founder @ GDG Lviv
   

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2. In boxes like this one you’ll find
   comments to slides
   

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3. 3 years ago…
   3 years ago a young team of GDG organisers decided to move DevFest
   from the capital of the country to their home city.
   3 years ago they had no experience in conference organisation, no
   experience on working with sponsors, partners, media.
   They made a lot of mistakes. But never gave up. Trying new
   approaches, iteratively collecting and analysing feedback they slowly
   improved all aspects or conference organisation.
   

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4. GDG Lviv today
   

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5. DevFest Ukraine
   700
   33
   10,000+
   In the last 3 years we have grown DevFest Ukraine from the small
   conference to one of the biggest tech events in the CEE. More than 700
   attendees, 33 speakers, 10k+ views of recorded sessions on YouTube
   

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6. Lviv IT Arena
   80+
   Stadium
   2,000+
   Besides that we’re co-organizers of Lviv IT Arena - conference that two
   years in a row collects 2000 developers from all around the Ukraine on
   a football stadium to share latest trends in IT.
   

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7. BIG DOES NOT
   SUCCESSFUL
   MEAN
   We never took the size as a measure of success, instead we rely on the
   feedback collected from the attendees
   

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8. DevFest Ukraine Success *
   91%
   satisfaction
   rate
   78%
   pointed to
   content quality
   100%
   ready to recommend
   DevFest 2017
   * based on 2016 attendees feedback
   

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9. Proprietary + Confidential
   The definitive guide for running
   DevFest on a scale
   

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    Timeline
    DevFest Ukraine
    September 9-10
    Start
    March 13
    4-6 month
    ?
    From our experience, 4-month is minimum you need to prepare a
    conference. But, what should be done for this time?
    

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    Workload & responsibilities
    Sample: bit.ly/dfguide-workload
    

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    Team
    Content
    Venue
    Budget
    Website
    Sales
    Catering
    Hosting
    Production
    Party
    Graphic Assets
    Volunteers
    Media
    There are a lot of aspects of the organisation. Each one requires a
    separate presentation.
    

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    Team
    Content
    Venue
    Budget
    Website
    Sales
    Catering
    Hosting
    Production
    Party
    Graphic Assets
    Volunteers
    Media
    

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14. Team
    

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15. — Henry Ford
    If everyone is moving forward together,
    then success takes care of itself.
    

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16. Team structure
    Core
    GDG Crew
    Volunteers
    After trying several approaches we
    ended up with layered team structure
    

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17. Core
    Team
    

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18. Vision of the event
    Drive the organisation
    Be aware of current state of organisation
    Take the responsibility
    Role
    By responsibility we mean contracts with partners, subcontractors, etc.
    Also, responsibility for failure of the event, or success.
    

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19. Physically located in one city
    Everyone has 1+ area of responsibility
    Each area has only 1 responsible
    3-10 people (see SCRUM)
    Requirements
    Some roles, like speakers management can be done remotely. Vitaliy
    lives in The Netherlands and is a part of the Core team.
    Ideally team should be located in one city to be able to have in-person
    meetings. But our team proved that it is not a mandatory requirement.
    

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20. Sprint planning every 2-3 week
    Result oriented tasks
    Everyone reports during Sprint planning
    Getting things done
    The tasks should have measurable results. If, in one sprint, the task
    could not be finished, it should be divided.
    

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21. Tooling
    Task
    Management
    Document
    Sharing
    Team
    Chat
    

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22. GDG Crew
    Team
    

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23. Who?
    People who can't
    fully commit
    People
    interested in
    specific
    organisation
    aspects
    

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24. Size
    No limits, due to nature
    #dfua team is ~35 people
    

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25. Structure
    Core
    Media Speakers etc.
    GDG Crew
    …
    e.g The Core team member responsible for media creates a sub team
    from the GDG Crew team.
    

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26. Workflow
    Task after
    Sprint planning
    Ideas
    At the sprint planning the sub team leader reports the progress to the Core team.
    After the sprint planning the sub team leader communicates the tasks to the team.
    

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27. Notes
    Same influence as Core
    Participation in 1+ subteam
    Sync calls upon need
    Slack channel
    Important to understand that anyone form the GDG Crew team can
    influence the organisation process, propose new ideas, etc
    

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28. Volunteers
    Team
    

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29. Who?
    Core Team
    Members
    Crew
    Members
    Volunteers
    

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30. Volunteers
    Public registration form
    Start recruitment 1 month prior event
    Motivate with 30-40% free time
    Sample: bit.ly/dfguide-callforvolunteers
    

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31. IS
    MORE
    BETTER
    All 44 DevFest Ukraine volunteers
    It is better to have too many volunteers than not enough.
    

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32. Getting things done
    Schedule/responsibilities doc
    Managed by Core Team member
    Training one day before conference
    Make them easy to find
    Sample schedule: bit.ly/dfguide-volunteers
    To make volunteers easy to find we give
    them bright t-shirts.
    All volunteers should know where the WC,
    schedule, etc. are. They are the first contact
    point for attendees => training is mandatory.
    

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33. Budget
    

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34. Taking control of your budget is not a sprint
    it is a marathon
    — Dave Ramsey
    

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35. Expenses
    expenses graph
    It is important to track all expenses, so at the end you will be able to
    identify “whales” of spending.
    

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36. Budget timeline
    Time
    Having detailed transactions log will allow you to build a budget
    timeline, like one below.
    Notice big incomes (blue bars).
    

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37. Budget timeline (delayed income)
    Time
    If any of your big incomes is delayed you’ll get to the situation when
    your budget will be negative and you’ll have to invest your own money.
    

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38. Budget timeline (no income)
    Time
    But it is not the worst case scenario. What if you won’t find enough
    income source. You’ll finish conference organization with negative
    budet. You don’t want this.
    

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39. GDG is a non-profit
    organisation that creates
    great events…
    …with minimal risk for
    organisers
    

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40. MINIMIZE
    RISK
    THE
    Your goal as a non-profit organization is to make a great event and minimise the
    risk of having negative balance at the end.
    

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41. Detailed budget planning
    Strategy 1
    

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42. Pessimistic income
    Pessimistic expenses
    Security pillow
    Detailed budget planning
    $
    You always have to have a security pillow of cash for expenses you’ve forgot to
    include in the budget or unexpected ones.
    

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43. Paid entrance
    Strategy 2
    

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44. Paid entrance
    We charge an entrance fee, so it covers catering costs.
    Try to minimise the risk of the biggest expense in your budget - catering.
    

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45. Ticket price
    [catering p/p]
    30 USD
    [att. number]
    700
    x
    [catering budget]
    21,000 USD
    =
    

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46. Ticket price
    [attendees]
    700
    [early birds]
    150
    =
    [lazy birds]
    300
    +
    [students]
    150
    +
    [free]
    100
    +
    600 paying attendees
    

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47. Ticket price
    [catering budget]
    21,000 USD
    [avg. ticket price]
    35 USD
    =
    [paying att.]
    600
    /
    

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48. Ticket price
    [early birds]
    35 USD
    [lazy birds]
    45 USD
    [students]
    20 USD
    When you have the average ticket price, you can balance out all ticket prices, so
    the average income will match avg. ticket price.
    

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49. Decrease expenses
    Strategy 3
    

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50. Decrease expenses
    Barter partnerships
    DIY
    Everything is negotiable
    

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51. The must read book for anyone who need to
    make deals.
    

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52. Other best practices
    Sign contracts with everyone
    Do 70/30 payments
    There is no fixed prices
    Track all expenses
    

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53. Proprietary + Confidential
    Content
    

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54. What content works the best?
    

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55. Sessions
    Workshops
    Hackathons
    Pitches
    Party
    ….
    Content types
    

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56. What are priorities?
    Topics?
    We used to check topics from the Google I/O and find speakers to cover them. It
    worked quite well, but not perfect. Some sessions were almost empty.
    

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57. Data driven content selection
    DECITIONS
    DATA DRIVEN
    In 2016 we decided that all out decisions regarding the content should be backed
    by data. Before opening c4p, we sent out survey to get data.
    

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58. Why people go to a DevFest*
    *data collected during registration
    Learn something new
    Improve existing skills
    Networking
    Hands-on
    

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59. Content breakdown
    Hands-on
    Workshops, demos
    Improve existing skills
    Sessions, workshops
    Learn something new
    Sessions, workshops, demos
    Networking
    Party, contests
    

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60. Why did we stop doing hackathons?
    12 hours are not enough
    Logistically complex task
    Hard decision for attendee
    

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61. Workshops
    Google Codelabs
    Damn good Wi-Fi
    Quick env. setup
    Max 30 people
    Speaker physically can’t make effective workshop for more than 30 people.
    There always will be att., who forgot to set up env. As a result, they will start
    loading huge binaries during the event => you WiFi has to handle it. Also, prepare
    a quick guide for environment set up.
    

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62. Demos
    Android Experiments
    Chrome Experiments
    Cloud Demos
    Hands-on
    

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63. Party
    2 types of attendees:
    Networkers
    Party Animals
    Your task as an organiser is to create a quite environment with easy background
    music for networking and set up kilowatts of sound for party animals. In one
    connected space.
    

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64. Good speakers can transform average
    event into amazing one
    — Vitaliy Zasadnyy
    

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65. Timeline
    DevFest Ukraine
    September 9-10
    Start
    March
    Close c4p
    July 17
    Help
    Speakers
    Open c4p
    Announce results
    July 31
    Promote
    c4p
    Sample c4p: bit.ly/dfguide-c4p
    

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66. Two types of speakers
    Experts
    Brand
    Speakers
    Brand speakers (hight title, famous company, etc) will drive tickets sales
    and can provide guarantee of quality. But not always.
    Experts can deliver amazing presentations, but it’s hard for attendees to
    know that before the event.
    

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67. Brand
    Speakers
    Two types of speakers
    Experts
    Unicorns
    Ideally you want to get the best of two words, you want to get “Unicorns”.
    

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68. Where to get speakers?
    Evangelists
    GDEs
    Other
    Conferences
    Grow from the
    Community
    But watch out. Make sure that evangelist is not going to do a marketing/
    sales talk. DevFest is a tech conference at the end.
    The best option is evangelists. In general they cover their trip on their own
    and the quality of the talk is very high.
    

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69. Lviv
    See you at #dfua2017
    Oct. 13-14
    

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70. Select speakers
    Check the c4p data
    Content should be experience based, not documentation based
    Check the best performing speakers from the last year
    Check English knowledge
    Check video recording from previous events / posts / GitHub
    Select multifunctional speaker (session + workshop)
    

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71. STATUS
    GDE
    DO NOT
    GUARANTEE QUALITY
    

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72. Help speakers
    Information about
    audience
    Information about
    equipment
    Slide
    templates
    Deadlines for
    slides submission
    Feedback on
    each submission
    Practice on
    stage
    

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73. Check it at https://devfest.gdg.org.ua/hub
    

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74. If you will follow all the best practices, there is a chance that you’ll get
    feedback like this.
    

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75. SECURE BACKUP
    SPEAKER
    Always have a backup speaker on the event to secure yourself from last
    minute dropouts. He should be as prepared as any other speaker. Also,
    you have to treat him a speaker
    

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76. Proprietary + Confidential
    To sum up
    

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    Team
    • Layered
    • SCRUM
    • Proper tooling
    

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    Budget
    • Plan, plan, PLAN!
    • Making entrance fee
    • Negotiate all deals
    • Sign contracts. Always.
    

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    Content
    • Data driven content selection
    • Pay a lot of attention while selecting speakers
    • Help speakers
    • Always have a backup
    

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80. When developers come together to exchange ideas,
    amazing things can happen.
    — DevFest Ukraine Team
    

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81. MAKE DEVFEST
    SCALE
    ON A
    

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82. Thank you.
    Vitaliy Zasadnyy
    @zasadnyy
    Presentation is available at
    v.zasadnyy.com/slides/
    

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83. Samples
    • Workload & Responsibilities: bit.ly/dfguide-workload
    • Volunteers Schedule: bit.ly/dfguide-volunteers
    • Media Plan: bit.ly/dfguide-mediaplan
    • Call for Papers: bit.ly/dfguide-c4p
    • Sponsorship Proposition: bit.ly/dfguide-sponsorship
    • Volunteers Registration: bit.ly/dfguide-callforvolunteers
    

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84. Tools
    • Documents sharing: drive.google.com
    • For mail lists: mailchimp.com
    • For easy social sharing: buffer.com
    • For easy social media monitoring and sharing: hootsuite.com
    • Conference website template by GDG[x]: github.com/gdg-x/hoverboard
    

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85. Content sources
    • https://codelabs.developers.google.com/
    • https://www.androidexperiments.com/
    • https://www.chromeexperiments.com/
    • https://github.com/Instrument/emotobooth
    

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