How to Organize Your Office Christmas Party Using Stormboard
When the Christmas season rolls around, people are bombarded with never-ending shopping lists, holiday parties, long work hours, and so on. It’s a hectic time of year, especially when your work team sets out to plan their annual party.
Getting a group of people together at the same time and the same place can quickly turn into a problem if there is little to no organization involved. Everyone works around different personal and work schedules, so booking an event space, deciding on food, and setting a time can become a huge headache rather than a fun party planning experience.
There has to be an easier way, right? There is — Stormboard!
Planning your Christmas party using Stormboard
1) Log in or create an account
First, log in to your account. If you don’t have an account, you can sign up for a free personal account, or a full-featured free trial of our subscriptions.
2) Create a new Storm from your dashboard
Once you’re logged in, head over to your dashboard. Click the Create a Storm button on the left-hand side of your screen (a “Storm” is what we call your digital workspace) and begin your party planning!
3) Choose a template
Stormboard has hundreds of templates that you could use for your party planning! We suggest using one with at least two sections in order to separate your brainstorming from your decision making. If you aren’t sure what to choose, we recommend clicking on the “blank template” link and it will show you options with a variety of numbered sections that you can customize for your team.
4) Name your Storm and invite your team
Choose a name for your party Storm (we went with the standard “Christmas Party”) and invite all of your team members to collaborate with you. You can invite people in three different ways by clicking on the “Share” button at the bottom of the Storm.
Copy and paste the URL that is provided and send in an email or in a collaboration tool that you use like Slack.
Copy and paste the Storm ID and Key and send in an email or in a collaboration tool that you use like Slack.
Enter all of the email addresses of your team into the space provided and click “Send Invitations” to send an email that invites all of your team members to the Storm.
5) Label your template sections
Next, it’s time to label each section of your Storm. We chose to use Best Date and Time, Places to Go, Top Dates and Time, Top Places to Go, and Final Decision.
6) Start Adding Ideas!
Have all of your team members add their choice for date and time in the first section, and location choice in the second section. At this time any and all ideas are welcome!
7) Make the process clear using chat and email
If your team needs to communicate while brainstorming, there is a chat tab on the right-hand side of your Storm that can be used to remind everyone to vote, comment, or anything else they might need to talk about (see image below).
Contacting your team members can also be done via email right from your Storm!
Click on the “Actions” button located at the bottom of your Storm and select “Email Participants” (see image below). This will let you reach out to everyone with a reminder, clarification, or ask them all to join you in the Storm. This is also useful for letting the entire team know the final decisions once the party planning is done.
8) Vote on your favorite date, time, and place
Now that you have sticky notes with various options written on them in the desired sections, it’s time for your team to vote and make decisions. Once the votes are done, move the top three sticky notes with the most votes to the next sections in order to narrow the options down further. Have your team vote again to make the final decision. The narrowed-down sections and final decision section might look something like the example image below. When everything is voted on and the final decision is made, the entire team will be able to see it and keep track of the date, time, and place easily from whichever device they are using.
Because all of the information in your Storm is saved, it’s easy to go back at any time during the planning process and make changes.
Maybe a restaurant that you booked is no longer available — no worries!
Open your Storm, and you can change or delete any of your sticky notes to update the information. And remember to contact your team regarding any updates using the chat or email features!
You can use Stormboard to plan any event or gathering with your team — it makes collaboration easy, and decision making seamless.
Get Started
Are you ready to start your holiday planning? Get started with Stormboard now!
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