It usually starts innocently enough: Someone in an annual planning meeting points out that your company’s big anniversary is a few years off. Heads nod. Everyone agrees it matters. Then the meeting ends, day jobs resume and the milestone quietly slips down the priority list—until one day an executive stops by and asks, “So what are we doing for the anniversary?” Suddenly a once-distant milestone is six months out, and you’re scrambling.
At History Factory, we’ve seen this movie enough times to know how it ends. The good news? That ending is avoidable.
Treat a milestone like any other big initiative—start early.
How Early?
As a rule of thumb, we recommend that clients start planning their milestones about two years in advance. That’s enough runway to engage the right stakeholders, land on big ideas and implement them well. It’s also not so far out that if the world or your business changes unexpectedly, you don’t have time to correct course.
Why does that head start matter so much? How can you convince stakeholders that now is the time for action? Here are a few tips we’ve picked up during our nearly 50 years in the milestone business that explain why starting early remains the primary planning advice given by those who’ve been in your shoes.
Buy-In Takes Time
Done right, a milestone belongs to the whole organization, not just one department. Starting early lets you engage stakeholders across the business and build a collective vision rather than asking a small team to sprint toward a deadline in a silo. Without the time to do so, you’ll end up with a narrow focus and a program that can feel smaller than the moment deserves. One word of caution: Cross-functional collaboration can quickly devolve into committee purgatory, so be sure to appoint a core project team with clear leads even as you go enterprisewide. Get the balance right, though, and the payoff will be magnified.
It’s Not Your Day Job
Milestone leads can come from all across an organization. People and culture, marketing, communications, events, facilities and beyond can all help lead milestone efforts. However, just because your company is turning a certain age doesn’t mean your day job takes a once-in-a-generation pause. Planning far enough in advance lets you ramp up involvement and set reasonable expectations rather than jumping on a moving train with no coverage or plan for your day-to-day responsibilities.
Give Yourself the Runway To Go Big
Big ideas need two things: room to dream and time to build. Start the conversation early, and you can think expansively about the business opportunity your milestone offers. Guided by that strategy, you will then be able to workshop big, splashy ideas without the fear that they will take too much time to implement.
Take Caterpillar, for example. Since planning began nearly two years ahead of the company’s centennial, it had time to conceptualize a fleet of custom-built World Tour mobile exhibits and then spend the better part of that runway making them real. Had planning begun six months out, what Caterpillar could have delivered would have looked very different. Caterpillar’s leaders understood the commitment in time and money, prioritized accordingly and could therefore execute on an award-winning activation that connected more than 103,000 employees and visitors to its story and future.
Expand Outside Your Organization
Under a time crunch, milestone leaders often default to focusing on internal audiences and avoid external variables they can’t control. With enough lead time, however, you can partner with external organizations, multiplying your reach and potential impact. For example, when Woodward marked its 150th anniversary, the company wanted to connect with the community. Because planning started with a reasonable runway, Woodward was able to partner with a local children’s museum to create a hands-on exhibit showing energy utilization across land, sea and air. Coordinating with a nonprofit museum took considerable time and advance notice, but because those conversations started early, the resources were available.
Spread the Spend
Last, and possibly most important, is the fact that starting milestone planning early usually allows teams to spread the budget commitment across multiple years. What’s available in a single calendar year is almost always smaller than what’s available over several years, and approaching a milestone as a single big ask can limit what’s possible. A head start lets you build spending gradually and be smart about when and where project budgets come into play.
With these tips about starting early in mind, you can plan an anniversary that is memorable and moves the needle with less stress on you and your organization. Want to talk through how to make the most of your milestone and the time you have to plan? Read our Guide to Celebrating Your Company Anniversary or contact us today.