4.4.1. Convening timeline

The time required to plan a convening depends on a number of important factors, including but not limited to:

• The number of participants and ways of identifying them
• Visa requirements
• Complexity of the convening (e.g. APC-wide, programme-specific)
• Location
• Co-organisers and partners involved
• Hybrid, on-site, online
• Human and financial resources available
• Sources of funding.

In order to follow up the scheduling and compliance of the convening timeline, there are instruments to facilitate these processes:

Forecast liveboard and convening forms

APC forecast liveboard

To facilitate cross convening monitoring, create a sustainable workflow, the OPS core team have established convening forecast meetings with managers and OPS programme staff twice a year, in January and June, to collect information about possible convenings and create a forecast map.

The systems and information coordinator is responsible for adding, updating and maintaining the liveboard through all information collected during these forecast meetings as well as periodic emails and on-demand consultation for convening plans.

APC convenings scheduling form

The convening point of contact shall begin the planning as soon a convening idea is formalised and proceed by submitting the convening form to record all important details about the event.

It is important the form is filled and shared when dates or locations are still indicative to enable the actual coordination of all involved and provide space for adjustment and consultation in case of clashes and overlaps.

The purpose of submitting the form is to initiate a task ticket that begins the workflow and cycle of cross-team communication and coordination between the organising programme/team, the Ops core team and all other actors involved. Once the convening form is submitted, the Ops core team reviews it in a week’s time. The convening is then recorded on the convening platform and on the APC all convenings calendar.

The convening form creates a circular automated task in the management tool for internal coordination of all member added to it as “viewers”.

APC individual assessment and travel form

In relation to accepted invitations to travel to attend conferences and other kinds of convenings, APC has developed an individual travel form that needs to be filled after the manager concerned approves the participation.

Individual travel to attend convenings: For all individual invitations to travel to events and convenings organised by other entities, APC has developed a specific two-step workflow:

1. Assessment of the relevance of the invitation and, if it is okay, a mitigation and contingency plan.
2. Individual travel form submission.

The assessment tools are: individual travel assessment checklist and the Mitigation and Contingency Plan; they must be filled and signed before the individual travel form is submitted. This must be shared with the manager concerned and approved before preparing for travel. Staff can also request support from the operations manager to finalise the assessment process.

Small team meetings: A meeting is considered a small team meeting if attended by three to five persons. Such a team’s members can use the individual travel assessment checklist to assess the meeting’s relevance and share it with their manager/supervisor.

It is the responsibility of the small team meeting’s manager/coordinator to assess the risk and share the Mitigation and Contingency Plan with the Ops manager. It is up to the latter to inform and engage the Ops director, who is accountable for the assessment in case of disagreement or assessed risk for the organisation.

The Individual Travel Form is submitted once the individual travel is approved. Instances where the form is applicable include invitation of a staff member to a convening not organised or co-organised by APC; for example, they may be invited to speak, be a participant in a workshop, or moderate a session. The key difference being that these convenings are not organised by APC and the number of APC participants does not warrant group logistics.

In such cases, sometimes the travel is completely sponsored by external organisers, but at other times it is only partially sponsored; hence the individual travel form is used to request specific logistics support from the Ops core team.

In cases of full sponsorship by external organisers and no Ops support is required, it is recommended as a good practice, for reasons of safety, care and transparency, to still submit the individual travel form to include the event in APC Events Calendar and to inform the APC team that there is a staff member travelling.. The Ops core team should be apprised should any kind of emergency support is required.