How to plan a team dinner

Booking the venue feels like progress and is the single most common way this goes wrong. A table booked before you know who is coming is a table booked for the wrong night, the wrong number, or both, and changing it costs you the deposit and the good slot.

Getting the date takes about a day if you ask everyone at once. Then book, with a real number.

• Three to six, spread across at least two weeks.
• Include a Thursday. It quietly beats Friday for anyone with a commute, childcare or an early start.
• Avoid the week of a known deadline, and the week after a big release when everyone is exhausted.
• Say the time. "18:30" and "20:00" are different answers for a lot of people.
• Do not offer a date you cannot host. It will win.

Dietary requirements, whether partners are included, and whether people need to get home by a certain time. Collecting these alongside the date costs nothing and saves a second round of messages after you have booked.

The comments on a date poll are the natural place for it - the answer and the note arrive together.

Once the date is decided, send a calendar invitation the same day. An agreed evening that is not in anyone's calendar quietly stops being agreed about ten days later.

Include the address and the time in the invitation itself, not just in the original message. People will look at the calendar entry on the night, not scroll back through a chat.

One short reminder with the final numbers, and confirm the booking. If someone has dropped out, the restaurant would much rather know on Monday than on the night, and so would the person you can invite in their place.

How far ahead should I ask?

Three to four weeks for a team of ten or more. Evenings get booked earlier than people expect, especially from November onwards.

What if half the team can make one date and half another?

Two smaller dinners genuinely beat one that half the team misses. The grid will tell you when you are in that situation rather than close to a single answer.

Should people have to give an email address?

For a work dinner, yes - it is how the calendar invitation reaches them. For a social group you can turn the requirement off.

• Scheduling a team dinner Organising the team dinner? Propose a few evenings, send one link, and see who can make which. Free, no account, and the calendar invitation sends itself.
• Group scheduling poll Create a scheduling poll for a group in about a minute. Propose dates, share one link, and see at a glance which date the most people can make.

• How to get people to actually answer your date poll Most people who do not answer a scheduling poll are not refusing - they hit friction. Here is where the drop-off happens and what removes it.
• How to schedule a meeting with a group A short, practical method for getting a group of people onto one date: how many options to offer, how far ahead to ask, and how to close it out.