Creativity Session

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Museum Educators Project LogOctober 4, 2003
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I am a management consultant specializing in
performance enhancing interventions in the
workplace. These can include a range of solutions
including team development, planning strategies,
skills/knowledge training, job aid development,
and job redesign.
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October 16

• Call from Kim, Museum Educators (ME) president
• ME officers had identified requests from member
  museum educators for some skills training in
  management
• Requests fit with the associations long-term
  goals of sharpening up professionalism among
  museum educators
• Kim asks that we meet to discuss a possible
  workshop.

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Meeting Plans

• A meeting with a time frame of two hours
• Held at work site, Modern and Contemporary Arts
  Museum
• Purpose is to discuss her request and to identify
  what she and the Board perceive to be the
  performance problems.

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Documentation Requested of Kim

• Constitution and bylaws
• a list of member organizations
• names, phone numbers, email addresses of selected
  members who might be willing to be interviewed
• minutes of meetings for the last two years

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• documentation on any issues facing the profession
• a list of journals I might access for more
  insight into the profession
• any documentation indicating member needs,
  particularly in the arena of management skills
• a general description of job requirements for an
  ME

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In addition, I suggested that she be prepared to
talk about the educational and experiential
background of members.
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October 10

• Met with Kim for two hours.
• Data provided included
• The association schedules three professional
  development days each year which usually result
  in about 90 attendance rate.

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• Most of directors had degrees from prestigious
  colleges. They ranged from MBAs to MFAs.
• A scattering of members had bachelors degrees in
  foreign languages, art, technology, anthropology
  and related areas.

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• Much pressure was coming from museum directors
  for the education branches to become
  self-sustaining.
• Money often comes in spurts feast or famine
  depending on donor responses.
• Turnover in museum education staffs, below the
  Director level, was high.
• Museum outreach programs depend heavily on
  volunteers who must be courted to be retained.

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• Many of the personnel in the education
  departments are more comfortable with solo work,
  having been educated in professions where this is
  supported, e.g., artists, researchers.
• Limited funding calls for every staff member to
  perform various work functions.

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• Few, if any, of the members had training in
  business practices except for isolated workshops
  on one topic.
• Because of the highly creative population,
  personality differences sometimes got in the way
  of productivity.

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• I asked Kim to identify a spokesperson whom she
  felt would be articulate about the needs
  identified by the group for management training.
  She was not clear on what aspects of management
  training the members were thinking of so she
  identified members who had been the most vocal
  about the need.

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Needs AnalysisOctober 24, 1993 Met with
four members of the association. The interview
resulted in the following data
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Data Point 1 Communication skills were a
concern. Conflict among team members sometimes
hampered productivity.
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Data Point 2Almost none had had training
in planning. Plans were put together on the fly.
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Data Point 3Large donations were not
always allocated to primary needs because there
had been no setting of priorities. Squeaky wheels
got the money often.
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Data Point 4Volunteer training was not
always consistent and resulted in periodic rates
of high turnover depending on who the volunteer
coordinator was.
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Data Point 5Staffs were totally
committed to their profession, not a high-paying
one, but wanted to work more efficiently, promote
more job satisfaction, and allocate resources
more effectively.
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The resulting task analysis and further data
collection of the five areas identified by
interviews and data analysis resulted in
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• Identification of the performance problem a lack
  of skills training
• A proposal that a validation of the needs
  assessment be presented to the membership at
  their next meeting for their concurrence and
  vote
• A proposal for a workshop that would address the
  five major areas identified as deficient if the
  membership concurred.

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November 5 bimonthly meeting membership
validates the needs assessment approves a
February, two-day professional development
workshop to be conducted at a museum site to be
identified.
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Deficiencies to be addressed

• Communication Interpersonal, Intrapersonal,
  Supervisory
• Managing Goal Setting, Appraisals,
• Planning Strategic and Tactical

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Workshop Objectives At the conclusion of this
workshop, you will have

• gained insight into others personality types and
  work styles
• refined communication skills to enable idea
  sharing and goal-reaching within teams and among
  larger groups
• learned the skills and knowledge to identify and
  collect sufficient data to define your management
  model and develop group objectives for appraisals
  and goal setting

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Course Objectives Continued

• acquired some skills and knowledge of the course
  in a case problem that demonstrates your
  abilities to reach consensus with a larger group
• experienced and have access to accelerated
  learning methods
• gained enough background to use the job aid
  effectively, and
• collaborated, asked questions and had fun!

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Sample Lesson Objective1 Management

• At the conclusion of this module, you will
• identify appraisal practices that enhance
  opportunities to balance individual development
  needs with organizational needs
• demonstrate your new proficiency with a role play
  scenario during which you use the practices of
  the model as identified in the checklist.

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Sample Lesson Objective 2 Planning

• At the conclusion of this lesson, you will have
• developed goals and strategies,
• developed mutually exclusive alternatives,
• compared alternatives to objectives, and
• considered the budgeting process.

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Interventions designed

• A two-day workshop
• A job aid for setting appraisal goals and
  evaluation procedures to be presented and
  practiced in the workshop
• A software package for quick review of planning
• A booklet on personality type in the workplace

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Short- and Long-Term Results

• Workshop received highest rating of any presented
  for ME association
• Bay Area group requested same workshop
• Volunteer retention increased by 20 first year
• Planning model resulted in large donations being
  allocated for high need areas in two museums
• Consultant continues to do periodic work for
  association.

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Short- and Long-Term Constraints

• Senior management did not attend workshop so
  communication burden lay on association members
• Vagaries of funding, particularly government cuts
  continue to plague profession
• Normal turnover rate decreases initial impact of
  workshop skills/knowledge.