Introduction

Along with programme and overall quality, managing the cost of the project is one of the main roles of a PM. A good PM should keep an eye on the amount that is being expended at all times, and this often means that you have to look at both the big picture and the granular detail. This is not easy, but is a skill that can be learned, and the more projects you complete, the easier it will get. The best way of tackling budget management is to take a systematic approach to what you are doing and to use the expertise of those around you to estimate costs and keep a tab on what is going on. Every museum will have its own financial systems, so, rather than going into detail about the mechanics of ordering goods or invoice management, this chapter is about how to keep a tab on the costs. We will look at the importance of valuing the work completed so as to help you judge if you are on track, and the chapter provides some suggestions on how to set up a cost plan so that you will have all the right information in an easy-to-access format that, once set up, can be used again and again over subsequent projects.

Understand your finances

Before you can start effectively managing your budget it is essential to understand how your own museum's budgets work and how you will be expected to manage and report on any budgets that are delegated to you. Each museum is different in how it assigns funds, often depending on its size and the regularity with which it puts on new exhibitions and shows. Before you start you will need to know what your exhibition budget is expected to cover. Is it the fees and costs solely related to producing the exhibition itself, or are you also required to fund the marketing of the exhibition and any material produced about it, such as a catalogue or booklet? Will you need to account for materials for schools, and what about any supporting programmes such as family workshops or lectures on the subject?

Introduction

Getting the outline vision and objectives of the exhibition right so that it appeals to the audience and aligns with the museum's goals is crucial, but is often overlooked as part of the exhibition process and isn't always part of a project plan. Projects run much more smoothly if time is built into the programme for this work. You will need to allocate time and resources; it doesn't necessarily need to cost a great deal, but it does need thinking time. If you skip this stage and dive straight into designing the exhibition this can lead to a confused narrative, problems in selecting objects and even being forced to change designs later in the process so as to accommodate ideas or narrative concepts that could have been planned for before you got going – adding cost, causing delays and making your life as the PM much harder. Having a really clear vision of what you want to achieve will save you time and, ultimately, make the exhibition better. Ensuring that it fulfils the museum's vision and goals is a must. So how do you go about this? This chapter proposes a number of steps for coming up with, testing and refining the exhibition idea. It includes information on how to manage the creative process and establish an outline narrative, how to consult so as to ensure that the idea works and how to analyse the ideas so as to create meaningful and actionable objectives for the project.

The creative process: coming up with the right idea

The first stage is coming up with the overall idea for the exhibition – thinking about and generating, developing and evaluating ideas. Often this stage is completed before a PM is brought on board and ends with a simple outline proposal, sometimes called a mandate, which is approved in principle for the next stage of development. This is the point where you as PM are most likely to be tasked with taking the project forward. This part of the process – generating these first creative ideas and coming up with an idea, theme or central concept for an exhibition – is covered by another book in this series, Unlocking Collections by Maria Blyzinsky.

If the idea is approved for inclusion in the museum's exhibition schedule or for further development, it is usually given to a team to develop further.

Now that you have a defined vision for the exhibition it is time to start planning how you will carry out the work to make the exhibition a reality. It is often at this point that a PM is assigned to work on an exhibition – although the previous chapter will have demonstrated how important it is for this to happen earlier in the process. The three chapters in Part 2 look at how to set up your project team, interpretation planning and the process of appointing and working with designers to create the concept design.

In Part 1 I will be giving you some idea of the work that needs to happen before what is traditionally thought of as project management kicks in. We will look at how you define your vision for the exhibition and will consider how you will manage the project once it gets going. It's possible that you will be brought in as a PM after this stage has been completed; but it is worth knowing what will or should have happened already so that you can avoid asking the project team to repeat work they may have done already and so that you can help the museum to test some of the assumptions it may have made.

Introduction

Some museums are lucky enough to have an interpretation department. There are many great books available on what interpretation is, and which provide excellent frameworks for interpreting collections (we will discuss some of this below, and see the further reading list at the end of the chapter). But many smaller museums don't have a dedicated interpretation specialist, and because I believe that the creation of a robust interpretation plan – referring back to and reinforcing the museum's values and mission – is a key part of the success of a well-managed exhibition process, this chapter will outline what you might consider adding to your plan and how it will help to make the exhibition a success. Creating a well thought-through and clear interpretation plan is a key part of the planning stage of any exhibition.

What is interpretation?

There are many different definitions of interpretation. Simply put, it is about the tools that are used to bring objects and stories to life and to provide visitors with ways to explore and create emotional connections to content. This can be through traditional means such as well-written labels or leaflets, or through much more experimental forms such as ghostly projections of patterns onto plain white 18th-century silhouettes! As so many things can be ‘interpretation’, it is hard to pin down – and even harder to know if you have got it right.

Let's go back to the beginning. In 1957 Freeman Tilden described interpretation as ‘An educational activity which aims to reveal meaning and relationships through the use of original objects, by first-hand experience and by illustrative media rather than simply to communicate factual information’ (Black, 2005, 179). Freeman Tilden is considered to be the first modern writer on the subject of interpretation, and his first book, Interpreting Our Heritage, is still used today by museum and heritage professionals. Tilden was based in the USA and worked for the National Parks Service, who were trailblazers in the world of interpretation. He set out six principles for interpretation, which work as well today as they did when first published and are still often used as a basis by writers and interpretation professionals. Tilden's six principles are:

• 1. Any interpretation that does not somehow relate what is being displayed or described to something within the personality or experience of the visitor will be sterile.

• 2. Information, as such, is not interpretation.

Part 6 deals with the key skills needed to successfully run a project: managing time, risk and money. This is work that you will have been doing all the way through the process outlined in the preceding parts of this book.

We now move into the execution stage of the project. This is the stage that most people commonly associate with exhibition project management. The designers are at work, loans start arriving and the exhibition is built. In Part 3 we will look in more detail at the design process after concept design, and what you need to do to manage the on-site work successfully. At this stage the project starts to become visible to others in the museum. It can be fast paced and sometimes quite physically demanding as you spend more time on site than in the office. You will need to carve out time to keep the paperwork in order, keeping the programme on track and being meticulous about the budget and risk management (for more on this see Part 6, Key Project Management Skills). The two chapters in Part 3 look at the second and third stages of the design work – scheme design and detailed design – and the work on site as the exhibition is built.

In Part 4 we will look at the work that needs to happen once the exhibition is fully installed. Although you may think your work is done, some crucial tasks need to be completed that will contribute to the success of the project. Don't celebrate just yet …

Introduction

In this chapter we will look at the role of the PM on site, when a project is being installed in the gallery space. From setting up the space to considering health and safety on site, we will consider the sequencing of work and the importance of change control. This is a busy part of the project where you will need to be present on site regularly and keep careful control of what is happening.

Preparing the space

This is the most exciting part of the project, when you see all the hard work that has been put in so far start coming to life on site. You will need to get some things in place before construction starts. It is important to set up the site so that work can be carried out efficiently and, even more importantly, safely. Begin by thinking about the types of space that will be needed to make the installation go smoothly.

You will need spaces where loaned objects can be delivered safely and where objects from your museum's own store can be unpacked and sorted, ready for display. For large exhibitions you may need somewhere to unload trucks and isolate loaned objects before they are brought into the space. You will also need somewhere to store the materials in which loaned objects are packed. These may be quite large boxes or even crates. The space doesn't need to be right next to the exhibition space, but it will help if you don't have to transport things too far, as it's not much fun having to carry empty, awkwardshaped boxes from one end of your museum to the other at the end of a long day of installation work.

As well as storing the objects safely you may need to make frames or mounts for some of them before they go into their showcases. Where will this happen? Will they all be made on site and, if not, do you have room for them all to be delivered at once?

Can you set up a temporary office near the exhibition space for staff who need to do documentation work and for you, the PM, so that you can keep an eye on the activity happening on site each day?

Will you be photographing the objects for a catalogue or a book? If so, where will you set up for this?

Introduction

This chapter is about the first tasks you will need to undertake to set up the exhibition project. Now that you have an agreed vision for the project (what you are doing) you need to consider how you will deliver and manage the exhibition. I will explain how to set up the key tools that you will use to govern and manage the project. Putting in the effort at this stage will make your life much easier when things start to get really busy. We will refer to this as the planning stage. This is the time when you make sure that you have the right people involved and formalise their places and roles in the project. If you were involved in the definition stage you may have already begun this work, but now you will need to formalise the team make-up and get each team member to commit to delivering packages of work for you. It is your role as the PM to provide the team with clarity about what is expected of them as the project progresses. The work you do at this stage will identify what tasks need to be done and, most crucially, who is responsible for getting them done. Agreeing on this at the start will avoid repetition of tasks by more than one person or, if the team is very small, will help you to be realistic as to how long it will really take to produce the exhibition. The team will work on developing the exhibition proposal into a more detailed brief or project description, which will not only spell out information about the content of the exhibition but also start to set out some of the parameters of the project. When all the elements described in this chapter are in place they will be a key part of what is known as the project implementation or execution plan (PEP). Essentially, this is the project handbook outlining how and when each element of the exhibition will happen.

What do you need to think about during this planning stage?

Finance

You will need to start thinking more seriously about the cost of the exhibition and how the budget will be used. You may already have been given a fixed budget, or you may have been asked to come up with an estimate of the cost.

The contractor has finished on site, you have held staff training days and opening events. Now that the public are enjoying the exhibition you have passed from the transition stage to the evaluation stage and are no longer working on site. But there is still work that you, as PM, need to do to close the project and make sure that any lessons learned are recorded and passed on to improve practice for next time. This is the moment in the project when it might be easy to think that it's all over, but some key tasks are needed to close it down and evaluate how it has gone.

Introduction

This chapter will look at some of the work needed at the end of the project to bring it to a close and leave the paperwork tidy and well ordered for future reference. We will also look at how the project should be evaluated and how the feedback can be used and incorporated in your future work as a PM running successful exhibition projects.

Finances

One of the first things you will need to ensure once the exhibition is open is that all of the contractors and consultants have been paid. Throughout the project you should have been keeping your cost plan up to date (see Chapter 10). Now is the time to go back over the plan and tidy up.

Check that all the purchase orders you raised have been recorded and, with your finance team or specialist, record what has already been paid out (ideally you will have been reconciling this monthly, but it never hurts to do a double check at this stage). Deal with any outstanding payments and invoices. You will probably want to chase up outstanding invoices, as it is best to get as much finished now as you can, so that you can record the project as financially complete once everything has been paid out. If you have installed a temporary exhibition, check that you have the budget reserved for the deinstall and that your finance team is aware that the project will not be closed until after you have completed that process; this may mean that the project stretches across another financial year.

For longer-term installations or exhibitions you may need to record some of the assets that have been bought or created for the exhibition as ‘fixed assets’, which become part of the museum's list of equipment or holdings that are unlikely to be sold off or disposed of within the coming year. Fixed assets are often reported as a line in formal financial end-of-year accounts, so consult with your finance officer or team about whether this is necessary.

Report to your finance team any retentions or payments that you have agreed that will be held until later, so that they can plan for this money to leave the museum's accounts at the right time. You may have been asked to create a cash flow forecast earlier in the project.

This book has briefly covered all the main tasks required to project manage an exhibition and the role of the PM in steering the project from a kernel of an idea to a show that is open to the public. On the way we have looked at setting up key documents to help with the management of this work, and taken deeper dives into some of the most important work that will contribute to the exhibition's success, such as getting the vision right, interpretation planning and design. We have also focused on the process for exhibition management using a five-stage process with clear gateways at the completion of each stage. In this final chapter I will sum up for each of the five stages the key tasks you need to undertake, the main outputs being created and the gateway questions you will be working towards answering.

Define

Work needed: In this stage you take the exhibition concept, analyse it, carry out formative evaluation and create a vision for the exhibition.

Output: An exhibition proposal, complete with the vision and ‘big idea’ for the exhibition, including the outline of its content, showing:

• • how it is unique;

• • how it will contribute to the overall museum vision and objectives;

• • how it responds to visitor needs;

• • what its goals are;

• • what its objectives are (so these can be measured against at the end of the project);

• • when it will happen (noting that many exhibitions take at least two years to develop and implement);

• • images of key objects, and perhaps some quotes or interesting information about the subject to help sell the idea;

• • some examples of the type of display, which will serve as creative inspiration for the team.

Gateway question: Is this exhibition something that you, the museum, want to invest in, and do you agree that it meets the museum's objectives?

Plan

Work needed: This is a stage which requires you, as the PM, to set up all the processes needed to manage the exhibition, alongside development by the design team of the concept for the show.

Output: A project execution plan that contains elements including:

• • cost plan;

• • risk register;

• • programme;

• • project structure;

• • RACI;

• • communication plan;

• • decision register;

• • sustainability, inclusivity and access information;

• • concept design for the exhibition;

• • key objects list/images;

• • business case information such as the projected return on investment.

Introduction

Table 5 lists groups of people systematically according to ethnic and national origin. An ethnic group normally refers to a group with linguistic bonds; it can also mean a group with cultural or racial ties. From its origin in the 18th Edition through to the 21st, Table 5 was named ‘Racial, Ethnic, National groups’. As of the 22nd Edition, ‘racial’ was dropped, since the idea of racial classification can be quite charged. As the beginning of the Table (T5–0) states:

Like most external tables, Table 5 is only used when instructed, but like Table 2, there is a helpful loophole. The standard subdivision T1–089 has instructions to add notation from Table 5, allowing building of numbers to represent ethnic and national groups in relation to any topic. Here the standard subdivision works as a facet indicator. However, adding Table 5 notation directly to a base number, if allowed, is preferred over using T1–089.

The first summary of Table 5 is reproduced below:

• –05 Persons of mixed ancestry with ethnic origins from more than one continent

• –09 Europeans and people of European descent

• –1 North Americans

• –2 British, English, Anglo-Saxons

• –3 Germanic peoples

• –4 Modern Latin peoples

• –5 Italians, Romanians, related groups

• –6 People who speak, or whose ancestors spoke, Spanish, Portuguese, Galician

• –7 Other Italic peoples

• –8 Greeks and related groups

• –9 Other ethnic and national groups

The divisions closely resemble the organization of Main Classes 4 and 8 and Table 6. In fact, many numbers in Table 5 are explicitly organized by language groups, e.g. those with captions starting with ‘Peoples who speak, or whose ancestors speak’. Each division listed above is further divided hierarchically. The name of each ethnic and national group enumerated in the table is indexed in the Relative Index.

Because some people can be categorized by more than one characteristic, as in the case of national groups of foreign origins and non-citizen residents, a citation order (sequence of facets in a multiple-faceted subject) and order of preference (when numbers cannot be combined and a choice must be made between two or more numbers) are needed to maintain consistency in treatment. In Table 5, the generally preferred citation order is ethnic group over nationality.