Project culture — setting concept design expectations

A core belief of mine is that the ecology (people, processes, context, skills, tools, methods, standards) we build in and around an organisation shapes a project and then shapes outcomes. And leaders sharing clear expectations is a component of making and maintaining this ecology.

‘Concept Design’ is a known stage in a project’s development. In the old days, it meant, crudely, pictures of how the collection would be presented. We would now accept that what we are trying to so is much more complicated — but this working assumption hasn’t changed, and i see people asking designers to ‘show them pictures’ rather than ask a team including designers. I see issues being left unresolved too late, or by accident, rather than either resolved, or articulated clearly as an unresolved thing to be fixed. This yields compromise, lack of buy-in, cost over-runs, failure to fully serve communities… all the bad things. And a moral component too — museums are spending other people’s money. We have to be better at doing so.

Here is a quick summary of what my expectations would be of a concept design stage of work.

Principles

• It’s not just the designer’s work — it is the work of the entire project team
• It shouldn’t surprise any of the project team, or approval groups
• It is the culmination of a period of work by many people, specific to their start point, and context.
• It is a landmark document, to be used as a reference point for many further activities. It is the measure against which we determine if we are being, and then have been, successful. This is not something we go back on — this is the item against which everything else is judged.
• It’s one document. It isn’t a Word document, and then alongside a pdf with some drawings… it is one thing, coherent and integrated.

I find it useful to think of it as an articulation of three things.

1. How will [Project] have a positive impact on each visitor?

• Why are we doing this, how does it align with mission, strategy, purpose, need
• What is its impact, on whom?
• What will people think, do, know, feel differently as a result of their [use] of [the thing]

2. How do we see the exhibition/experience-as-consumed delivering that impact?

• How does this break down for audience types (whatever you use, or is standard in your context)
• The architectural envelope
• The designed furniture, layout, flow
• The narrative / storyworld / character experience
• Words
• Audio
• Digital experiences
• The stories themselves — ‘content’
• Solo/Social experiences
• Objects
• Moving image assets — sourced, made
• Art (commissioned, existing etc.)
• Still images
• Databases, peers, User generated content
• Designed elements eg illustrations
• How does this begin and end (what is not in this project’s scope but will affect its success?)
• How does this complement / work with the rest of the offers (eg program)

The concept design documentation/presentations should articulate all of these and their interlinks in such a way that they can be understood. They are at an appropriate level detail for the stage of work. Not too locked down, not too open.

Note — this is emphatically not an object list and then a series of designs for presenting that. It assumes that the project uses objects, designed spaces and furniture — but that a contemporary design is so, so much more. Technology, communities and so on are a part of this — not an add on.

3. How will this experience be delivered through the work of the team and those that join us?

This is a really big deal for me. The management of delivery is inextricable from the quality/purpose elements. This is a key project moment when it all has to be aligned. There is no point getting approval for a project you can’t afford to build, or that’s dependent on a artefact you can’t obtain.

• How to continue / achieve a shared culture to deliver the project
• Prototyping and evaluation approach — how will we know we are on track to deliver these outcomes?
• How will we engage with our communities to produce appropriately — and how will we flex if what we hear is incongruent with where we thought we should we were going?
• Staffing approach — who will do this work? Staff, new hires etc.
• Realistic schedule / resourcing / budget including review moments
• Key procurement of long-lead items
• Ways to bring our communities with us on the journey (staff, communities, funders, media…?)
• Collection and asset sourcing etc. — loans, digitisations, licensing etc.
• Artists and makers we want to choose, either directly or through a competition / selection process

There will be other things.

There is a whole other post i need to write about the management of exhibition projects. As a sector, we still see ‘project management’ as consisting of two things:

• Manage externals
• Manage time and money

And yet. Integrating the management of internal people and resources, and the management of quality, is inextricably bound up with this. Another time.