This paper discusses what tactics and decision-making mean in practice within museum digital technology projects. It offers practical suggestion for tactical approaches drawn from the author’s twelve years of experience managing digital projects and services.

1. Andrew Lewis
Tactics and Decision Making
for Successful Museum Digital Projects
Museums and the Web
19 April 2013
linkd.in/andrewlewis
@rosemarybeetle
Victoria and Albert Museum

2. Why we need tactics?
Person to blame (Insert your name here) ______________________________

3. What can you expect to take from this session…
Hmm…

4. What can you expect to take from this session…
Greater understanding of how to be tactical
Methods for developing effective tactics
The importance of context
Identifying barriers (and how to overcome them)
Force Field Analysis as a project-planning tool
Some examples to take away

5. Not tiny detail
What’s not in this presentation…
That’s in the full paper
bit.ly/musetactics

6. Where do tactics fit?

7. The reason we
do all this stuff
The specific things
we aim to achieve
to meet the
mission
The order of things…
The long-term
direction, approach
and scope of our
work, that we
believe will achieve
our objectives
The down-and-
dirty everyday
decision-making
and planning that
really makes things
happen
You do have a mission, objectives & strategy, right?
Mission Objectives Strategy TacticsTactics
The down-and-dirty everyday decision-making
and planning that really make things happen
But…

8. How do you develop tactics?
Understand your local conditions…
=
William Morris Tea Room, V&A Freakybuttrue Peculiarium

9. versus
Museum
Culture
Digital
Change

10. Change in museums and change in digital
All museums look like this All digital is well cool and cutting-edge
Technology changes fast and unpredictably

11. Museums versus Digital
Rapidly changing, with a tendency to
disrupt and change social behaviour
Competitive consumer- and business-
driven impetus steering development
and investment
Communally-driven transient
communication channels
Services over physical, web and
mobile, increasingly by direct data
connections
Conservative role of preserving
culture and stability
Authority-led role as selective
owners and disseminators of
knowledge
Tradition of top-down
communication of information
Historically location-focussed

12. Understand your organisation

13. Things to consider about technology in your organisation
Who initiates technical
projects, and why?
What are the resources
you will need, both
technology and expertise?
How does governance
work and who has formal
and unofficial power?
Understanding official and
informal communication
channels
What is the culture and
how is it led?
What are the existing
technical platforms and
integration issues?

14. Who initiates technical projects, and why?
Governance….

15. Technical platforms and integration issues

16. Resources - technology and staff expertise

17. Governance, power and your organisation
Types of power

18. Senior
Management
Team
Trustees
Grant
Funding
bodies
Individual
Senior
curator
Individual
Senior
curator
Individual
Senior
curator
Repeat for
Other
individuals
Your project,
programme or dept.
Legitimate
power
Reward
power?
Expert
Power
Unpredictable
Power
Coercive
power?
Gatekeeper

19. Consider
How much power different groups or individuals hold
How qualified they are to make decisions affecting your project
How best to pitch communications with them
Who the gatekeepers are, who controls access to them

20. Official and informal communication channels
Staff newsletters
Decree
Catching people in corridors
Pressing the flesh
Gossip
Press Releases
Intranet
Meetings
Chat in the canteen
email
Web Project spaces
Twitter
phone
Issuing procedures
Understand how things get communicated
by different people or departments
(and what is most effective with them)

21. Organisational culture and how is it led
Everyone leads so…
make sure you are leading deliberately
(See above for ideas how)

22. Forces – for you and against you

23. Project planning – Traditional approach
Current State New State
New Tech/Services
Business Systems
Hardware upgrades
Expertise
Management processes
Justadd
Sorted!

24. Project planning – Force Field Analysis (after Kurt Lewin)

25. Force Field Analysis – Start with ideal outcome

26. Examples -
Force Field Analysis

27. Only accept money that
supports your strategy
Define your technology
governance process
Define and later defend your
terms of reference
Be clear about
responsibilities
Formalise sign off
Assess partnerships against strategy
Do a powerholder/gatekeeper review
Neigh-sayers
Executive override
Unrepresentative
personal opinion
Brand control-freakery
SCOPE CREEP
Free money
Joint projects
Lack of agreement on aims
Unilateral tech
decision making
Example: Tactics for managing governance
Objective:
Keeping
true to your
technology
strategy

28. Uncertainty of technological trends
Assuming current user behaviour
will stay the same
Building technology not services
Focussing on backend efficiencies
Trying to copy success
Being tied to poor systems
Assuming your views represent your audiences’
Faster, smaller changes
Ask your audiences directly
Short planning cycles
Define service and system lifespans
Use betas and piloting
Require data to substantiate claims
Define success in advance
Example: Tactics for avoiding building irrelevant services
Objective:
Ensuring
your
services
are what
your
audiences
want

29. Project phases

30. Consider tactics within the context of project phases
Identify Need
Research options and select approach
Define the scope, remit and success criteria
Create a project plan
Identify and allocate project resources
Execute the project plan
Integrate systems and change operational processes
Test outcomes and sign off
Launch and bed down
Evaluate against criteria and document lessons
Close down project

31. Examples –
The humble checklist

32. Example: Checklist for assessing risk in tech proposals
Is the project driven by external funding?
Are the users it is aimed at representative of your current priority audiences?
Does the proposal appear to be driven by an attempt to copy something a rival
museum has launched?
Can proposers really demonstrate how the project supports your current
organisational strategies (either digital or more generally)?
Apply a “would anyone actually use this and why?” test

33. Examples –
Visualisation as a communication tactic

34. “Having a responsive mobile site is important”
9.8
17.9
12.513.1
28.6
16.8
18.3
35.0
21.9
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Whole site Visit Us Whats' On
Percentage growth in use of V&A website on mobile devices
(phones and tablets)
Jan-12 Jul-12 Jan-13

35. “A multiple-feed blog delivers consistent content”
Blog A
Blog B
Blog C
Blog D
Blog E
A+B+D+D+E

36. Learning
Research
Artist in
Residence
Poster
collection
Engraved
ornament
V&A Network
The Network“A multiple-feed blog delivers consistent content”

37. Examples -
Using evidence

38. 18,961 visits from same
header link on ALL pages
(includes home page)
8,961 visits from here
21,089 visits
from here
slidesha.re/ZoOiOr
Cross-promotion

39. How people really use navigation…
12
3
5
4

40. Summary

41. Tactics
Are there to deliver the goods. To make stuff happen
Are pointless without mission, objectives and strategies
Are context-based. You have to understand the local environment
Don’t just happen, they need awareness and thought
Can be developed more effectively by applying simple methods

42. Andrew Lewis
Thank you
http://linkd.in/andrewlewis
http://twitter.com/rosemarybeetle
Victoria and Albert Museum
Access full MW2013 paper: bit.ly/musetactics
Download this presentation: slideshare.net/AndrewLVandA