Transition Planning

Artist: : Eron Davide Salvadei

In a large capital project, the transition plan is typically over shadowed by the series of plans that precede it. Earlier in the process, the strategic business plan, exhibit master plan, architectural plan, case for support, and fundraising plan are developed. Coming much later in the process, when it feels as if so much has been done that little could be left, the transition plan appears on the radar screen.

Obviously, a great deal of very critical planning has already been done. But the final steps of translating and operationalizing the project’s aspirations and intentions into the new space are indispensible. How will the vision for a stunning new wing, a LEED building, a sculpture garden, or 30,000 square feet of new exhibits approach their hoped-for potential if membership cycles span months the museum is closed, staff is not trained, programs are untested, and storage for back-up materials has yet to be found. How will the museum know whether the first year has been a success?

Connecting Resources Across Time

Transition planning connects the people, tasks, resources, and time a museum needs to move through a succession of milestones to complete a major capital project: leaving one facility, moving into another, opening to the public, and operating during the first 12 months.

A standard definition of the transition plan is elusive and, perhaps, for good reason. Realistically, transition plans vary because every project is different. The transition for a museum starting up is very different than for an established museum opening a new wing, one bringing a large outdoor area on line, or new construction involving relocation to a new site.

Regardless of project specifics, transition planning shares some similarities. The time from winding down the old and becoming skilled at operating the new is about expanding ownership of and deepening familiarity with the museum’s new home, from a small group of people who have guided the project to a broader circle of staff. It deals with consolidating what is known about the present museum operation, the new facility and operation, and determining what needs to be accomplished during the transition phase. It relies on identifying the information and expertise necessary to plan for the changes ahead and building comfort with uncertainty and change.

Looking more closely, a plan that covers this time is a actually set of interconnected plans focusing on multiple phases defined by milestones following a critical path.

• Multiple phases. A series of phases typically involve closing down one operation, moving into a new facility, opening to the public, and operating through the first year. Milestones such as letting bids, groundbreaking, occupancy, exhibit installation, and opening events mark these phases.

• A set of interconnected plans cover all museum areas including programming, finance, marketing, development, facility, workforce, and daily operations.

• A critical path is the sequence of activities that add up to the longest overall duration required to complete a project. It both determines the shortest time possible to complete a project and also captures the interim deadlines and deliverables.

Times of Great Change

A museum going through this transition will not just have a new address or occupy a bigger space. Whether it rebrands itself or not, a museum will change its identity in small and large, subtle and more obvious ways. A constant shift between past and future and the competing demands of farewells and celebrations ensures a lively stretch of time. To navigate smoothly across multiple phases at a critical time in its growth, a museum must constantly manage complexity, grow capacity, and deal with uncertainty.  

Interconnections among museum areas add a level of complexity to transition planning. Marketing promotes programs; membership rates relate to admission prices and program fees; staffing levels are calibrated to expected attendance. A museum’s hope for a cohesive visitor experience with mission-related activities demands cross-functional planning as well. Planning in one area, development, for instance, will quickly encounter decisions and deadlines in marketing, membership, workforce, and finance.

During transition planning, a museum gathers and organizes information at an increasingly granular level and projects it onto more specific time frames and spaces. Pricing structures, attendance projections, earned revenue goals, and staff levels have likely been determined as part of the project’s strategic business plan. They may have been revisited and updated over the project’s run incorporating new information. But new information continues to arrive as do more specific questions arise about building systems, exhibition maintenance, on-boarding staff, daily schedules, updated policies and procedures, and opening events.

On the one hand, the physical changes become increasingly apparent. The building goes up, sculptures are installed, exhibits are commissioned. Yet staff must be increasingly precise in how they will operate a building where they have spent little or no time. How will they manage crowding? (By the way, what does crowding look and feel like in that new or renovated lobby?) What does emergency preparation involve here? How will staff be prepared to greet, serve, and engage visitors, partners, and friends in the membership line, at the bus drop off, in the café, or outside in the new nature area?  

Complexity, uncertainty, and change persist in new forms throughout the first year. Upon opening, a museum will definitely find itself in a territory with few meaningful benchmarks for its performance. Conditions such as location, size, and novelty have changed substantially; donors are transitioning from capital to annual appeals; a big marketing campaign has put the museum into a bright spotlight. Consequently, attendance patterns, average ticket prices, membership renewal rates, store sales, annual gifts, program participation (and more) that the museum will record over the first year will relate only somewhat to past patterns, if there are any. There is little or no baseline information for measuring, comparing, and guiding museum decisions. There won’t be for a good portion of the first year.

Picking Your Path Through Transition Planning

Complexity, uncertainty, and change make transition planning hard enough. Not being a standard part of a large capital project makes this planning even more challenging. Daunting as this might seem, however, a museum can navigate the transition territory picking up on how other museums have done this work.

• Start early. Transition planning takes time, time to organize, to work on the transition plan itself, and to implement it. Because every museum project varies, the time to start will also vary. For example, a new museum that hasn’t been in operation may need a transition plan that covers moving into the building, opening events, and the first operating year. A museum building a new building on its current site may close for 2 years and offer programs and pop-ups at community locations; its transition plan may span almost 4 years. At a minimum, a transition plan should cover 9 months before and 9 months after opening.

 

• Involve staff and board. Not all museums are able to develop their transition plans internally. A museum starting up may not have any staff or staff with the experience, breadth, and capacity to develop plans in all areas. It might, however, have staff with knowledge critical to the visitor experience and skills to train staff. Use it. Even when a museum finds that working with a consultant or team of consultants best provides the needed time and expertise, staff and board should be very involved. Their internal and local knowledge is essential to customizing the transition plan to their museum and community. Equally important, they must own and implement the plans.

• Scope plans to fit the museum’s situation. A review of existing plans and their scopes should indicate where more current information and a coordinated approach to the transition are needed. Depending on the planning that has already been done, plans may be needed for: finance, earned revenue, marketing and communication, community engagement, visitor experience, programs, exhibits, workforce, building and grounds, data and IT, development, or opening events. Especially if staff is developing them, plan scopes should not be too large or too small. Finance could be a single (and massive) plan encompassing earned revenue, development, and workforce. Or there could be separate plans for the store, admissions, membership, and rentals that require greater coordination. Identify plan scopes and who’s responsible for each plan.

• Look back and forward. Looking to the future starts with looking back and exploring questions like, what have we learned from successes and limitations at our current site that will enable us to significantly advance our mission and serve our visitors better at our new site? Addressing this question will involve looking at existing data and past patterns, understanding what has worked well, and deciding where changes are needed. Looking ahead to tracking its success, a museum can help itself by identifying performance indicators for each of its plans and how to track them.

• Learn from other museums. Examples of transition plans are scarce. A single announcement of a museum’s transition to a new building shows up on Google. A chapter in the 3^rd edition of Barry Lord, Gail Lord and Lindsay Martin’s The Manual of Museum Planning touches on getting to opening day. Fortunately, colleagues who have completed the transition to a new operation are generous in sharing what they learned along the way. Whether a capital project is a renovation, expansion, or new building, lessons cluster around: get aligned to focus on the tasks ahead; put staff training at the top of the list of things to prepare for; and be kind to one another.

• Be prepared to grow. Transition planning is not just a great opportunity to grow staff, volunteers, and board internal capacity. It’s inevitable and necessary. Plans must focus on additional resources—staff, expertise, space, furniture and equipment, and partners—necessary for the work ahead. More staff, new positions, and expanded expertise among existing staff from leadership levels to entry positions produce growth in many forms. Concomitantly, a new organizational culture takes root in both deliberate and unexpected ways. With new staff come fresh perspectives, familiarity with other resources and practices, and an eagerness to find a place in the organization. Long-time staff holds valuable organizational knowledge and perhaps attachment to long-held practices that may, or may not, be suited for the next phase. The moment is ripe for veteran and new staff to team up and work together in new ways.

• Be intentional in every way and at every step. Every decision is as an opportunity to reinforce what matters in this great organizational change. Selecting the transition team, shaping a collaborative process, and sharing information can communicate inclusion, openness and valuing participation. Sharing plans regularly at a Transition Team meeting informs, updates and coordinates them with one another. Being timely in updating plans and the critical path, meeting deadlines, and using information to make decisions moves the museum towards greater efficiency, sustainability, and stellar service. All of which will be in high demand when the doors open and visitors pour in.

Related Museum Notes Posts

• Vision, Process, and Position for the Big Museum Project

• Building Capacity to Have Capacity

Rewind: Planning to Plan

Any major planning effort, like a strategic plan, master plan, or a facility plan can feel daunting. Maybe it’s the first major plan for the museum since opening; perhaps board and staff have changed significantly since the last major planning effort. Or this could be a young museum’s very first plan. Whatever the conditions, a critical first step for any major planning effort is preparation. Preparation for planning is a bit like the planning process itself: engaging people in considering what must be accomplished, how best to do it, with whom, and with what resources. Four steps will prepare a museum for a solid planning effort.

§     Get people on board and build ownership. Since the planning process will involve others, start talking with them: staff, board, partners, and funders. Gathering ideas and drawing on other perspectives will build ownership from the start. Conversations can be informal or more formal as “job number one” of a planning task force. Ask others what they hope the plan will accomplish, issues they see facing the museum, planning challenges, who should be involved, and the kind of planning expertise needed. Talk with key supporters early on. It’s an opportunity to show you’re proactive on behalf of the organization’s future. You can also explore possible support for the planning process itself or for some aspect of implementation. Lay the groundwork for sharing the plan when completed.

§     Learn from experience–yours and others'. How you approach the next round of planning is influenced by previous planning. Do a quick assessment of past planning efforts, of what worked and didn’t work so well. Did you get the plan you wanted? Did staff and board feel they were included and informed? Did the plan seem too generic? Too much of a stretch? Did people feel the plan sat on a shelf? How could implementation have been better?

You can learn as much from other museums’ planning efforts as from your own. Ask about the planning work museums comparable to yours have done recently. Identify museums of comparable size and type in other parts of the country as well as similar local organizations that have done recent planning. Consider asking about how long a planning process took, who participated, whether it was facilitated internally or externally, what information they gathered, how much it cost, what they wish they’d done differently, and how pleased they were with the plan. Ask for a copy of the plan or a table of contents to see what the plan covered. All of this will help in determining the plan’s scope and can help in deciding whether to issue a request for proposals (RFP) for planners and what the RFP might include.

§     Shape the scope. Figuring out the nature and the scope of the plan starts with placing your planning needs in a larger organizational and community context. Has it been five years since your last strategic plan? Is another museum expanding their services to reach your audience? Are funders asking tougher questions about the museum’s impact? Is it time to rethink your exhibits? Every plan is not necessarily a standard strategic plan, master plan, or exhibit plan. Typically a plan must be focused to reflect a particular time frame (i.e. five-to-six years or annual); an organizational focus (capacity building, learning impact, community engagement, etc.); or a focused area of change on an existing strategic platform (relocation, sustainability, etc.).

Considering potential stakeholder involvement helps determine the scope. Is significant community input important? Should you be reaching across sectors of the community? Is internal alignment on core activities critical? Factors such as external deadlines and a compressed timeline can affect a plan’s scope as can cost. Since a plan can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000, get a realistic idea of what the type of plan you want is likely to cost.

§     Match the resources to the plan. Reviewing all the gathered information will give a clearer idea of the resources your plan requires. Resources generally include time, expertise, and funding which are inextricably intertwined. Based on what you hope the plan will accomplish, think about the skills and expertise required: planning expertise, facilitation skills, and museum knowledge.

Local non-profit strategic planners know strategic planning. They know your community and bring an objective perspective. Less often do they know museums, their current issues, and standards. A board member who is a strategic planner will know the museum, but may lack objectivity.

While museum expertise can be valuable in strategic planning or financial planning, it is necessary in developing education plans and exhibit plans. Specific expertise may, or may not, be available locally so getting to know the local, regional and national landscape will help in deciding potential planners and likely travel costs. Sometimes a plan’s authority is linked with a particular type of expert; sometimes its credibility comes from expert local knowledge. In every case, skilled facilitation is critical to engaging participants and moving the planning process forward and can be provided by someone from inside or outside the organization with the right skills and enough time.

A combination of internal and external players can be a good choice. In the end, the right team always brings together expertise and local knowledge; is compatible and interested in producing the best plan; and fits a museum’s price range and schedule.

Preparation for planning does take time. It also makes a real difference. Preparatory work develops a shared understanding among key players about what’s ahead and removes a few of the inevitable obstacles. It helps bring the right players together; manages expectations about the process and the resulting plan. All aspects of preparation help set a planning process on a smooth course.


--> Related Museum Notes  • Ready? Set? Plan  
• A Pocketful of Planning Notes  
• Public Value: From Good Intentions to Public Good 

Consolidating the Gains: After the Museum Doors Open

Minnesota Children's Museum 1995. (Photo credit: Jeffrey P. Grosscup)

The ribbon has been cut and the doors to the new museum swing wide open welcoming friends, members, supporters, neighbors, and the curious.  

Opening day festivities are well attended. The new spaces are awe-inspiring; the exhibitions sparkle. Fundraising is virtually complete and the punch list has been pared to a manageable length. Systems have been tested and tweaked. Media campaigns have drawn the hoped-for attention. Donor and member events have been great successes. The rounds and rounds of prototyping caught the bugs early. The community discussions that inspired the vision for the big museum project still feel inspiring. Years of planning now seem like a blur.

Twenty years after opening day at the “new” Minnesota Children’s Museum (http://www.mcm.org) on September 16, 1995 these impressions are still with me along with the many lessons I was fortunate to learn about planning and opening a museum. Yet, as memorable as the opening was, the following year and the lessons learned navigating it were even more enduring.

The Big Lesson 

Those lessons cluster around a single message. No matter how resounding a success everyone thinks and says the opening and new museum are and how amazingly well the first months go, the critical task is to retain and consolidate the gains made through the expansion and over the first months of operations.

This challenge also comes to mind now as I read and hear about recent openings at the Do-Zeum, San Antonio’s Museum for Kids; Austin’s Thinkery; The Broad Museum in Los Angeles; the Mid-America Science Museum (Hot Springs, AR); the Children’s Museum of Sonoma County; the new wing at the Columbus Museum of Art; and the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota.

Whether doubling the physical footprint, building a wing for exhibitions, converting space for events, adding a large-screen theater or opening an extensive outdoor area, a large capital project has changed the museum. The transition from planning to opening to running a new institution is one of both planned and unexpected challenges that can make consolidating the gains more challenging than might seem.   

Every new such venture is originally fueled by enormous passion. Working with a shared vision of a building, a fresh visitor experience, new amenities, and stronger exhibit experience makes coordination and alignment of the museum’s efforts relatively easy. Once that milestone has passed, however, the view ahead is fuzzier. The territory in which a museum now finds itself is new. Familiar signposts, patterns and benchmarks from the past are either irrelevant or in serious need of updating. The temptation is great to feel the museum has arrived and that efforts getting there have the momentum to surge forward. The first months or even year after opening, known as the benefit period, won’t last forever and can disappear unexpectedly.

Along with the sense of enormous pride and accomplishment among staff, volunteers, and trustees on opening is relief and deep exhaustion. And yet, during any long-term project, a museum has cultivated partnerships, shared its aspirations broadly, actively invited the public into its life, and deliberately stepped into the limelight. The action is just beginning.
 

Retaining the Gains

Just what are the gains that need to be consolidated? During the course of planning, a museum has assessed the need to expand or renovate, made a case for support, cultivated community good will, projected attendance, raised funds, planned exhibits, developed new programs, brought on additional staff, set up new systems, and trained staff. From a new physical footprint to a new community footprint, it has quantified intended gains in areas across the museum and that the museum itself will have on the community. It has set new attendance targets and identified new audiences to reach. It has projected growth in expenses as well as income; set development goals; structured admission and membership; added new earned income activities; and calculated economic impact. New exhibits with new themes, topics, and learner impacts fill galleries and require on-going maintenance and repairs.

Consolidating gains typically means capturing the lessons learned; stabilizing financially and operationally; determining where to work harder to improve on what works; shoring up areas that lag behind; making the most of available momentum; and recognizing new opportunities. The museum shifts from promises and projections to targets and tracking. In this period of time, the museum has an opportunity to operate and serve from a higher platform. To do so, it needs to meet some consolidation challenges.

Consolidation Challenges 
Consolidation Challenge. Develop new baselines for benchmarking performance in key areas. In a new, larger, or renovated building, old benchmarks don’t work. Because square footage, attendance, and admission fees change, ratios for tracking key financial indicators and performance change. To know how the museum is doing and how it can do better, new data is needed, as is the time for collecting data, observing seasonality shifts and multiple cycles, and comparing actuals with projections.

Consolidation Challenge. Retain and support staff, especially key staff. With the expansion, the museum has added staff with new expertise while existing staff carry important organizational knowledge. Through training, the museum has invested in staff across the museum. The focus now is to retain and grow this expanded capacity during a period of transition. After a major project, people leave for various reasons. Temporary staff and contractors leave as work is completed. Permanent staff may be ready to move on, find a new challenge or change of pace. The same goes for trustees. Be kind.

Consolidation Challenge. Engage the audience and community at a higher level and in targeted ways. Many, if not most, projects begin with community input to assess the need for expansion, generate programmatic ideas, and prototype exhibits and programs. During the long process that follows, however, there’s little feedback from audiences. Upon opening, a flood of audience feedback, good and bad, pours forth. At this point, a museum needs to make the most of this feedback; be responsive and connect with visitors; and reinvigorate its community engagement strategies.

Consolidation Challenge. Focus on new opportunities to grow impact. Greater museum visibility, a sense of optimism, and increased capacity combine to catalyze new and larger opportunities for greater impact. A museum may enjoy a new position on the learning and cultural landscape, have a new seat at the table, or be able to set a new table around its priority interests. With an eye on delivering significant long-term impact, a museum should build on the strongest partnerships, work in areas of emerging expertise, and develop larger initiatives that align with community priorities.

Consolidation Challenge. Become the new museum. Expansion has changed the museum. It is a new institution with a new identity created through multiple changes starting with its building, possibly a new location or name, and on-line presence. A new logo, brand, and perhaps name have been unveiled, differentiating the museum from its former self and other venues. Now is the time to fully inhabit the promise of the museum through guest and learner experiences, text panels, the tone and spirit of interactions with staff and volunteers, and everyday moments.

Consolidation Challenge. Plan for a new future. The big museum project has been all about a new future for the museum, a future that has arrived and is already quickly receding. It’s time to rethink the museum’s future and get out in front of what’s coming next. Through strategic planning, a museum can reinvigorate its vision, look ahead, and build on the gains to generate new ways to better serve the community.

Related Museum Notes 
• Growing Site By Site

• Vision, Process and Position for the Big Museum Project
• Starting on a Higher Rung

Between Planning and Chance

Chance favors the prepared mind.

Attributed to Louis Pasteur

You plan and you plan and then you just have to acknowledge that some things will be left to chance.

This plannerism is one I keep in mind especially when deeply involved in a planning project that is winding down and moving towards implementation. What comes after planning? Opening a museum, launching a strategic plan, activating a learning framework, or unveiling an exhibition is much like the moment of taking off the training wheels and riding. What happens next?

This moment of transition from planning to action characterizes many aspects of museum work as well as teaching, planning a trip, finding a job, or, for that matter, life. For conferences, board retreats, organizational budgets, visitor panels, exhibition planning, or a strategic partnership, we can get the right people together, gather the needed information, meet with stakeholders, check-off the steps, develop a critical path, and have the right people in place. 

I suspect that, even when we have planned well, what we really want is an extraordinary version of our plan to play out, delivered by remarkable opportunities and chance.

We may be poised for opportunities, but we never know until the very moment whether we will recognize them or be able to act on them. Chance is not necessarily the unexpected popular guest arriving with impeccable timing. Sometimes chance shows up as back-to back blizzards, illness, or road construction. While we don't know just what chance will deliver or when, chance will play a role. 

Even with a firm a belief in the value of planning and the preparation it provides, how can we leave room for chance? Will we be ready when the ideal site is available long before we planned to start a site search? Can we take advantage of a special granting opportunity when we don’t have all the right people in place? We cannot predict, schedule or invoke opportunity or a lucky break. But we can find ways to make space for chance in planning and in living the plan.

Intentionality and Thinking in Time

From a strategic agenda to a conference agenda, from facility design to exhibition design, planning is being deliberate about accomplishing something significant for a museum, its visitors, and community. We identify the steps along the way and the means for accomplishing them–time, space, prepared staff, funds, and partners. As well as knowing what we want to achieve and encourage, we must also know what we are not after; we need to be alert to signals and precursors of opportunity and wrong turns that might lie on our path.

The larger a planning intention is, the more comprehensive planning will be. Yet, planning is not having everything figured out and tied with a bow. Rather than a script for the future, planning, at its best, develops a shared clarity about what is important and what we hope will happen. Because the future is necessarily uncertain, planning is as much a way of thinking and preparing for possible opportunities as having a detailed plan. Both strategic thinking and design thinking activate a static plan document or rendered exhibition design by the everyday thinking that continues long after the plan is officially complete.

When staff continues to focus on a plan's or project's purpose and intent, they are able to generate relevant insights that allow the museum to be nimble in a dynamic context. Thinking in time and making an integrated set of choices help optimize opportunities and navigate challenges whether the project is opening a satellite facility, launching a professional development center, creating a nature area, adding a maker space, or incorporating dialogue into interactions with visitors. This is living the plan.

Near and Far Horizons

Fast forward. A plan has been launched. A strategy team is meeting for the first time. The exhibit has opened and visitors are streaming through the gallery doors. The creativity framework is being shared across museum departments.

On the heels of completing a plan a critical but subtle shift occurs: merging day-to-day choices with overarching purpose. Living the letter of a plan is, on the one hand, artificial and rigid. Plans, frameworks, and exhibit designs are, necessarily, idealized versions of what we think should happen. In contrast, implementation is immersion in immediate, practical circumstances constantly in flux. Focusing completely on the everyday at the exclusion of the big picture can lead down rabbit holes and obscure opportunities and new possibilities.

Living in both the plan’s far and near time frames is vital. Active dialogue between them and alertness to approaching opportunities is facilitated by frequent discussions that easily shift between; they link the big picture with current choices. As decision points approach, we revisit past decisions in light of current information. We adjust our view to look at the big picture with a broader or narrower perspective. Reassessing the situation sometimes requires letting go and starting a new path. Challenging assumptions, noticing information that doesn’t fit, and being wary of confirmation bias help trefocus or bring developing conditions into focus.

J. P. Morgan noted, in planning as in life, we go as far as we can see. When we get there, we can see farther. What was invisible or out of view earlier is now visible and apparent.

Awake and Alert to the Moment

A plan isn’t going to send up flares to announce an approaching opportunity. Being alert and awake to the moment is the only remedy; it is, however, not as simple as it seems. An unlikely combination of concentration and responsiveness, it requires keeping a steady focus on what is to be accomplished, a openness to alternatives, and readiness for an adaptive response.

Difficult to put into in words, it is equally challenging to pull off in the moment. The image of a dowser holding a divining rod lightly in order to sense the tug of water far below suggests a readiness for the unexpected

In the municipal infant-toddler centers and preschools in Reggio Emilia (IT), one expression of planning is a well-developed structure and thoughtful organization that support teachers in guiding children’s explorations. A clear, but broad, agenda and preparation inform teachers’ choices as children pursue interests and follow bigger ideas. Extensive explorations, often spreading over weeks and even months, emerge from a focus on a well-planned activity, reflection on what’s occurring, and a responsiveness to children’s interests and questions.

While in a classroom, not a museum and in a pedagogical rather than a strategic frame, teachers concerned with larger goals are also attuned to what is happening as children express fascination and ask questions. Teachers are alert to what is happening, what might happen, and are ready to capitalize on an unanticipated twist or happy accident when chance comes to the classroom.

Reflection and Action

Along with intentionality and thinking in time, embracing near and far time horizons, and being alert and awake in the moment, reflection and action inhabit the time and space between planning and chance.

Practiced individually or as a group, reflection introduces important qualities not readily available and decidedly different from what task-driven action and decision-making pressures yield. In stepping away from the everyday, even if briefly, reflection creates a space for paying critical attention, making sense of what has occurred, and consolidating learning. Through reflection we may backtrack through choices, ask new questions, re-sort information, and reassess progress. We may integrate intention with actual experience, synthesize opposing ideas, and connect knowledge from prior experience to current options and choices. A new continuity emerges from hundreds of separate steps and actions.  

Reflection generates new ways of seeing. By reprocessing information, we may understand differently what has or hasn’t happened–or what could have happened. We may see something that wasn’t apparent before or see it in a new light. Bringing a new viewpoint to a situation can re-frame a problem, discover an ally, find a fertile a crack between two obstacles, or reveal ways to restructure work and move forward.

Insights from reflection often offer a glimpse of the possible, an imagination of what might happen. It might put us on a path to deliberate action that we couldn’t have appreciated before; open a door we didn’t know was there. We may recognize an opening for action.

Even if the space between planning and chance is different from what we sometimes wish it were, it is, nevertheless, roomy, rich, and often unexplored territory. Sometimes it delivers the results of hard work rather than a free sample. Sometimes it produces a generous shift rather than an ordered gift. But under a few right conditions, the space between planning and chance delivers.

 “… something incredibly wonderful happens.”

Frank Oppenheimer

Place Matters

Place matters. It matters to children and families, to communities and regions, and so–too–to museums and what they offer.

Place

An attractive but complex concept, place is more than physical setting, more than precise coordinates, or geography, weather, or historical markers. Place is something we experience directly, physically, and intensely through our senses. Place is also intangible, carrying the spirit of a physical setting that emanates from the shape and the feel of the land; from ground and vistas and how they meet; and from the quality of light and blue of the sky.

Describing, or defining, place can be difficult because we are surrounded so continuously by it. We might not notice until it changes or until we change our place.

Place Matters

Place is an important way in which we make meaning of the world. We mark our lives according to place. We live at an address, navigate using GPS, and share information with friends on Four-Square. Fundamentally, place is where we come from, where we feel alive, and where we find the past in the present moment. We want to know and be where we are. We share places with others, return to places that hold meaning, and remember and tell stories brimming with place.

Pipestone, MN

Many believe there is an instinctive connection between people and places referred to as a sense of place, place making, and the power of place. Place-people connections take many forms: experiencing smells, warmth, moisture, pungency particular to a place; identifying personally and deeply with it; feeling a bond or attachment to a place; and fiercely and proudly sharing a sense of place with others.

Some places have a greater degree of identity. A spectacular landform that has acquired meaning for many people over time distinguishes one place from others. A remarkable place often gains power from the intersection of the natural environment, culture, and technology–where people have invested labor, ingenuity, and perseverance in working land and resources. Power builds on power when a place of significance resonates with people, pulls and draws them to it because of what happened there over many years.

Place Matters to Museums

Place matters. It matters to children discovering who they are, exploring their world, and finding their place in it. Place matters to families growing and deepening connections to their communities. It matters to communities staying vibrant and being resilient. And place matters to visitors and newcomers who want to know and feel a place and what makes it distinctive.

The mill traces that powered the flour mills

Museums want and need to matter, to be meaningful and valued by the people and communities they serve. Their presence at powerful or distinctive intersections of the natural environment and human environments often establishes their relevance. At the water’s edge, in a park, or on a promontory; in an historic house, mill, or lighthouse; at a landmark, site of an engineering feat, or where a plesiosaur was discovered, museums, zoos and nature centers capitalize on local assets and pride. They are in a strong position to engage people in exploring, understanding, and connecting to the unique character of their surroundings.

Museums often view themselves as a commons, town square, or crossroads. Being grounded in place serves them in this role. It strengthens their connection with audience and community. Place counters a growing separation from the land that has been occurring. The emotional bonds to and knowledge of a place that visitors often bring offer a starting point for engagement, alternative perspectives, and new relationships. For those already familiar with the noteworthy and distinct qualities of a place, a museum’s rootedness can build on existing ties and heighten a sense of belonging. The appeal of something that only happens right here or with resources found exclusively here can attract experience samplers and collectors of novel experiences. Interpretation of engineering feats like the greatest direct driven power the world has seen in the mills at St Anthony Falls in Minneapolis now builds on local pride and interests in alternative energy. Place is always in process, evolving naturally, in memory, and meaning over time; inviting residents, neighbors, and tourists to return, reflect, and reconnect.

A place-based and local approach can also welcome in new and different audiences. Meaningful settings and engaging scenes may serve as an easy entry point for novice museumgoers. Shared heritage, contributions of historically underrepresented groups, or exploration of a local environmental issue can extend relationships with the museum. Reweaving the fabric of dispersed communities and sharing forgotten stories on place as the The Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York city do reach out to new audiences.

The Wing Luke Asian Museum (Photo: AIArchitect)

Being place-based is being local. As daily life becomes more global, being local becomes increasingly valued. We are not likely to be flooded with emotion or memories when we step into a chain grocery store, restaurant, or hotel that could be in any city or along any highway. But we do experience time and human capabilities intensely when we look onto the ruins of old mill buildings or step onto a stone landing where hundreds of thousands of new immigrants first arrived in their new land. Obscure, local details about place are intriguing. Local terms for landforms fascinate: knob, gap, holler, cove, bald, coulee, glen. Often–but not only–food carries the mantle of being local. Landscape, music, architecture can feel intensely local and certainly weather does. Morning fog and evening mist give a sense of local time to space.

Place Matters to Museums In Creating Experiences

Some museums draw strength and identity from their place and fully inhabit it–historic houses, maritime

St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum: views of history

museums, natural history museums, forts, and lighthouses. Several varied examples are described in the Museums Now blog by Janet Petitpas to which I would add a few of my favorites such as Shelburne Farms, Columbia Gorge Discovery Center, St. Augustine Lighthouse (FL), and Aldo Leopold’s Shack on a worn-out farm along the Wisconsin River outside of Baraboo.   

While some museums may be less obviously grounded in place, any museum can dig in and find place-based connections to what its audience finds distinct, and meaningful. How do museums not blessed with an intrinsically powerful place create and convey a sense of place for visitors? Museum planning is a major avenue for deliberately exploring place in the context of a stretch of river, waterfront, or watershed, of views of bluffs or a nearby quarry, or in relation to an art colony or regional hub. At every organizational level, planning is a tool: for exploring and framing vision and mission, understanding the valued aspect of place, and engaging learners and placemakers across the lifespan.  A museum can consider how to use its resources, expertise, and creativity to influence and be influenced by its neighborhood in thinking about the following.

• Distinct and meaningful qualities related to location, area history, natural environment, cultural, and industrial past
• How to bring a broader perspective to specific features and their interaction in shaping lives and community
• How children and adults can experience a sense of place within and around the museum to connect with their interests and lives
• The varied and engaging experiences can strengthen place-based connections

Becoming Place-based and Place-filled

Tacoma waterfront meets the Museum of Glass

Museums can bring meaning to a place by making connections and relationships between people and place visible and active. Buildings, bridges, boats, shacks, gardens, and, even ruins carry the ambience of a place along with materials, plants, light, and stories. Windows may frame a view that says, “I’m home,” feature a local phenomenon, or capture changes in season, weather, and time of day. Materials that are local and locally sourced ground a museum in its own place. For example, the Baraboo-based Leopold Foundation used trees that Leopold himself had planted to construct its new building; Madison Children’s Museum used virtually all re-purposed materials in its exhibits that came from within 100 miles of Madison. Stone quarried locally and brickwork and the work of stonecutters and masons highlight a museum’s geology. Design references may be local as well, with elements reflecting vernacular or outstanding examples of architecture like the Flynn-Batagglia building for the Naval and Military Park at Buffalo’s Canalside.

Community engagement in planning, curating and interpreting place weaves understanding with meaning over time and from distinct and valued perspectives. Deep knowledge, varied experiences, and a sense of ownership of both natural and cultural environments can contribute understanding, memories, stories, and artifacts. Community voices speaking from direct experience, knowledge, and attachment narrate how a museum grew out of a particular place, keep memories of Borrum’s Woods vivid, and renew the museum’s relevance.

Creating Place-based Experiences

Window view and graphic at MOHAI, Seattle

The rich, tangible, and intangible qualities of place played out across three-dimensions are critical in creating meaningful place-based experiences in and around museums that explore, "you are here." These experiences build on the attractive and compelling qualities inspired by landforms and natural resources, views and stories, and the ingenuity and persistence pioneers and passersby invested in a place.

Museums bring their own creativity and ingenuity to connect visitors with place. Adjacencies and attention to scale; artifacts, real materials, and traces of past activity; tools to use and objects to touch; navigation with media; and opportunities for play carry the fullness of place. Even without re-enactors and replicas, visitors can become immersed in a place and its meanings as explorers, builders, placemakers, and creators themselves. At build platforms they build and rebuild cities, bridges, and houses; they finger topographic maps and models of the canal or mill traces. They dig for fossils or bones or play at a river exhibit located overlooking the real dig site or river, making comparisons, tracing perimeters, and pointing to identifying features. They stand between a current trolley and an image of its 20th century counterpart. 

Playing with place

Standing within a picture frame of a view or joining statues posing at a scenic overlook, visitors play with place, smile and imagine. Using new technology in unusual places, visitors experience New York’s Central Park through QR codes, listening to a concert played in this band shell or viewing a clearing as it was 100 years ago.

 Place-based Learning

Whether or not a museum is located on a noteworthy site, it can relate to the forces that shaped the past, are relevant to the present, and are affecting the future. Place-based learning is sometimes implemented museum-wide but is also familiar in museum programs, nature and environmental centers, and in school settings. This multi-disciplinary approach emphasizes learning through participation. Learners at every age are viewed as active agents and creators of knowledge.

Islandwood, Bainbridge Island

Place-based learning engages students and community members in exploring local cultures, landscape, or  environments. Projects are concrete, specific, and current, connecting local issues with participants’ daily lives and personal experiences. Some projects are of significant scale in participation and scope like the Sperm Whale Project­, an ocean conservation initiative carried out by the entire Homer (AL) community through the Pratt Museum. This and other projects presented in the Fall 2007 issue of the Journal of Museum Education highlight the variety of place-based learning in museums. 

Grounded in place themselves, museums actively harness the power of place to strengthen their relevance and value to their visitors and communities. Looking to the sweep and roll of the land, where water and land meet, and to the blue of the sky, museums create place-based experiences and environments for children and families, residents and tourists. With collections, interpretation, media, design, immersive environments, interactive experiences, docents and guides, and responsive customer service, museums engage, animate, interpret, and reveal connections and perspectives about its location and the experience of being there–whether there is the Immigrant Steps at the Erie Canal, on Main Street in Winona, MN, or on the waterfront in Tacoma.

Knowledge of a place–where you are and where you come from–is intertwined with knowledge of who you are. Landscape, in other words, shapes mindscape. - David Orr, Center for Eco-Literacy 

Resources

Milwaukee Art Center lifts off on the Lake Michigan lakefront

• Place-Based Education and the Museum. Journal of Museum Education. Volume 32, No. 3. Fall 2007
• Place-based Learning post by Janet Petitpas on Museums Now blog
• Promise of Place: Enriching Lives Through Place-based Education
• Project for Public Spaces
• Center for Eco-Literacy