A strategic plan for an organization is similar to designing a bridge that will take an organization from where it is to where it aspires to be. Most strategic plans have three- to five-year time horizons that incorporate a vision for the organization, an analysis of the current environment, an analysis of the organization, strategic objectives and an action plan (although detailed implementation plans are usually separate documents that are developed after the strategic plan has been adopted). Organizations must think and act strategically if they are going to survive and thrive within uncertain and changing political, economic and technological environment. This level of planning is a tool to help clarify what is really important and to help individuals within organizations to identify reasonable goals rather than vague, unrealistic or impossible targets. The strategic plan and its subset, long-range facilities plan, should summarize a pattern of possibilities across programs, projects, policies and resource allocations. (Wallace 1998).
Beginning in the late 1980s, Canadian and American anthropologists working with a few progressive museums began to experiment with ways to expand the museum-goer’s engagement with knowledge and objects held at these institutions. The idea was to encourage users to stay longer, come back more frequently and delve more deeply into the subject matter. (Bradburne 2001) The problem for museums extended to their two-dimensional display of most artifacts and their lack of imaginative use of facility space. If only the visitor could be elevated to the level of user, student or engaged learner, and the museum presented its cache of works and knowledge in a way that appealed to contemporary society, then the accusation of irrelevance from a significant part of the population would start to dissipate.
In the words of former NY Times architectural critic, the strategic planners first have to decide “What the museum wants to be.” (Goldberger 1975). Museum genres may range from single theme institutions, to science, technology and industrial focuses; to national art galleries; to great and cultural complexes. It is at this far margin where museum planners have trod new ground in the past generation. There are, for the individual museum site, issues of “shell,” “containers,” and “contents,” (Montaner 1990). Spaces for which the strategic facility planning team must be concerned are: Multifunctional or specialized space, art and artifact display space, storage of rare objects, conservation and restoration, gathering and educational space, restaurant/museum shop, administration/offices, circulation and physical plant.
As part of a museum’s adjustment or anticipation to changes in society and perspectives on facilities, strategic plans are beginning to incorporate new uses and technologies that are accessible to all. A new museum in Frankfurt, Germany, assumes that it is a “piazza” within which a museum oriented playground and reading tables are situated. Wine served in the museum café is poured into flutes that are designed by a famous industrial designer, and these glasses are available in lead crystal in the Museum store. (Bradburne 2001) Other museums have programmed and built computer learning laboratories for digital graphic classes attended by children and others. Not only are digital story screens becoming available with some museum displays, but wireless internet access is available to answer any question that may have been stimulated during the exhibition or museum exhibit.
One of the most interesting aspects of the museum facility is the necessity of maintaining strict control over temperature, humidity and light to preserve artifacts, and how these displays must be separated from the outer environment and from human beings. The physical plant must be as reliable as in a hospital. From another standpoint, museum “owners” want their buildings to reflect their image, both as an intimate place in which to ponder art or craft; and as a monumental tribute to the finest that men and women can create. Many museums build in a physical mood or physical test to accent the experience of finding hidden treasures and new knowledge. These facility features can range from a set of stairs, to a soaring vestibule to a passageway that opens onto a brightly lit gallery. The museum user, through his or her perseverance, earns the privilege of understanding and encounters surprise and delight through the experience. The greatest things in life tend to be those that you discover on your own. (Newhouse 1998)
Every judgment that is made in assessing a museum’s future through strategic planning will affect future operations, and therefore the facility long-range planning must reflect the organizational strategic plan. Museum leaders have been redefining what sort of activities can take place within their facilities. Instead of looking at what should be shown to the public, the question has evolved to what can support and structure and sustain interaction with museum users. Museum managers, designers and educators now need to revamp their approach to work to provide formal and informal learning environments that invite the individual to participate, rather than the traditional museum role of broadcasting facts at the same level and rate at every visitor.
The experiences of the Hagley Museum and Library in Delaware, USA,M reveal that implementation of a strategic plan can revitalize an older institution. The Hagley location is part of the old DuPont powder works in Northern Delaware, and the museum houses a Center for the History of Business, Technology and Society. The museum was determined to create a rich interpretive experience for users and to market the library as a world class repository of original archives of America’s business and industrial history. The goals of broadening audiences, improving accessibility, opening up the research resources to users, working cooperatively with other institutions, providing better signage and expanding buildings within the organizational strategic plan have a direct impact on the facilities strategic plan. Other goals, such as improved technological access to collections and knowledge, and security for the 300 acre grounds, also add to the facility management team’s priorities and tasks. (Hagley Museum and Library 2003)
The measure of efficiency in good business management is profit. That measurement is not completely applicable to non-profit organizations whose emphasis is placed on a defined purpose or cause. In addition, museums are people intensive, both in their user base and within their own workforce. Museums tend to be labor-intensive, with museum professionals, academics and volunteers. Understanding and providing space for the many people-oriented activities within museums takes special care on the part of the museum facilities staff and their outsource partners. (Mestel 2003)
Non-profit institutions, and particularly museums, have struggled during the past two or three years. Tourism and especially cultural tourism was crushed in the months after the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center collapse. That disaster came amidst a stock market downturn that affected endowment funds for non-profits and non-governmental organizations across the country. With endowment, income and interest severely curtailed and visitor counts going down, museums had to rethink their futures. A few went out of business (such as the Discovery Center in Baltimore, MD). Many others cut staff and deferred maintenance. Some of the larger museums went on a campaign for capital funds (such as the Smithsonian Air and Space Annex, which received $64 million from a single donor). In order to survive, museums have begun to look for partners, a museum member who is more than simply a major donor or sponsor. The National Building Museum in Washington D has done well with the exhibit partner approach, such as with the “Stay Cool – History of Air Conditioning” exhibition sponsored by Carrier Corporation. Many have opened restaurants, rented out facilities, merchandized reproductions and increased admission charges.
Museums have also reached out to government agencies, other non-profit interest groups and universities in an attempt to secure their relevance and to consolidate their constituencies. For the most part, however, museums have looked within their own organizations to re-frame their purpose and “value proposition” and to build a common vision for their future desired state. Strategic planning means that before one takes a step forward, they must take a step back. Every organization must ask: Where are we going? Why are we going? And which route should we take to get there? (Teicholz 2001)
For those who work within the museum world, strategic planning is an exciting opportunity to juxtapose a profound interest in the past with a commitment to the future. This assertion is now realistic in government-owned museums in Nigeria as successive managers have improved the the physical and immaterial content of the museums for the future; this has resulted in improved visitors turn out. The artist Marcel Duchamp said that art is not complete until a viewer comes along to complete it. The same could be said of a museum: that it is not whole, that it is not really a museum until a user steps through its space.
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*Stanley-Amu is of the National Museum, Benin City.
