Walking the Talk: Transparency in Practice

TRANSPARENCY in PRACTICE

WALKING the TALK

CONTINUOUS FEEDBACK

TRANSPARENT PRACTICES

HOW MUCH TIME ARE YOU WILLING TO SPEND EACH WEEK TOWARDS SOLVING THESE PROBLEMS?

MAKING COMMUNICATION

VISIBLE

MAKING COMMUNICATION VISIBLE

AN INFORMATION RADIATOR

• Is easily readable to the casual, interested observer

• Is understood at a glance• Changes frequently• Is easily kept up to date

TRANSPARENT

BARRIERS TO

PRACTICES

BARRIERS TO TRANSPARENT PRACTICE

no. 1: EFFORT

no. 2: SECURITY

WHAT ABOUT SCALE

AND EFFICIENCY?

Flickr Credit: ~darrenhester

CAN METRICS

MAKE YOU BETTER

AT YOUR JOB?

WITHOUT BORING YOU

Flickr Credit ~cristiano_betta

TO DEATH

Launch: Sept 2007

Goals:SimplicityDeep DivesWorkflowFlexibility

IMA DASHBOARD

wWHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE?

“Of course, such systems [dashboards] raise a rather vexing challenge: what, exactly, are the few key indicators you would need to watch to monitor your success? It's this question that actually proves to be more effective than the dashboard tool itself. To know what you should monitor, you need to know what you're trying to do, and you also have to define what success looks like (more people? happier people? more art? better reviews? prolific artists?).”

Andrew Taylor, “Keeping an Eye on Dashboards”, The Artful Manager Blog, October 20, 2006,.

WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE?

“The root of the problem is that there is no longer an agreed-upon method of measuring achievement… While many challenges beset art museum leaders today, finding a way to measure performance is accordingly among the field’s most urgent… Without generally accepted metrics, arts organizations will have more and more trouble making a case for themselves.”

Maxwell L. Anderson, “Metrics of Success in Art Museums”, Getty Leadership Institute (2004),.

WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE?

IMA’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRETTHE DASHBOARD IS FOR STAFF

METRICS RULE OF THUMBWILL IT CHANGE BEHAVIOR?

HOW CAN MUSEUMS

PURSUE EXCELLENCE?

Flickr Credit ~adforce1

W. EDWARDS DEMING

KaizenKAI = change or to correct

ZEN = good

KAIZEN = a system of continuous

improvement

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

EXECUTE

EVALUATE

REPEAT

“Thus, benchmarking has many direct and indirect benefits: increasing the impact of mission-related activities, raising internal standards, improving performance, attracting more funding, uncovering (and fixing) hidden weaknesses, and overall, improving the public face of the organization.”

Jason SaulBenchmarking for nonprofits:

how to measure, manage, and improve performance

Fieldstone Alliance, 2004, pg 12.

THE BENEFITS OF BENCHMARKS

A SPECTRUM OF

TRANSPARENT COMMUNICATION

A SPECTRUM OF

TRANSPARENT COMMUNICATION

ORGANICTANGIBLE

FORMALDIGITAL

QUICK AND EASY THINGS TO DO TOMORROW (T&R)

Alternate ideas in a list form

http://code.google.com/p/museum-dashboard/

OPEN SOURCE

Poll Again

• How many min per week are you willing to devote to improving your communication?

• Recap their rating of our talk using the feedback method discussed at the outset of the talk.