From Construction Site to Museum:
Managing the Opening Process

From Construction Site to Museum:
Managing the Opening Process
•Judy Gradwohl, Associate Director for Public
Programs, National Museum of American History
•James Volkert, Principal, Exhibition Associates
•Dana Allen-Greil, New Media Project
Manager, National Museum of American History
•Susan Leidy, Deputy Director, Currier Museum of
Art
•Elaine Gurian, Senior Consultant, Principal, Elaine
Heumann Gurian LLC

James Volkert
Principal
Exhibition Associates

So, you’re now responsible
to get the project completed?

Create a transition team
• Draw from throughout the museum
• Make the team “dissolvable”

The architects don’t do all the work
• List your tasks
• Learn to read plans
• Learn their language

Its not business as usual
• The systems you have may not be adequate
• Develop a Day One list
• Establish a comprehensive schedule
• Link schedules and budgets by task, not departments

The systems you have may not be adequate
• You are set up to run a museum, not build a project
• Fix the things that don’t work

Develop a Day One list

Establish a comprehensive schedule

Link schedules and budgets by task, not departments

Be courageous in decision-making
• Push decisions down • Make decisions public
• Document the decisions • Change the process if it
• Make the process transparent doesn’t work

Decision Review
Action Committee
(DRAC)
Mall Action
Committee
(MAC)

“I could not possibly do anything else”
• I’m already working at 110%

Establish the rhythm of the work

How can you tell when things are not
going well?

“You can’t measure my creative process…”

The unimagined will happen

Judy Gradwohl
Associate Director for Public Programs
National Museum of American History

Will you make it?
• Opening date
• Budget
• Scope of work

Set priorities
• Exhibitions
• Visitor and staff services and amenities
• Opening events and programs

FULL
CRITICAL LIMITED
Funded: $0
Funded: $X,059,000* Funded: $X48,000
Shortfall: $XXX,000
Exhibitions: Shortfall: $XXX,000
• Star-Spangled Banner Public Spaces and Amenities:
• Artifact Walls and Landmark Objects Exhibitions:
• Wayfinding signs outside central core
• Price of Freedom • Customer service training for front-line staff • Timeline
• First Ladies & The American • Family Guide for print and Web
Presidency • Welcome Center staffing Public Spaces and Amenities:
• Music, Sports, and Entertainment • Museum fully furnished • Reprinting wayfinding signs
• Invention At Play • Security check and queuing furniture • Furniture for Board Room and
• America on the Move • Outdoor signs and banners Director’s suite
• Julia Child’s Kitchen • Visitor flow planning • Bike rack
• Within These Walls • Carmichael Auditorium
• Hands On Science Center • Reception Suite carpet Opening Events and Outreach:
• Lighting a Revolution Opening Events and Outreach: • Star-Spangled Banner books
• Power Machinery Hall • Design and printing of press materials • Video news release
• Lunch Boxes • Ad buys • White House luncheon
• Communities in a Changing Nation • Satellite and radio media tours • Behring Dinner
• Gunboat Philadelphia • Public Relations assistance • Web promotion for reopening
• Dolls’ House • Staff and volunteer preview
• SI Libraries Gallery • Marketing for special events
OPTIONAL EVENTS
• Science in American Life • Tourism and hospitality industry previews
Shortfall: $238,000
• Deinstall Treasures • Dedication ceremony
Public Spaces and Amenities: • Gala for major donors
• Exterior decoration and lighting
• Welcome Center • Congressional preview event
• Evening events for public opening
• LeFrak Lobby to Carmichael • Public opening event
• Marketing for reopening
Auditorium • Additional donor events
• Museum stores and food service • Event planners
• Furniture (minimal amount) • Conservation and graphics support
• Wayfinding signs within central core • Reopening contingency funds
• Transition zones
Opening Events and Outreach:
• B-roll taping

Manage your money and time
• Cut—don’t add
• Count everybody’s pennies
• If something isn’t working reconsider its value

Manage your expectations

Prepare to lower your expectations
• Cut all extraneous activity
• Ask if it needs to be ready on opening day
• Any testing is better than none

Leave room to celebrate
• Recognize staff as well as donors
• Open with a splash

Dana Allen-Greil
New Media Project Manager
National Museum of American History

Tell everyone everything
• Good and bad news
• Meetings: short, organized, often
• Different styles of learning

Be kind to your staff
• Take the internal climate seriously
• Listen to grumbling
• Don’t allow a climate of blame to develop

Work together
• Praise, respect each other
• Engage cross-departmentally
• Celebrate milestones

Manage expectations
• Staff
• Board/Administration
• Public

Communicate budget, schedule

Stay inside the message box

Experiment with new media

Susan Leidy
Deputy Director
Currier Museum of Art

Expansion completed Nov. 2007;
Reopened March 2008
• 33,000 square feet
• $21.4 million cost, $14.5 million construction
• Ann Beha Architects, Boston, MA
• Harvey Construction Company, Bedford, NH

Currier Museum of Art
43

Currier Museum of Art
44

What we did well
1. Strategic Planning process identified what facility
improvements were needed:
• Galleries / exhibition space
• Visitor amenities
• Education / program space

What we did well
2. Cross-departmental planning for re-opening events

What we did well
3. Grant-enabled re-branding

What we did well
4. Mandatory orientation to the building, branding,
amenities, collections, and membership for all staff
and volunteers

What we didn’t do as well
1. Save staff time and money for additional
furnishings, signs, unanticipated changes, and
additions post-construction

What we didn’t do as well
2. Address the inevitable let-down after the excitement
of re-opening

Elaine Gurian
Senior Consultant, Principal
Elaine Heumann Gurian LLC

From Construction Site to Museum:
Managing the Opening Process
Questions?
Ideas?