Colchester is a medium sized, local authority museum service with 45 fte staff, four museums and more than 210,000 visitors including more than 23,000 school pupils in 2005-6.
Project Aim:
Our organisation's overall aims and objectives at the outset of the project were
- to understand the principles and practices of ILfA
- to understand how ILfA could help us to become a more successful learning organisation
- to embed ILfA into our organisation
This programme will benefit us by giving colleauges a working knowledge of ILfA and enable us to offer more learning experiences for users and colleagues.
Process:
The diagonal slice team comprises: Lisa - museum assistant, Pippa - duty officer and core team member, Steve - documentation officer, Clive - education officers, Ken - visitor services manager, Tom - curator of social history and core team member, Lynette - education and marketing outreach officer. This team is very representative of the entire museum staff and was decided by the core team working with a wider group of colleagues.
The diagonal slice team met in November 2005 with Gaby Porter again in March 2006 to discuss how best to use the consultant's time and to evaluate the emerging Buddying initiative. A further slice meeting was held in May 2006 where we looked at the effects of change, particularly around organisational change.
The core team met on eight occassions including the sessions with our peer gorup of piloting organisations.
Following the introduction of ILfA as a concept to the core and diagonal slice teams, the core teams met with small groups of colleagues to begin to introduce ILfA and, most particularly, establish what the three key priorities are for all Colchester colleagues participating, during late November and early December 2006. From these consultations, three very clear priorities emerged with the issue of communication being, very clearly, the most important issue for very nearly all staff. The priorities are:
1 Creative communication
- Improve internal communication between sites
- Ideas: how to capture them use them and not lose them, effective consultation
- Sharing skills: internal and external
- Feedback: how to use it effectively
- Building relationships including social!
2 Displays
- To make them more creative and exciting
- Don't play safe!
- Introduce contemporary collecting with good cultural diversity
- Introduce wider range of learning styles for a wide range of visitors
- Meet a wider number of National Curriculum topics
3 Staff
- Use staff to full potential
- Training and Development
- Workload and time management
Outcomes:
A summary of our presentation at Lucy Cavendish College on the 25th May:
That the creation of diagonal slice team is a success. We were used to working in teams, but this was the first time that we have created a team of this type, with such a wide range of colleagues. It has helped us to pool ideas, get talking and give people at different levels in the museum an equal voice. In particular the most junior member of the team has been empowered by the process - a noticeable change from the first to the latest meeting of the team.
The constant challenge has been identifying time for the team to meet. We also need to work harder at planning an agenda so that the diagonal slice team continues to play a successful role. This is starting to happen with a diagonal slice team to be involved in the Castle redevelopment project and in discussions over the merger with Ipswich.
It is a little too early to give any particularly examples of individual learning although we have since gathered some.
A key outcome is the new initiative designed to address our top priority, communications, has been created as a direct result of our involvement in the MLA East of England ILfA work. The Buddy Scheme has launched, with breakfast on the 15th June 2006.
Organisational learning, changes/improvements in policies and programmes
Individual learning
Lisa - ILfA to me means the chance to speak openly and honestly about challenges and changes within the service and to feel that my input is as important as those on a higher, management level.
Ken - I have learnt that the introduction of new concepts is not an instant fix but takes time to grow organically. Also, that diagonal slices generate an across-the-board commitment to such concepts.
Tom - My individual learning point is that I now know other people in the region, such as Gillian at Peterborough, whom I can talk to about practical ways of embedding ILfA - a sort of self-help network.
Clive - working with a range of people, knowing we can contribute from a range of angles towards similar goals. It's good to know we are trying new things, positive that we all want it to work, be open. A bonus si that everyone is positive in terms of working together it spurs you on.
Pippa - that ILfA can bring practical benefits to an organisation - not just education programmes. To be sympathetic to other people's agendas and learning styles.
Joanne - The positives are: being able to share ideas and opinions with colleagues I wouldn't normally work with has been interesting. The 'buddying' system has enabled me to get to know a member of staff whom I would have had little contact with otherwise. Her interest in my own work and willingness to get involved for her own personal development has meant that we are now planning how we can work together in the future.
The negatives are: Despite attending many meetings and discussions on what it means to be part of an ILfA driven learning institution. I remain of the belief that although the core principals are sound it has been overcomplicated. How we apply ILfA to everything we do is still unclear to me. The fact I have yet to meet one person who wholeheartedly embraces the idea or who fully understands it, even within the diagonal slice team, had de-motivated me as an 'advocate'.
Lynette - working with the slice team made me understand and appreciate much more fully the wealth and skills and abilities of colleagues and I really loved the freshness of ideas and perspectives that new members brough to the team.
Paul - the importance and value of communication; the value of cross service working; the value of the diagonal slice team (and how useful it will be for new projects); the buddying scheme and getting to know old friends again like Duncan and getting to know new friends like Sam; relearning and remembering perspectives.
Stephen - A great insight of the learning styles/strategies that people use: I now know what GLOs are: I have a better understanding of how to apply GLOs to specific projects: I'm more aware of the different pressures that our organisations and my colleagues undergo when subject to change: I am better equipped to cope with organisational change and working in a diagonal slice has made me more aware of issues outside my usual team.
Diagonal slice and core teams
Because of the success and positive benefits around working with the diagonal slice team, we intend to keep the team together and introduce new topics and areas for discussion, starting with the proposed merger with Ipswich Museum Service. The team has enjoyed working together and the neat format has been useful in terms sharing workload at each stage of the process and easy in terms of communication.
Working with other organisations as part of a learning network
It is a wonderful way to meet, connect and share ideas with people you would not normally work with, in such a friendly environment. It is also a great opportunity to steal ideas and shamelessly. It can be very helpful to work through problems and solutions with groups not directly involved with your organisation. Other people can often see how the deal with a situation more clearly when they are outside looking in. The challenge will be to maintain these new relationships.
Future plans:
Because of the success and positive benefits around working with the diagonal slice team, we intend to keep the team together and introduce new topics and areas for discussion and activity, for instance the proposed merger with Ipswich Museum Service.
Key outcomes:
A key outcome is the new initiative designed to address our top priority, communications, has been created as a direct result of our involvement in the MLA East of England ILfA work. The Buddy Scheme was launched with a lively breakfast, on 15th June 2006. Many colleagues attended: guidelines were offered for successful buddying, but there were a few hard and fast rules. The Buddy scheme idea came about as a result of the perceived lack of relationship between back and front of house colleagues. Ideas and thoughts also weren't always being captured, although some inclusion was happening. The Scheme started with a short questionnaire to find out which areas of the museum's activities particularly interested individual members of staff and also what skills and interests they could bring to the arrangement. This information was very helpful for the core team who acted as a 'dating agency' in matching front of house with behind the scenes staff. We have taken a pragmatic approach to maximise the chances of success so that there are some triplets as well as buddy pairs to satisfy particular hotspots of interest and to take account of personalities. Encouraging staff to be curious about other people's roles should encourage relationships to grow -
Now Colchester Museums Buddying has been launched it is in the hands of staff to take responsibility, development and ownership of buddying. It's up to us!
Other:
Our advice would be to make sure your ILfA nominated person is fully committed to the process, has influence in your organisation (as you will need to win hearts and minds!) and is prepared to take on overall responsibility for administration and essential as both teams are a great way to get the ILfA message into your organisation quickly and effectively.
Be very clear about how ILfA can help you - set concrete targets including some short term wins.
Use peer groups/other established ILfA users/MLA East of England as source of help and advice and, over time, to build up a library of case studies at MLA EofE showing how ILfA can work in practical terms in a variety of ways within the range of museums.
Lynette Burgess, Pippa Pickles and Tom Hodgson
June 2006
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