Don't Be An RFP Weasel

An emerging museum recently asked me to review an RFP document they were preparing. 

Unfortunately, a part of their boilerplate text outlined a number of tasks (basically "free work" like sketches, complete interactive exhibit descriptions, etc.)  that they expected RFP respondents to complete as part of their submission.

I immediately informed the museum's staff that not only was speculative work (especially included as a requirement for an RFP) inappropriate, but it was unethical.

Initially, the museum's response was defensive --  "we are just using verbiage that we copied from other RFPs."  My rejoinder was that making a copy of something that was bad to begin with, doesn't make the new document better!

Fortunately, the National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME) (one of the Professional Networks of the American Alliance of Museums)  has posted an Ethics Statement on their website that clearly addresses this issue. Item #4 of the Ethics statement states:

No member shall solicit free or speculative designs or plans from independent designers or exhibit fabricators. Members should discourage the submission of speculative designs from these outside sources.

In this case, once the folks at the emerging museum read the "official" ethics document from NAME they did the right thing and completely removed the offending language from their RFP.

Unfortunately, requests for "spec work" still regularly show up in RFPs -- either by accident or design.  Sometimes respondents don't feel comfortable confronting (or ignoring) such RFP requirements/requests, but unless we help the folks issuing RFPs understand that speculative work is inappropriate (and also whenever possible calling out such RFPs) this practice will not change.

Maybe once we eliminate spec work requests from RFPs we can also get museums to drop the stupidly archaic (and decidedly non-environmentally friendly) requirement for multiple paper copies of RFP submissions in addition to digital documents. How about if you want paper copies, you just print a few copies of them out at your museum to share with staff? (And do you really need paper copies?)


While we're on the subject of RFPs, I'd be remiss not to point another great FREE resource (also courtesy of NAME) which is an entire online issue of articles (and "dos and don'ts") about RFPs including bonus downloadable documents related to the RFP process. Click on over to the NAME website to find the RFP Issue there.



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Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

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Writing and Responding to RFPs: The Dance Everyone Can Do Better

The following summary captures the discussion at the recent Conversation hosted by The Museum Group (TMG) during the American Alliance of Museums conference held in Atlanta.  This post was jointly prepared by Carol Bossert, Paul Orselli and Barbara Punt to appear on their respective blogs.  A briefer summary will appear on the TMG web site.

The Museum Group, a collective of independent museum professionals, has a history of bringing together small groups of people at conventions such as the American Alliance of Museums, to talk about topics important to the museum field. Carol Bossert, a member of TMG and host of Museum Life proposed a discussion about the RFP process, a process used extensively over the past ten years to select almost every type of outside contractor from an exhibit fabricator to master planner and campaign consultant.  She was joined by Independent Museum Professionals, Barbara Punt and Paul Orselli, to frame the ongoing conversation.


Bring together any group of consultants and specialty providers within the museum industry and the conversation eventually turns to the ways in which this process is poorly implemented from organizations that give respondents less than ten days to respond to the RFP, sometimes over Thanksgiving or New Year’s, to organizations that neglect to notify respondents after the selection has been made, or require respondents to submit fully developed design solutions and then ask the winning group to use a competitor’s idea.  But the greater concern is what the effect this process has on creativity, collegiality and the ultimate products the museum produces.

The goal of the TMG conversation was to move beyond whining to clarify the issues and think about solutions.  In fact, “no whining” was a stated rule at the outset. Nevertheless, the conversation was lively and thoughtful, and all participants—thirty in all—shared information.

The RFP process, whereby a museum issues a request for a proposal from a company or individual to perform a certain task such as designing an exhibition or developing a multi-media program, has a patina of fairness:  everyone receives the same information and has the same time frame to present themselves.  Boards and donors appreciate a transparent, documented approach to decision-making, especially when large sums of money are involved.  Unfortunately, a poorly crafted RFP, one that does not clearly express what the organization is looking for, or a process that is handled badly, can tarnish an institution’s reputation, lead to poor decisions and undercut trust—even from the company that won the job!

So, no whining.  Here are some key points that emerged from the discussion in Atlanta:


Be kind.  Everyone understands that this process involves competition.  A museum makes a selection.  There will be a winner and there will be losers.  But just because the selection process is competitive, does not mean that it should be stripped of civility and the niceties of human discourse.  This means that the museum needs to treat everyone involved with respect:  answer questions, keep to the stated deadlines for making decisions, and keep individual responses confidential.  At best, contact the firms that did not win the competition and tell them why.  Many RFPs provide a point system for selection.  There is no reason why the scoring cannot be shared with all respondents.  Also, appreciate the time it takes for a company or individual to put together their response.


Do your homework.  While there are no current standards for soliciting and managing RFPs for the museum industry as there are for architects, engineers and construction contractors, there are some good resources.  The National Association for Museum Exhibitions (NAME) devoted an entire issue of the Exhibitionist, entitled “The RFP Process,” published in Spring 2007. http://name-aam.org/resources/exhibitionist/back-issues-and-online-archive.  (The articles from the issue are available for free online along with templates relevant to the RFP process.) Talk to other museums and organizations whose work you admire. Get recommendations.  Limit the number of companies or individuals you solicit.  The broader the solicitation, the less likely the museum will receive useful responses which respond to their particular needs.


Know how to evaluate the proposals.  Slick proposals and jazzy power points are nice, but which firm knows what to do when the budget starts to creep up or the timeline expands?  What happens when there are bumps in the road?  Will you trust that group over the long haul?  Will you enjoy being with that individual or team for long periods of time?  If the museum says that it is looking for a creative team, then how will they know when they see one?  What is the criteria for creative?


Reconsider the RFP process as the only way to select the individual or company.  The museum business is a people business.  It is a creative business.  The RFP process does not reflect this.  Do not use the RFP process to solidify thinking.  If you don’t know what you want—and many clients don’t, especially at the beginning of a project—the RFP process will not clarify it for you.  Spend your time talking with people:  other museums, companies and individuals whose work you admire.  It can be better to hire someone on a limited basis to help you figure out what you want.

 
Know the lingo.  There are RFPs, RFQs and bids.  They are all different, and they all should have different purposes.

 
Vocabulary says a lot.  The word “vendor” automatically creates a divide between the museum and its consultants and specialty provider.  We are as committed to museum best practice as museums staff and board members.  We attend conferences, read articles and work hard to improve our practice.  Many of us have worked in museums.  We have areas of expertise that compliment and augment the museum’s resources.  It takes both of us.  We are partners, not vendors.  Similarly, calling RFPs contracts and[P1] /or throwing in a lot of punitive contract language creates an adversarial relationship from the start that is bound to end badly.


So how can we address these issues?

 
Standards. The museum industry seems to be the only industry without industrial standards and code of ethics that covers the solicitation and selection process.  As more museums look to outside companies and individuals for specialized expertise, there is greater need for standards.


Data. We need to analyze good projects and find out what made them successful, not just on opening day, but beyond.  We tend to focus on the horror stories, but what about the projects where despite the inevitable bumps in the road, the team worked well together and was proud of the product?

 
Communication.  We need to have more conversations among museums and providers.  We need to work toward partnership.


Feel free to contact any of the folks below to follow up on this discussion.

Punt Consulting Group
We manage projects of all sizes to ensure they are completed on time and on budget. Our holistic and proactive approach takes into account the totality of your vision, not just elements of architecture or construction.

Contact Barbara at Barbara@puntconsulting.com or call her at (310) 937-3366.


Carol Bossert Services
We help organizations think through, shape and document the ideas and stories that form the foundation for remarkable exhibitions. We bring a systematic and deliberate approach to content research, development and label writing.

Contact Carol at carol.bossert@verizon.net or call her at (301) 208-0303.


And you can always contact POW! and Paul Orselli at info@orselli.net or (516) 238-2797.


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Rogue Sessions and Conversations: Thoughts on AAM 2015 in Atlanta

I always have conflicted feelings about attending the AAM (American Alliance of Museums) Conference.  In many ways, the event is too big and unwieldy, and filled with annoying logistical hassles. (This year was no exception!)  On the other hand, there are opportunities for meaty and interesting conversations with fellow museum professionals --- most of which happen outside the confines of formal conference sessions.

This year in Atlanta, the "outside the session" construct was taken to the extreme with a number of well-publicized "rogue" (not officially on the AAM program) sessions taking place at different venues during the conference.

As you might expect for someone like me, the rogue sessions and outside-the-session-box conversations form most of my impressions of this year's conference.

One rogue session I did not attend in person, but kept track of via the lively Twitter feed, was the one about "Museum Labor" put on by the Museum Workers Speak group.  Certainly the issues revolving around museum worker's pay and treatment are essential, if uncomfortable at times, conversations to have.  Hooray for MWS for holding this important rogue session!  You can check out a "Storify" recap of the topics and conversations by clicking here.

The Museum Group (TMG) has had a longer tradition of hosting off-site "conversations" during the AAM Conference.  This year TMG presented a full roster of conversations, and I was pleased to be part of one entitled, "Writing and Responding to RFPs: The Dance Everyone Can Do Better" hosted by Carol Bossert, with Barbara Punt as my conversational partner.

I'll be writing a more extensive blog post soon, in collaboration with several TMG members, on this conversation and the topic of changing the (horribly broken) RFP process, but for now I'll say that we would all be better off if we could strive for ways to make the RFP process both kinder AND smarter.

I also took part in an impromptu session sparked by Jamie Glavic of Museum Minute with museum bloggers and museum social media folks during the conference, and I came away feeling more than ever that blogs and other social media outlets are the connective tissue that supports important conversations outside conference time.

Paul Martin from the Science Museum of Minnesota and Polly McKenna-Cress from the University of the Arts co-hosted an "Exhibits Roundtable" session which proved to be both eclectic and spirited. I hope Paul and Polly will publish a re-cap of the conversations, but things I'll be thinking about more include: how to use (Big) Data to tell important stories and leverage emotions inside museum exhibitions, and why museums should piss people off more! (For example, many Science Museums have "No Guns Allowed" signs on their doors, so why not also have signs saying "For the safety of all our visitors, only those who have been vaccinated will be admitted.")

Lastly, all the "rogue" conversations during AAM helped me continue my thinking about shifting the standard conversation about museums and their institutional mindset away from "For Profit" vs. "Not For Profit" to "For Profit" vs. "For Purpose."  It might provide a way to move away from relying only on metrics like visitor attendance numbers as the primary way of measuring museum success.

Hmmm ... perhaps "For Profit" vs. "For Purpose" is a rogue conversation that we can kick off right now in the "Comments" section below!



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Popular But Not Good (PBNG)

At a restaurant in Pittsburgh recently, the waitress described some items as "popular" and others as "good."  There was something about the way she used those words that made me want to dig a little deeper into her descriptions when we were actually ready to order.

It soon became clear that most of the "popular" items at this particular restaurant were actually mediocre.  In some cases, the waitress wasn't even sure why people kept ordering those particular items over and over again.  (The waitress was kind enough to suggest an off-menu combination of a veggie tempura taco with added shrimp that was awesome!)

Being that I was dining with fellow museum folks, I couldn't help remarking that there are also many things in museums, or in museum practice, that are "popular" but not "good" (or PBNG for short.) One example of PBNG is the continued, and often thoughtless, recycling of old exhibit warhorses (especially inside Children's Museums) like mini grocery stores or dig pits. Piles of wooden blocks thrown onto a table are not a smartly designed building exhibit!  (I've written previous posts about why grocery store exhibits are not just bad for museums, but bad for the planet.)

It's not that these types of exhibits are inherently bad, or can't be done in creative ways, but the basic frameworks just seem to attract clichéd ideas and lazy design approaches.

The second PBNG idea that impacts every type of museum and every type of museum designer is the RFP (Request For Proposals) process.  If ever there was an overly onerous procedure designed to ostensibly help museums separate the wheat from the chaff, the RFP process is it.  It is so often unfair and unrealistic to proposers that a selection process involving throwing darts at a grid of names seems brilliant by comparison.

So now that I've outlined how popular, but not good, some types of exhibits and RFP processes can be, what suggestions for improvements or substitutes can I offer?

By happy coincidence, I will be speaking at sessions during the upcoming AAM (American Alliance of Museums) Annual Meeting and the ACM (Association of Children's Museums) InterActivity Conference that will be addressing both these PBNG topics head-on.

First up, in Atlanta The Museum Group will be hosting a series of Conversations on a range of interesting topics.  I'll be part of the Conversation entitled, "Writing and Responding to RFPs: The Dance Everyone Can Do Better" which will take place at the Glenn Hotel on Monday, April 27th from 2:00 - 3:15 p.m.  Hope to see you there!

Then in Indianapolis, during ACM's InterActivity, I'll be part of a fun session called "Material Matters: Thoughtful Choices for High-Impact Visitor Engagement" in Marriott Ballroom 10 on Wednesday, May 13th starting at 3:00 p.m.

I'll be recapping the action at both conferences, so follow along on my Twitter feed @museum_exhibits and on my POW! Facebook page. 

If you'd like to schedule some time to chat about working together on new projects, or just to catch up over a drink during either conference, please drop me an email so we can compare calendars!


Last, but not least, I'll be giving away FREE STUFF! --- copies of some great research and exhibit journals and publications I've written for recently.  So look for me in Atlanta or Indy and ask for your free museum swag (while supplies last!)

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Proposal Etiquette?

The Golden Rule really does matter.

And I don't mean the one about "S/he who has the gold, rules."  I mean the one about treating others in the way you'd like to be treated --- especially when it comes to sending out RFPs (Request For Proposal) for people to respond to, or if you're the institution or person crafting a solicitation.

Several years ago, I edited the Spring 2007 issue of NAME's (National Association for Museum Exhibition) journal, The Exhibitionist, called "The RFP Issue" which was (you guessed it!) all about writing and responding to RFPs.  In addition to a wide range of articles, the issue also included several boilerplate examples of RFPs, contracts, selection matrices, etc.  (Lucky you, it's all online now to download for free at the NAME website.)

In the months I spent re-reading and editing the articles for The RFP Issue, it was disheartening to keep coming back to variations on two common themes:  1) Institutions that sent out literally dozens and dozens (if not hundreds) of solicitations, and 
2) Institutions that never notified respondents after a final selection was made.

Even if you don't feel, like I do, that for the most part, the RFP process is an archaic, legalistic waste of time, why would you treat potential creative partners in this way? (And don't even get me started about the wasteful notion of requiring multiple hard copies of a proposal in addition to digital versions ...)

In the first case, by requesting a large number of people to respond to your RFP, you know that you are wasting many people's time, but even worse, you will not be able to carefully and thoughtfully review such a large number of responses. (Ideally, you should be striving for the smallest number of "best fit" responses possible to your solicitation, not a cattle call.)

In the second case, if people spent their limited time and resources to craft a response, couldn't you or your institution display the common courtesy of sending out a boilerplate email to the groups or individuals who weren't selected?  (For example, "Thanks for submitting, we're sorry you weren't selected, but we look forward to opportunities to work together in the future ..."

This lack of civility happens much more often than it should in the proposal process, especially given the relatively small museum/exhibits community.  Perhaps it's no wonder that one of the articles from The RFP Issue was entitled, "Why We No Longer Do RFPs"

In any event, I hope the next time you might find yourself in charge of an RFP or proposal process, or something similar like a hiring/internship process, that you remember that there are real people involved, and even if they aren't selected, they'd like to be treated with professionalism and respect.

Thanks for considering this.

And thanks for reading ExhibiTricks!

Electronic RFPs, Please.

I recently completed an RFP that requested six paper copies in addition to a digital version of the proposal. Why not just skip the multiple paper copies and eliminate the rigamarole involved with collating and FedExing and just accept electronically submitted PDFs?

It seems to me there are only two arguments against this modest proposal:

1) "Making people go through the process of preparing multiple paper copies of PDFs shows that they are serious about submitting." The previous statement is actually a paraphrase from a museum person, made when I suggested that electronic/PDF responses be allowed. I don't think I could summarize how mindless much of the PDF process is better than that.

2) PDFs of finished submissions with graphics and images will be too large to easily send electronically. Well that's a bogus excuse, and here's why: YouSendIt.

YouSendIt is a service that lets you easily transmit large files (up to 100 MB, using the free version) without any FTP hassles or email bouncebacks.

Even though a standard of Electronic RFPs might not happen anytime soon, you can put YouSendIt to good use in your own workstream today.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

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Exhibition Design: Why Your Project Costs Too Much

I've just gotten the details on another RFP that I've been short-listed on. Whoopee!

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm has waned now that the actual exhibition scopes and budgets have been released.

I'm all for inexpensive exhibits and production budgets that are frugal, yet allow for creativity. (There's a reason I edited The Cheapbooks for ASTC!)

That being said, it is clear from following the time and money trails backward, that a large part of the client's funding that could have gone into "hard goods" (that is to say ACTUAL EXHIBITS) instead were frittered away on fancy master plans and consultants.

Let me pause the blog to state "THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!"

Clearly, every exhibition project needs money and often fundraisers and consultants to help raise that money. But you have to wonder when the majority of a project's funds go into overhead, consultants, fancy fundraising packets, etc. rather than the exhibits and programs for visitors.

If you want great exhibits, spend your time and money on the exhibits!

The RFP Issue of NAME's Exhibitionist

I'm the Guest Editor of the most recent issue of The Exhibitionist
(The National Association for Museum Exhibition's twice-yearly professional journal.)

The theme of the issue is RFPs (Request For Proposals.) How did I end up guest editing an issue of The Exhibitionist about RFPs?!?! I can’t stand most of the paperwork associated with the exhibits process – a lot of it seems devised by lawyers and bean counters to thwart creativity and excellent end products, not encourage them.

However, one thing that motivates me even more than my distaste for paperwork is the need to finish a project once it gets started. From the very start of the four years I served on NAME’s board, I kept hearing about a mysterious, unfinished document called “The RFP Cookbook.” I came to understand that over nearly 10 years some of NAME’s, and the museum field’s, most thoughtful and creative practitioners had been writing, re-writing, and trying to assemble this definitive tome regarding RFPs.

Well, for various reasons, The RFP Cookbook never seemed to be able to get off the ground, and frankly, after hearing about it for four years, I wanted to help pull the project together or drive a stake through its heart. After my fellow board members took the sharpened stick out of my hands, I became a somewhat reluctant, at least initially, editor of this collection of practical articles about the many facets of the RFP process.

I found during the editing, and reading and re-reading of the articles, that the RFP process can help focus fuzzy ideas and create excellent collaborative teams. However, like many other steps along the exhibition path, the RFP process can be handled poorly or adroitly. Often having complete information and being able to benefit from the experiences of peers makes the difference. 

Even if you aren't already a member of NAME (hint, hint) check out the downloadable examples. You never know when YOU might be called upon to put together an RFP!