Building a Culture of Experimentation

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Note: the Blueprint book club will start next week. Sorry for the delay.
It’s not every day you find a prototype in the bathroom.Last week, I sat down on a toilet in our museum and found myself looking at aninteractive station intended to test a “Legends of the Stall” sign concept forthe restrooms. Legends of the Stall was started by a visitor services staffmember, Katie Chrivia, who collaborated with interns and volunteers to developthe content and the design. I’d forgotten about Legends of the Stall, assumingit was ticking along in the background or pushed aside by the busy-ness ofdaily tasks. And then I found this prototype in the bathroom, put up withoutanyone’s permission, well-executed, and garnering useful responses. I peed,read the sign, and added my comments to the growing list on the wall. And left,smiling.
Rock on. Some of my happiest moments as a director come whenI encounter awesome things in our museum that I had absolutely nothing to dowith. It’s the pride of the “space maker” who enables other people to berisk-takers. I’m starting to really appreciate the difference between being anindividual agent and creating a culture of agency. It wasn’t intuitive for meas a hands-on person. I knew how to do it myself. I knew how to do it with ateam. Now I’m learning how to not-do it, but to enable it.
And increasingly, what I’m trying to enable is a culture ofexperimentation. We often talk about “change” or “innovation” as the goal forour institutions, but I’d argue that building a culture of experimentation ismore important than building a culture of change. I’m not even sure a “cultureof change” is a meaningful concept or one that could be sustained over anextended period. Experimenters are driven by the desire to try things out andsee what works, to collect data, to learn from the results. They are open topossibilities. Innovators and change-makers may not be.
What does a culture of experimentation look like? For us, itmeans:

• We feel empowered to try things out. My colleagues areresponsible, caring people who want our museum to be awesome. They have thegood judgment to know that putting up a prototype in the bathroom is not justok, but a really good way to engage people with our work and improve the finalresult. There's no oversight or permission required because the activity is self-evidently in keeping with our goals and strategy.
• We seek and value the feedback of others. Katie genuinelywants to make the Legends of the Stall as good a project as possible. So sheasks people what they think. Across all of our work—exhibition planning, eventprogramming—we’re constantly looking for ways to get feedback from visitors andcolleagues. We’re constantly changing how and what we ask people so we get moreuseful feedback.
• We ask questions that will lead us to action. Whenever anintern takes a prototype out on the floor, I ask her, “What might change aboutthis project based on this test?” If she is not willing or able to articulate apotential change, it’s not a prototype—it’s just a model of a foregoneconclusion. At the MAH, prototypes have to be used to test a hypothesis, or todecide among options. This becomes more and more automatic as people feel theconfidence that comes with making a decision based on data instead of arbitrarysoothsaying.
• We feel comfortable with critique. This one is reallyimportant. Some experiments fail. Some exhibit ideas are lame. Some eventcomponents are dull. The more we put ourselves out there and live with the goodand bad feedback, the more we see negative feedback as helpful to our progress.I’ve been happily surprised at how our team has become highly engaged in constructivecritique while maintaining positive feelings about each other. I’m glad to seecritical questions alongside the encouragement and recommendationson Legends of the Stall. That’s what pushes us to improve.

How does experimentation play a role (or not) in the cultureof your organization? Or alternatively, what kind of culture are you trying to build, and what indicators reflect that?

Oh, and semi-relatedly, we're hiring.