The Arts - responding to McMaster with practical ideas
TMPL has joined the debate about how arts organisations measure their performance with a practical focus on the need to enable organisations to effectively evaluate their work.
Sir Brian http://tinyurl.com/2oobmg" title="Report link">McMaster's report states that “funding bodies must move to a new assessment method based on self-assessment and peer review that focuses on objective judgements about excellence, innovation and risk-taking”. McMaster is clear that in self-assessment, progress must be measured against an organisation’s stated objectives, and that the sector lacks a culture of rigorous and constructive self-assessment.
Our experience of working with many arts organisation over decades, tells us that the first step in being able to articulate objectives and evaluating oneself and ones organisation against them is to have a clear, stated and shared artistic vision and mission.
TMPL’s experience
TMPL has championed this vision down approach in our work for many years; it is an intrinsic part of the ALITA and QUEST programmes, and in our work with individual organisations and in collaborative working. You can see details of these programmes http://www.tmpl-online.co.uk/TMPLWeb.nsf/dx/ALITA.htm" title="Link to Alita page">here.
We know how hard it can be to start on this journey, but also how very rewarding in that it ensures an absolute focus to the work of an organisation, clarity for everyone who works for it, a clear sense of achievement, purpose and direction, and significantly improved communication. It results in a healthy, learning organisation, one fit for self-assessment and peer review.
Objectives can only be developed once it is clear what the ambition, goal, desire, adrenalin-fuelled heartbeat (or vision) is; the objectives are simply what makes the vision real. Peer review and self-evaluation requires clear, written down, shareable objectives, but many organisations find it a challenge to articulate their artistic vision and its associated organisational objectives even internally, and those they produce for funding bids may not stand up to much scrutiny.
Making judgements, analysing work and recognising excellence in the arts sector has never been a welcome range of activities, fraught as it is with potential for debating the theory and the subsequent successful avoidance of never getting to address the issues within the context of the art.
Why arts organisations need support
TMPL is in the business of supporting all kinds of organisations to develop a culture of development through shared vision. The kind of support it provides includes enabling organisations to:
• Describe their artistic vision and mission
• Determine the strategic objectives that will enable the organisation to deliver the vision
• Describe departmental and individual objectives – so everyone is clear how they contribute to the achievement of the vision
• Outline project objectives (for a play, exhibition, season, festival, collaboration, capital development etc).
The results need to be tested to make sure that they are:
• Meaningful to the organisation and true to the vision
• Genuinely SMART objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound)
• Set in a simple framework so that the achievement of objectives can be satisfactorily measured by the organisation, its stakeholders, its peers and funders.
Facing the elephant in the room
Getting this right will mean we have the tools to enter a new realm of critical analysis as envisaged by McMaster; this is not an activity embraced by many, seen as it is in the context of “criticism” rather than “analysis”. There is far too little constructive critical analysis debate within organisations. Until artists and arts organisations can be honest in measuring their achievement against their stated objectives, how can we expect them to participate openly and fruitfully in peer review?
In addition to having the tools, organisations therefore need to be supported in developing internal debate about the art they create and deliver. Too often this activity is given a cursory place in team meetings, and few feel able to deal with the elephant in their room, sticking to budgets, future programme, and staffing issues. Boards are particularly averse to discussing the art; a crazy situation for an arts board. McMaster calls for at least two artists or practitioners to be on the board of every cultural organisation. This should at least give the board the knowledge to have a debate on artistic matters, but it may not give them the confidence if critical analysis is consistently confused with criticism.
Tools for the job
Boards and staff need support in developing the techniques and processes for managing critical analysis and debate. We would suggest this might include:
• Open forum role models. There will be organisations that for the benefit of their own development, might be comfortable enough to invite peers to a facilitated critical analysis session to consider a work in progress, or a finished piece. This might be for invitees only, or for project partners, or for a wider group as appropriate.
• Facilitated internal organisational sessions (action-learning) with all staff to discuss a season or a particular piece of work, with the intention of leaving the organisation with the skills to facilitate future sessions in-house.
• Facilitated board discussions, giving permission to engage in artistic debate, and pulling the art firmly onto the board agenda
• Production of good practice guidelines for organisations wanting to undertake critical analysis without a physical external facilitator
• Making better use of audiences attending after show talks; getting the information you really need
• Support for a range of organisational development activities that meet this need head on.
Here to help
If you would like to talk to us about how your organisation can be enabled to face the challenges posed by the McMaster report please get in touch with Debbie Kingsley
