> Hey there...
> Glad to see such progress on the site.
>
> As noted earlier, the most interesting part of the team-process paper seems
> to have been lost. I can't find either an electronic or a hard copy
> original (did look for it, though). If it does turn up, I'll forward it
> along.
>
> Attached is the less interesting part of that talk which was later published
> (Hilke, D. D. "Responsibilities of the creative-Project Leader",
> Exhibitionist Vol 18, No. 1 1999). You are welcome to include it in your
> website, but I suspect its the other part you were looking for.

Responsibilities of the Creative Project Director
D.D. Hilke, 1995

Intro

My talk this afternnoon is the result of what educators call "reflective practice"
Iíve been taking a first look, and a long look, back at the "Beyond Numbers Project" and how we muddled our way, and I've been trying to figure out what we did that made the creative process work better.

I've got some preliminary ideas I'd like to share with you,
but before we get started, I want to share with you my favorite fortune cookie.
It said

It's hard
It takes longer
It's bumpy
It's never finished along the way
In fact it never seems to be finished at all
(Pennsylvania roads seem like that to me)
And if you're responsible for the road, you've got to construct it.... make it....

That's why I like it too.

I think any creative process is like that and I think the road to succesfully managing creativity needs a four wheel drive mountain pickup just as badly as any other road to success.

Well, I don't have a four wheel drive pickup for you today. Maybe it's more like a compact car Or - what is they called a Volkswagen bus? - a pregnant roller skate. But it seems to have gotten us through Beyond Numbers so its a start.
Let's talk about it a little and maybe you guys can help me soup it up with some ABS (ed - DD. what is ABS?)or something so we don't spin our wheels so much next time.

Here is the list that I came up with when I stopped and thought what I'd been doing the last two years to get this creative team throught the "Beyond Numbers" project.
 
 
 

If you look at the bottom two lines of blocks for a moment, you'll find a lot of activities that anyone who is involved in a creative project needs to do - whether you are directing a project, managing a part of a project, or simply doing your own part of the project.

these stratees and many more that we've talked about tody are useful at all levels and in all contexts.

I hope we'll get a chance to talk more about them later, but for now I'd like to talk just a bit about the seven strategies that are at the top of the page.

Thesetwo lines also apply to everyone at some level, but they are most critical to project directors or managers who are in charge of large projects with a number of teams or emplyees working under them.

These are theessential repsonsibiliteis of the project head. ASIDE: If you are lucky or unlucky enough to be both the head of the project and the person doing the porject - and probably the person evaluating the project.

Ask how many in the audience are in this boat.

Well then my condolences, becuase if it wasnt' enough of a challenge to do all the creative work yourself, you still have to do all of this too. and you have to create a kind of schizophrenia in yourslf so that you can tell yourself what to do and then go out and do it.

However, I'm going to assume for the moment that we are all project directors and that there is a staff of four, or eight, or forty-eight or five hundred eight people under whose job it is to do the creative work.

these are your most essential jobs.
Let's lak about them for a minute.

<insert talk>

The first draft of this paper came at one of those fleeting moments of seeming clarity when a project had just recently come to completion (Beyond Numbers at the Maryland Science Center) and the process, with all of its intervening successes and failures, could be seen in sharp relief. In a mental rush of lessons learned, a number of responsibilities of the creative-project leader found their way onto a sheet of paper and a number of "rules of the road" penned.

Now, some three years later, I look back at the list with mixed feelings. More years of experience leave me convinced that it is a useful list. Some of the same experiences remind me of how difficult it can be to follow such advice (even when it is your own). Difficult or not, we who direct creative projects, owe it to our teams to try, and like it says below, eventually fail our way to success. Although, still learning, I offer here my favorite selections from this list.

Keep the Lions at Bay

The creative team must be insulated from individuals or institutions with vested interests in the project. Obvious examples include overzealous content advisors, nervous museum directors, bureaucratic bean counters, partnering institutions, and funding agencies. While the project leader will need to hear from and respond to multiple constituencies in executing the project, the project team can not, without losing its focus and cohesion.

Rule of the road: Feed the lions (something other than members of the creative team).

Point Towards the Goal

This one is obvious and essential, but we all mess it up time and time again. It is the project leader's job to clearly communicate WHAT the creative team is charged to produce (e.g., an exhibit, program or institution), any CONSTRAINTS that must govern its process or outcome (e.g., predetermined topics, partners, institutional goals for the project, resources, time constraints, etc. and WHY (e.g., the personal impact it will have on individual visitors, the difference it will make to the public good, the way these impacts reflect the mission of the institution and the reason why each team member's profession supports these goals).

Rule of the road 1: No matter how talented, the team told clearly to go "north" is less likely to end up at the south pole than the team told to simply "get to work."

Rule of the road 2. If the north star (that's you, oh leader) moves around in the sky, it is very hard for anyone to navigate.

Provide Limited Resources

The creative team needs clear information regarding the resources that are and aren't available to the project. Clear articulation up front regarding how much money, staff, time, space, objects, expertise, etc. are available to the project will help scope the project for the team. The project immediately takes definition as large or small, rich or poor, doable or impossible à and even in those cases where the project seems too small, too poor, and too rushed to be loved, the team begins to own the project because they know what it is, what it is not, and that it is theirs. Failure to make clear statements up front regarding resource allocations leaves the team uncertain of management's intentions for the project, unclear regarding what they can and can't expect, and adrift in a world of possibilities that are not anchored in reality.

Rule of the road: While limited resources result in greater creativity ("necessity is the mother of invention"), the savvy leader keeps a small pot of gold available to support rainbows as needed.

Demand Excellence, Teamwork, and Innovation

Excellence, teamwork, and innovation are defining characteristics of successful creative teams, but can we really demand them? Creativity is hard, scary work. It is especially hard for a team where multiple criteria for success must influence the final product and where there is no product that models that success (i.e., in most exhibit projects). What project leader has the right to be uncompromising in setting expectations of excellence in light of such a daunting task?

The paradox here is that the work is just too hard to do under less demanding circumstances. Exhibit developers will reach into themselves and do nothing short of the miraculous at great personal sacrifice for a vision they believe in and for one that demands and produces excellence. Conversely, no one wants to invest hours of hard work and make untold personal and professional compromises for anything less than a product that they can be truly proud of.

Rule of the road : Just because its never been done, doesn't mean you can't do it, and do and well.
 
 

Fail Your Way to Success.

Even on a short timeframe, invoke a process that allows unusual and half-baked ideas to emerge and be tried out with real visitors (and management) even when not supported by the entire team. As the leader, live the truth that what doesn't work is just as informative as what does. Expect that the final design will overcome the shortcomings of these experiments and retain their strengths. Equally important, however, expect the developers to be learning why one thing worked and another didn't. Keep this process going to the very end of the project if time allows. The confidence that the entire team will gain in themselves and their product will become empowering and self-feeding. Opening jitters will turn into opening day excitement.

Rule of the road: Encourage limb sawing. When developers go out on a limb and saw it off behind them - .. if they fall, they have learned an unforgettable lesson in physics. .. if they float, they (and therefore your team) have achieved what all thought was impossible.

Parenting the vision

If the project's goals are the WHAT, the Vision is the creative project's HOW. Contrary to the desires of development directors and production managers, visions are not created in a day or even in seven days, - - they evolve. The vision begins as the sketchiest of ideas and a lot of IOU's. It grows to maturity through completely unpredictable contributions of the creative team and with careful nurturing and heartless pruning by the project leader. The vision is the project's goal made ever more real through bits and pieces of real product first imagined and eventually pieced together into a truly workable whole. Oftentimes, the only way that the creative team recognizes its progress is by comparing the richness of this month's evolving vision with the paucity of the vision they had last month. Until, in the end, the vision becomes the final product, visitors play their part, and it is done.

Rule of the road: The evolving vision must occupy a place of honor in the mind of the project leader and in the minds of the creative team. It is the current embodiment of the project's mission and the promise of its future realization. Its cohesion and promise, no matter how tentative, is the soul of the creative team.

Delegate Ownership and Responsibility

Good management is synonymous with effective delegation. But, while important to any project, I've come to believe that it is paramount in the creative project.

The people who work at "Hands On" have a good analogy for the relationship between creative developers and the ideas that they create à it's a dating relationship, and it is full of all the excitement, anxiety, unrealized potential, and emotional involvement that goes with such a relationship. Their good advice to developers is to recognize up front that this is NOT a lifetime commitment. You must date your ideas and be willing to love åem and leave åem for an idea that's better for the project.

What does this have to do with delegating authority and responsibility?

Rule of the road 1: Only the person really responsible for a particular part of the vision can be expected to have the discipline to have safe sex with a really hot idea.

Rule of the road 2: Only the person really responsible will be willing to take the homely idea out on a date long enough to discover if there is a hidden gem of an idea just under the surface.

Retain High Level Decision Authority

The project leader can never relinquish final authority nor relinquish responsibility for the progress toward the goals of the project. Furthermore, since the Vision is the evolving embodiment of these goals, the project director has primary responsibility and decision-making power for both the process by which the vision evolves, and the content of the vision at major milestones along the way.

Rule of the road: The decisions of the Project Leader have enormous leverage. Use this leverage rarely and wisely.