The Effective Museum
In the best museums leadership counts, staff work cohesively and visitors are the focus.
Des Griffin & Morrie Abraham, 1999
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (More)
Museums are organisations like other organizations and as such the best practices which have been tried and found effective elsewhere can provide useful lessons, albeit with appropriate regard to the special qualities of museums. In particular, issues of leadership and organizational development are important but reform has tended to either apply approaches from elsewhere in an unqualified manner and often claims have been made that museums cannot be validly compared with other organisations.
A major four year research project completed 2001 illuminated some of the aspects of the most effective museums, what characterises them and how they function as well as what approaches are most likely to be effective in managing change in museums.