What is progress-space research?
“Progress Space” refers to a person’s experience as they identify a goal and choose how (or whether) they will make progress toward achieving that goal.
Progress-space research is how we study people’s goals and how a museum can utilize its resources to support them. This article describes the progress cycle and compares the progress and solution spaces.
Sketch of the Progress Cycle (Adapted from the “learning loop” found in Dave Gray's book Liminal Thinking).
Starting at the top of the diagram, a person:
identifies a goal: “Who do I want to be?”
weighs what options they believe are available to them.
decides on one or more solutions that they think will help them succeed. (This is where the solution space begins.)
evaluates whether the solution(s) they chose helped them make progress.
Progress-space research (PSR) helps museums understand people’s inner thinking, emotional responses, and guiding principles in relation to the goals that matter to them. Those three elements form the interior cognition that shapes decision-making and informs beliefs as to available solutions.
This is also the space where museums can come to understand their competition, which can yield surprising insights. For example, we’ve found people who think of museum membership in the same way they consider enrollment in small business accelerators. If we had not focused on the goal of furthering their career as an artist and instead only focused on evaluating the museum’s membership program, it’s unlikely we would have identified a new positioning opportunity for the museum. This is why we sometimes call progress-space research opportunity research.
Once someone decides how to address their goal, they enter the solution space.
The solution space is where people follow through on their decision as to how they will pursue a goal and evaluate the results.
Solution-space research — evaluation — is devoted to understanding the degree to which an organization has a) effectively supported a person’s goals and b) met its own purposes. (Were they satisfied with their visit? Could they find what they were looking for? Did they learn something new? Did they donate or become a member? etc.)
Solution-space research (SSR) is typically focused on measuring the success of an existing program, which is valuable — Museums need to assess the impact of their work.
At the same time, SSR is fundamentally about optimizing what exists today. It is largely a tactical endeavor that, by definition, requires organizations focus its resources on understanding existing audiences and improving offerings for them.
The solution space — and evaluation — is for today and yesterday. It is not about strategic innovation in the long term. The sooner museums accept the limits of evaluation, the sooner they can begin to find a balance between supporting their current audiences and developing strategies to support new communities.
Of course, as a research firm that specializes in progress-space research, we have an interest in seeing museums adopt it. That said, we’re sincere in our belief that museums do benefit from a more balanced research approach.
What prevents cultural organizations from devoting more time to progress-space research?
Museums focus their resources on the solution space because:
it’s easier for museums to learn from people in the solution space. Visitors are right there in the building, so it’s much easier to talk to them about their experience in relation to what they’re currently doing than it is to find people who share a common purpose who are not “engaging” with the museum.
short-term financial incentives and external expectations. Hi, funders.
the solution space can be validating and provide museums with a sense of direction and accomplishment. We want and need to assess our performance in the eyes of the people we support.
Conversely, the opposite of the above is true for the progress space. Museums spend little time in the progress space because:
it’s harder (or at least seems harder because it’s not a familiar practice) to learn from people who are pursuing a goal and who have not yet chosen the museum as a solution to support their goal.
there are fewer immediate incentives or short-term rewards for investing in inclusive strategic research.
unlike the solution space, the progress space doesn’t reflect on our performance (at least not until later, when the organization uses its progress-space understanding to create opportunity maps). It’s more appealing to understand others in terms of how we’re doing than it is to understand them on their terms.
the progress space requires a degree of strategic thinking and alignment that is challenging for many organizations. To learn from people in the progress space, we have to segment people in terms of their goals. Museums typically identify communities in terms of demographics, not goals. If they are able to redefine communities in terms of goals, they need to prioritize which goal(s) they want to support. Ultimately, thinking about other people’s goals forces us to define our goal, which is terrifying and why put yourself through that when there’s always another fire to put out?
None of those reasons make progress-space research less important, though.
What if every person calling for museums to become more relevant to their communities is essentially pleading for museums to stop devoting all their time and attention to short-term assessments and start taking a human-centered, purposeful approach to their futures?
Progress-space research offers a practical approach to address that call for fundamental change.
Kyle
If you’re interested in how these ideas apply to the community listening you’re already doing in your museum, contact us.
