Many museum professionals take pride (or refuge) in following standard or "best" practices, but the problem with established practices is that they can produce standard results. Standard results are fine if you’re providing a commodity that’s essentially guaranteed to be in demand for years to come. Unfortunately, museums have no such guarantee.
This doesn't mean that changes have to be radical, though. Probing the smallest, most hidden assumptions may have an outsized impact on results.
When Order Determines Results
"Look at the order in which you do things" represents one of the most potent Oblique Strategies —not because it demands wholesale change, but because it recognizes that sequence shapes results.
When two ships depart from the same harbor pointed just a few degrees apart, they initially follow similar paths. Given enough time, however, they arrive at entirely different destinations. The same principle applies to institutional approaches: similar operations deployed in different sequences produce fundamentally different results.
Altering operational sequences means acknowledging that order fuels cognitive biases. Consider anchoring, where information presented first becomes a reference point that's difficult to dislodge. Similarly, the primacy effect describes how early information gets embedded more deeply in memory, influencing subsequent judgments. Rearranging these "natural" sequences can leverage or counteract these biases.
This sequencing principle applies equally to conceptual models and operational processes — We can examine both the order in which we think about things and the order in which we do things.
The Demographics-First Approach
Consider how sequence affects community engagement strategies. Of/By/For All helped museums engage more diverse audiences by applying a demographic-first model:
Identify a demographic group
Establish partnerships with organizations serving that demographic
Develop experiences for that demographic
Evaluate success through engagement metrics for that demographic
This sequence reinforces the demographic as the primary frame, making it the organizing principle for partnerships, programs, and measurement.
The Goals-First Alternative
Museums as Progress helps institutions engage diverse audiences through an outcomes and goals model that builds on @John H Falk’s well-being framework:
Determine which outcomes from Falk's framework the museum is uniquely positioned to support
Identify communities (defined by shared goals rather than demographics)
Evaluate how demographics influence how people approach those goals
This sequence anchors the work in progress people are trying to achieve—our touchstone becomes the outcomes people seek, not the demographic categories they may or may not identify with.
This sequence anchors the work in progress people are trying to achieve—our touchstone becomes the outcomes people seek, not the demographic categories they may or may not identify with.
This approach doesn't eliminate demographics—that would be both impossible and counterproductive. Rather, it positions demographics as a contextual factor that influences how people pursue their goals, not as the primary organizing principle for institutional strategy.
Strategic Sequencing in Practice
We can see this play out in practice in The Value Realization Collaborative. Last week, I met with community members from the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art who have chosen to focus on a specific well-being outcome: feel a sense of connection/belonging with members of their group or community.
FJJMA is particularly interested in understanding how people approach this outcome in their local context. During our session, we discussed how this goal appears in different settings.
FJJMA brought up an interesting example: Military service personnel who are transitioning out of service and into civilian life. The museum already has a partnership with the local Veterans Affairs (VA) office, which provides a natural place for them to invite people to listening sessions.
Throughout our conversation, we kept returning to the outcome (not the demographic) with questions that expanded our thinking. What about family members of former service personnel? Would they also be trying to feel a sense of connection? What about college students who are just beginning military training? They're probably trying to build connections with campus groups while leaving familiar networks behind.
Demographics remain relevant — much of our society is organized around them. It would be unrealistic to ignore these relationships. But it's equally limiting to accept the default sequence most institutions follow without examining whether a different order might yield better results.
Your Turn
Identify a process at your institution where the established sequence might be reinforcing unexamined assumptions. What might happen if you reordered the steps? How might this shift influence decisions, resource allocation, or strategic direction? Share an a comment on this post or reply to the newsletter. I like hearing from you.
P.S. The MaP team will be in Los Angeles next week to plan the next big update to The Community Goals Study. There will likely be no newsletter, but if you're in the area, we will have a community member meetup on Tuesday. Stop by.