prioritization
WORKSHOP
Learning initiatives and community partnerships falter when teams don’t have a shared understanding of who they’re trying to support and why. MaP’s Prioritization Workshop facilitates a decision around what community goal your museum will strive to support in the near term.
Why prioritize?
The value of prioritization may be self-evident, but when we’re caught in the daily grind, we don’t notice the priorities we’re setting or the degree to which others share our definitions or agree with our choices. If we don’t prioritize with intention together, challenges emerge later — sometimes active resistance but more often a general lack of direction that stalls momentum.
Things can become especially unpleasant if these decisions relate to an external group.
If a museum has only halfway decided to support a particular group of people or given equal priority to too many groups, it can strain relationships and make the organization’s efforts to connect with that group inauthentic.
The Prioritization Workshop prevents missteps by creating the internal alignment needed for success with new audiences and partners.
Who it’s for
The Prioritization Workshop is for museums that have decided audience research and development are central to their current strategy. If your organization is still deciding whether now is the right time to focus on developing new external relationships through research or partnerships, we recommend a Strategy Foundry.
This workshop is also a good fit for organizations whose interest in cultivating new audiences stems from a commitment to DEI. Throughout the workshop, we emphasize supporting people’s goals rather than defining people in terms of demographics alone. This more inclusive approach positions your organization to think creatively about how it will support people on their terms rather than relying on surface-level descriptions.
Prioritization Workshop Facts
Deliverables
We co-create a strategy statement that reflects the decision you’ve made. The statement describes which community goal you will prioritize and how long you will focus on that goal before evaluating whether a different goal should be selected. Your statement will describe the key actions you’ll take to implement your strategy. It externalizes assumptions that you’ll want to test in the following months and the constraints that you’re operating within.
Your statement will be short and simple. In addition to the statement, your team will maintain access and be able to build upon the prioritization canvas we use in the workshop. We encourage you to continue using the canvas as you test key assumptions and learn from the people who share the goal you’ve chosen to support.
Participation Requirements
Relevant staff should attend each 90-minute workshop. Typical roles of participating staff include executive leadership and directors in marketing and communications, visitor experience, membership, and education (depending on the organization's size). We will identify key staff with you in advance and use a scheduling tool to make finding times that work for everyone easier. We schedule each session at least one day and no more than two weeks between one another. If you choose to host the sessions in person, we’ll complete the sessions over three consecutive days.
Fee & Delivery
The workshop fee is $10,000. We can facilitate sessions virtually or at your site. A virtual workshop allows for more scheduling flexibility and lower cost. We’ve invested in the resources needed to deliver a high-quality remote experience for your team, including fiber-optic internet service, high-quality A/V equipment, and software services that support collaborative experiences. However, if you prefer to complete the workshop on-site, let us know, and we can arrange to travel to your location.
Looking for a more affordable approach?
If you have more time than money and you appreciate a peer-to-peer experience, check out The Prioritization Collaborative.
The value of The Prioritization Workshop to you
Align on a shared vision of who to support
Generate meaningful, respectful audience descriptions based on behaviors and goals (not only demographics)
Determine a plan of action to better support audience goals
Outside facilitation gives voice to different perspectives
Take action toward DEI aspirations and move toward a practical approach to integrating underrepresented perspectives into your organization’s planning processes.