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During my first museum education job, I was convinced that my professional skills were on point. After all, I had several administrative summer jobs so I when it came to collating paper, making binders, stuffing envelopes, I worked like a machine. And this was really all that was required of me in terms of office skills. My list of external contacts was quite small. I never handled money. I also didn’t supervise anything, except for the occasional volunteer at a program. Then I decided to take a job working in events and I found that what I thought were solid professional soft skills were quite soft themselves. In the 3.5 years that I worked in that job, I grew many professional skills that now serve me incredibly well as I have returned to the world of museum education.
Skills such as logistics, financial management, communicating well, and the like are skills that one doesn’t learn in grad school because we should learn these in either in our internships or entry-level jobs. Of course, we all know that not all entry-level jobs or internships are created equal. Training will vary by work duties, supervisor, museum or general nature of the job. So what do we do? As we all do, we simply do our best but plan on a little trial and error. Truthfully, we should take it upon ourselves to grow in these areas. No one can make you eat leafy greens, no one can make you a skilled professional.
What did I learn that helps me so greatly now in museum education? I’m not a project manager by any means, but these are skills that I learned on the job. While museum education deals with a lot of content and theory, it also takes a great deal of planning, communication, and collaborating with other departments. It is critical that we are good at how we do our jobs, not just at what we do in our jobs. The below tricks will be more applicable to programs, events, and projects. I’ll save what has helped me in other areas of museum ed for another day.
Organize the inbox. I cannot stress this one enough. I’ve written before about mastering email and I will never step down from this soapbox. Having an organized inbox saves so much time because you will know where to find everything. Also, there is something so Zen about having an inbox that is barely in the single digits. A clean inbox will also help you with my next point.
Follow up. Stay on top of things. It’s your project, program, or whatever, so it falls on you to make sure tasks get done. If you ask someone to do something, always follow up if it isn’t done or you didn’t get a response. People get busy and it’s not their job to manage your project. If you don’t get a response, give them a few days and send a polite check-in. Before a program or a deadline for a project, always follow up and make sure they are ready. The last thing you want is to assume someone will remember to show up to work a program when you asked them months ago and haven’t brought it up since.
Save your files. Whether you do this electronically or by paper, it is so important. And let me clarify that when I say save your files, I don’t just mean the important ones. I mean everything. Receipts, email communications, drafts of schedules, postmortem reports. Save. It. All. You will thank your past self, as will anyone who works with you in the future.
Keep VERY organized files. Equally as important as saving everything is organizing it, which is why this gets its own point on the list. There’s nothing worse than opening a file that is oozing documents. Everyone will find a system that works best for them, but I like to keep separate files for financial information (including ALL receipts), participant information, content/lesson plans, and print assets. Also – save everything by year and individual program if it recurs during the year. The same practice can also work for organizing project and research files but would require a different filing system.
Create timelines. And I don’t say this because I’m a history museum professional. Timelines are so important for task and project management. This will help you remember when and what to do. Think of it as a long-term checklist. One might include things, such as “in January order the programs” or “in April email instructions to the volunteers.” It’s also a good idea to have one of these for day-of, especially if it is a big program. For me, having a list to check off frees a little space in my mind.
Always think from start to finish. This is the hardest one, especially if it is a new project or program, but it will be helpful to think through the whole enchilada. Think about what it will be like to set up the program, what it will be like when people walk through your doors, what it will be like when they are doing activities, what it will be like when they leave, what will it be like at clean up. With projects, I like to think about the final project and what it will look like, then I think of what it will look like at the beginning and then the other steps that are required to see it finished. An important piece of this will be my next point.
Over prepare. Assume it will rain, so have a solid rain plan ready. Assume someone will lose it on you because they got lost looking for parking, so have the best possible directions, people stationed at key points, and good signage. Assume that no one will understand what to do, so have detailed instructions and examples for your volunteers. Yes, people will think you are crazy when it’s 80 degrees and sunny out or when your volunteer knows exactly what to do without any explanation, but there is always the chance that something could go wrong. Being overly prepared with a solid plan gives SO much room to handle weird situations that come up. When your program, event or whatever is running like a well-oiled machine, then you won’t sweat as profusely when someone approaches you with a question or situation that is out of left field.
Get it done the night before and get to work early. Have everything done and ready the day before. This will save you so much stress leading up to the program. If you want to be feeling calm and centered morning of the program, then this will get you there…or at least help you get there. As mentioned above, this helps you be flexible for the unexpected late arriving vendor or volunteer. Or it gives you peace of mind for my own recurring nightmare, sleeping through the alarm. Luckily, this hasn’t happened to me yet IRL.
A post-mortem report is key. Always make a good post-mortem report after any program. It should include items such as financials, attendance, things that went well, things that did not go well, things you want to do differently next time, things you didn’t think about what you want to be sure to do next time. Basically, write the report like you won’t be there in the next year or like you will forget everything that happened (shocker – you probably will forget WAY more than you think you will).
These have helped me tremendously and I’m still refining these skills. Are there any skills that you did not learn in school, but have helped you with your current job? Are there any of the above items that you want to see a more detailed post about? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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