What does a consultant do? More specifically, what does a museum consultant do?
The idea of this post came about thanks to the many appreciative feedbacks we received after the publication of the previous article, which dealt with one of the many fields of “consultancy” in which we are engaged on a daily basis (the drafting of texts).
If you want to continue reading, today, in the studio, we have discussed this: the role of the consultant.
In three steps, what should a ‘good’ consultant do?
1 – Giving sound, up-to-date, concrete, verified and disinterested advice. A consultant is in continuous training, keeps up to date, reads and studies other case studies, checks the final results of the choices made up to the evaluation stage; museum visitors are our only point of reference. The consultant collects and analyses the needs of the client, draws up projects, specifications, orders and requests – helps and supports in the choice of suppliers on the basis of a common and shared planning.
2 – Taking responsibility for one’s own consultancy; the consultant lives and deals with the client’s problems as if they were his own. We are the ones who sit alongside curators, directors and administrators of cultural heritage, and we have to stay there, at their side, until the moment of the “test of 9”, i.e. until, for example, our exhibition and communication project is used by visitors, the digital solution we recommended for access management is tested, the communication project is verified, and so on.
3- Become increasingly reliable. This characteristic goes beyond the professional sphere and mainly concerns the human one. IIscriviti alla nostra newslettern order to be able to coordinate several teams (we never do just one project at a time…), to follow the timing of a complex project, to push the envelope on a project solution, to represent the organisation for which one works… One must always be focused and on the ball, true, but one must also evaluate oneself as a resource: can I follow the project well in terms of time, competence and will? Are all the conditions in place to do a good job, can they be created?
The simplification required by an article for the blog has undoubtedly made us omit important content, which we will try to expand on in the next article, dedicated to the training activities carried out by the studio: Our lectures, past experiences and future developments.
For speeches and interventions on our projects and activities, please write to us: info@matteosicios.com
