Patternmakers 12/12/19 Patternmakers 12/12/19

Our 2019 team highlights

2019 has brought its successes and challenges. In this post, MD Tandi Palmer Williams reflects on the highlights and learnings.

2019 is the last year of the decade, and in many ways it has felt like a coming of age. It’s now my fifth year in business, having started freelancing as a research consultant in 2016, and I’m finally beginning to feel settled - though the learnings just keep coming!

As a team, we’ve achieved so much, but there is still so much work to do! Arts and cultural organisations are lagging behind other not-for-profit sectors in terms of capturing data about their impact, and our fundraising is not yet delivering the rates of return seen in other sectors.

But there is a lot to feel good about too - and one of my big lessons is to pause more, express gratitude and reflect on how far we’ve come. Here are some of our team’s highlights of the year that was 2019.

Audience Research Toolkit released

After two years in development, involving a needs analysis, data collection, co-design workshops, and user testing, Creative Victoria’s Audience Research Toolkit was launched.

Designed to help the small-to-medium creative arts sector conduct ‘DIY‘ research in-house, we developed the toolkit’s tools, templates and guidance for surveys, focus groups and data analytics.

I spoke with artsHub about the toolkit and how it can help creative arts organisations develop audiences and build engagement.

Visit the toolkit at www.creative.vic.gov.au/toolkit

GENEXT report published

We were delighted to see our research for the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) published as a report, ‘By young people, for young people: A report on the impact of GENEXT at the MCA’.

The research found that by empowering a committee of teenagers to program regular festival-style museum ‘take-overs’, the institution has created a safe space for young people to express themselves. It has also led to audience development: past participants in GENEXT are more likely to attend the MCA, make art themselves, buy works of art and donate to arts organisations.

The research was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald in September.

Speaking about audience development

In August I was thrilled to co-present at Performing Arts Connections in QLD with our client, Rebecca Bennell from The Cube Wodonga. We talked about Actioning Change: converting research to reality in regional venues.

Since working together on an audience development plan in 2017, The Cube has gone on to grow ticket sales, increase membership income and diversify their audience. Rebecca shared what has worked, and what hasn’t, and I spoke about the lessons for audience development.

It’s been a real honour to work in partnership in this way and see what a great team can do with research.

Presenting at Culture 2.0 in St Petersburg

In November I was invited to speak on a panel as a part of the St Petersburg International Cultural Forum. The subject was where the world is heading, and how cultural institutions are innovating in relation to global trends.

It was an honour to be one of the only Australians at the event, but it was challenging too! Speaking to a foreign audience, with live translation in Russian and Chinese, it really put my speaking skills to the test, in a good way!

It also forced me to ‘zoom out’ on our work and put it in the context of global issues. I spoke about how Australian cultural institutions are delivering public value and contributing to topics like climate change, diversity and migration, and youth mental health.

On stage at Culture 2.0 in St Petersburg. Image credit:

Working with a team of legends

One of the highlights of this year, and of my life generally, has been working with a team of super bright, incredibly talented and supportive people.

Our newest team member Bianca Mulet is our rising star, creating sharp insights from all kinds of data. Dr Catherine Davis has brought sociology to our team, which we have all learned so much from, and Jodie Bombardier our Operations Manager connects all the dots behind the scenes to make everything flow!

In 2020, we’re looking forward to having Aurora Nowosad back after her baby break, and farewelling Catherine as she takes on new challenges. It’s such an honour to work with these stars and I’m incredibly grateful for their support and commitment to our vision.

There are many, many more highlights - but I’ll leave it there for this year. The working year is not quite done and there are deadlines to be hit, presents to wrap and sparkling wine to drink!

Over summer, I’ll be sharing some predictions for 2020, and how we can continue working together to grow culture, creativity and community.

See you then!

About the Author

Tandi Palmer Williams
Managing Director

Patternmakers’ Founder and Managing Director Tandi Palmer Williams is an experienced consultant and arts and culture research specialist.

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What had us talking in 2019

In 2019 our MD Tandi Palmer Williams took to LinkedIn to share ideas with you. Here are the top articles that had us talking.

The end of the year is a great time for reflection, and a great opportunity to take a look at what’s unfolded this year, what’s worked well and where to improve, before bracing for the next.

Tandi took to LinkedIn this year, to share ideas on audience development, strategic planning and data culture. Here are some highlights:

First-time visitors need more than a map

A visit to the #TateModern had us thinking about how we give first-time attendees the best possible experience.

What constitutes a 'promising program' in the arts?

The Australian Institute of Family Studies has a definition of 'promising' and 'emerging' programs. Would this work in the arts?

Do you know when to act and when to evaluate?

As leaders, we need to judge when to pause and evaluate our work. But no-one wants 'analysis paralysis'. What if there was a decision-tree help guide our evaluation decisions?

Are micro-experiments they key to developing audiences?

Two years after working together, we looked back on a past client and everything they've achieved since. It led to some ideas about how small experiments can add up to big changes.

What if the arts sector was data-rich?

Arts and culture organisations are along the least likely to measure their success - but we chose to see that as an opportunity.

Power moves: How evaluation can help you prepare for multi-year funding applications

For our arts & culture colleagues applying for funding this year, we shared some ideas about how research and evaluation can help you refine your strategic direction and test new ideas.

Header image credit: Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

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Patternmakers 12/12/19 Patternmakers 12/12/19

What got us talking in 2019

In 2019 our MD Tandi Palmer Williams took to LinkedIn to share ideas with you. Here are the top articles that had us talking.

The end of the year is a great time for reflection, and a great opportunity to take a look at what’s unfolded this year, what’s worked well and where to improve, before bracing for the next.

Tandi took to LinkedIn this year, to share ideas on audience development, strategic planning and data culture. Here are some highlights:

First-time visitors need more than a map

A visit to the #TateModern had us thinking about how we give first-time attendees the best possible experience.

What constitutes a 'promising program' in the arts?

The Australian Institute of Family Studies has a definition of 'promising' and 'emerging' programs. Would this work in the arts?

Do you know when to act and when to evaluate?

As leaders, we need to judge when to pause and evaluate our work. But no-one wants 'analysis paralysis'. What if there was a decision-tree help guide our evaluation decisions?

Are micro-experiments they key to developing audiences?

Two years after working together, we looked back on a past client and everything they've achieved since. It led to some ideas about how small experiments can add up to big changes.

What if the arts sector was data-rich?

Arts and culture organisations are along the least likely to measure their success - but we chose to see that as an opportunity.

Power moves: How evaluation can help you prepare for multi-year funding applications

For our arts & culture colleagues applying for funding this year, we shared some ideas about how research and evaluation can help you refine your strategic direction and test new ideas.

Header image credit: Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Be in the loop

Patternmakers 12/12/19 Patternmakers 12/12/19

2019 team highlights

2019 has brought its successes and challenges. In this post, MD Tandi Palmer Williams reflects on the highlights and learnings.

Audience Research Toolkit released

After two years in development, involving a needs analysis, data collection, co-design workshops, and user testing, Creative Victoria’s Audience Research Toolkit was launched.

Designed to help the small-to-medium creative arts sector conduct ‘DIY‘ research in-house, we developed the toolkit’s tools, templates and guidance for surveys, focus groups and data analytics.

I spoke with artsHub about the toolkit and how it can help creative arts organisations develop audiences and build engagement.

GENEXT report published

We were delighted to see our research for the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) published as a report, ‘By young people, for young people: A report on the impact of GENEXT at the MCA’.

The research was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald in September.

Speaking about audience development

It’s been a real honour to work in partnership in this way and see what a great team can do with research.

Presenting at Culture 2.0 in St Petersburg

Working with a team of legends

One of the highlights of this year, and of my life generally, has been working with a team of super bright, incredibly talented and supportive people.

There are many, many more highlights - but I’ll leave it there for this year. The working year is not quite done and there are deadlines to be hit, presents to wrap and sparkling wine to drink!

Over summer, I’ll be sharing some predictions for 2020, and how we can continue working together to grow culture, creativity and community.

See you then!

About the Author

Tandi Palmer Williams
Managing Director

Patternmakers’ Founder and Managing Director Tandi Palmer Williams is an experienced consultant and arts and culture research specialist.

Be in the loop

Patternmakers 24/10/19 Patternmakers 24/10/19

Patternmakers policy on research incentives

At Patternmakers, we use incentives to motivate participation in our research projects. This page explains why we use incentives and what we consider in designing appropriate incentives. It also explains how we distribute them to participants.

At Patternmakers, we use incentives for participants who take part in our research projects. This page explains why we use incentives and what we consider in designing appropriate incentives.

What are incentives?

Incentives can take a number of forms, such as cash, a gift card or gift such as movie tickets. In line with industry practice, incentives are usually given to all participants who attend focus groups. For surveys, usual industry practice is to run a Prize Draw, whereby all respondents have a chance to win a prize.

We govern our use of incentives by the Australian Market and Social Research Society (AMSRS), and relevant State/Territory guidelines on prize draws.

Why we use incentives?

At Patternmakers we use incentives for two reasons.

Firstly, they are used to motivate participation and ensure the best possible response rate in surveys and attendance for focus groups. Administering research processes involves significant investment of time and money, and we want to make sure we maximise participation and hear from as many people as possible.

Secondly, we use incentives to motivate people who aren’t engaged with the subject organisation for the research topic. Research has shown that using incentives helps reduce bias by motivating a broad range of people to participate.

In our experience, a lack of incentive for participants results in poor levels of attendance, and skewed participation, leading to inefficiencies in our overall research project. Not using incentives can affect the robustness of the data collected.

As a research agency, it is our job to ensure we achieve target response rates for the highest level of rigour possible. When working with clients, we will always negotiate the nature of the incentive to align with the organisation’s model.

How do cash incentives work?

If you have signed up to participate in a focus group with a cash incentive, the incentive will be paid on the day, at the conclusion of the group.

The facilitator will distribute the incentives to all participants present on the night. If you cannot make it on the day, unfortunately we cannot pay the incentive.

How do Prize Draws work?

If you have completed a survey with a prize draw, you will be asked to provide your name and contact details at the end of the survey. These details are confidential and will not be connected with your survey responses, unless you give your explicit permission.

At the end of the survey, you will also be able to read the terms of the draw, including what date the prize will be drawn and how the winner will be contacted.

We select the winner using a random number generator. The winner is then contacted by email. If we do not hear back from with winner within two weeks, we will select another winner.

You can read more about the AMSRS Guideline on Incentives for Participation in Market and Social Research here:

https://www.amsrs.com.au/documents/item/1935

About the Author

Tandi Palmer Williams
Managing Director

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Patternmakers 3/5/19 Patternmakers 3/5/19

Why every program manager needs a research toolkit

From 2017 to 2019, Patternmakers developed an Audience Research Toolkit in collaboration with Creative Victoria, Thirst Creative, and almost 300 stakeholders from the Victorian creative arts sector.

In this post, MD Tandi Palmer Williams shares some of the process, and her tips for people using the toolkit to conduct research.

In the past 10 years, audience research has become an essential tool for arts managers.

If you want to reach new people, develop audiences and deepen engagement, then research is part of your core business.

Why we care

Even though we make a living from consulting, I firmly believe that every arts officer, manager and director should have the ability to run their own research processes in-house.

When I first started working in the arts, after seven years in finance and economics, I was amazed at all the powerful, high quality work taking place; programs literally changing people’s lives for the better. But I was also horrified at a dearth of evidence.

Compared to other sectors, the arts has not embraced evidence-based practices (for reasons I recently discussed on LinkedIn) and in 2016 I established Patternmakers with a mission to help build a strong, vibrant, creative ‘data culture’ in the Australian creative industries.

I believed then (and still do) that we need to become proficient in use of data analysis, research and evaluation - and do it in a way that aligns with our values. Research, if done well, should support the creative process, not undermine it. It should be ethical and responsible - and creative!

Which is why, in 2016, that I was thrilled to be the successful tenderer to work with Creative Victoria to develop an Audience Research Toolkit for the small to medium creative arts sector in Victoria.

How it worked

From the outset, it was an ambitious project. Over the following two years, we would undertake a multi-stage development process that included:

Research with stakeholders in the creative arts sector, including a series of interviews and a survey of 225 representatives from the small to medium sector
Co-design workshops with representatives from regional Victorian galleries, festivals, producers, presenters, Creative Victoria staff and digital agency Thirst Creative
Development of tools, templates and guidelines (i.e. long hours workshopping, drafting, editing, proofing)
Testing of the tools with eight creative arts organisations from regional Victoria.

Once the tools had been reviewed, revised and signed-off, Creative Victoria worked with Thirst Creative and its own in-house marketing and communications teams to upload all the content online. And, voila!

What we learned

We found through the process that many creative arts organisations want to conduct research, but lack either the time, money, or specialist skills to actually deliver it.

The co-design process showed that the toolkit needed to be accessible, engaging, and dynamic - helping people on their journey. For some, it might be their first ever experience of research, while others would need help to improve the quality of their research activity.

Anecdotally, we had observed that many organisations were already using Survey Monkey to send out surveys. But very few were getting meaningful results. We worked backwards to identify the issues and built tools and guidance to help people do it well, even on a tight budget.

We learned that technical talk would instantly put people off. We had to find ways to talk about technical issues without the jargon. It was a great exercise in simplifying things down to key principles.

How to use the toolkit

My advice for anyone planning audience research is to:

Start small. Select an achievable goal (e.g. running a single focus group or a one-off survey) and do it well. You don’t need to survey after every workshop or performance, you just don’t.
Incentivise participation. Use a carefully designed cash-equivalent incentive to make sure you get a good response rate. If your results aren’t reliable, it can be a time-waster.
Apply insights. Set aside time to analyse, interpret, report and action the results. If you think it’s about collecting data, you’ve missed the point.
Communicate. Share your plans with your community. Say thank you to those who participated, and make sure you share what you’ve learned and actioned before you embark on the next thing. People get tired of doing surveys if they don’t see it being actioned.

Feedback

I’m looking forward to seeing how the toolkit is used throughout the sector.

One of my favourite features of the toolkit is the feedback functionality, which allows you to mark helpful and unhelpful tools, and ask questions.

If we can work together to continue refining the tools, the result will be a valuable asset that will benefit us all.

We firmly believe that creative arts organisations that build a strong, creative, vibrant ‘data culture’ are those that will change the world for the better. And we’re already well on the way!

About the Author

Tandi Palmer Williams
Managing Director

Patternmakers’ Founder and Managing Director Tandi Palmer Williams is an experienced consultant and arts and culture research specialist.

Between 2013 and 2015, she was Research Manager for the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, based at Nesta in London.

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5 signs you're ready to benefit from research and evaluation

Our team has decades of experience delivering research and evaluation projects. And there are a few things that we’ve noticed about ‘research readiness’. Here are five signs that organisations are primed to get maximum value from research and evaluation projects.

After a 15 year career as an analyst and consultant, I’ve seen how some organisations get exceptional value from research and evaluation projects. I’ve also seen organisations evaluating for the wrong reasons, and Managers who just aren’t ready to embrace the process.

Here are the five readiness factors:

Capacity

Successfully project-managing a research project takes time and effort. At Patternmakers we ask our clients appoint a project manager to shepherd projects from kick-off to completion and implementation. It’s best that the project manager sets aside a half day each week through the duration of the project. This means they can coordinate meetings, provide feedback on deliverables, and help communicate the right messages about the project to stakeholders.

Creating capacity, and building it into your workplan, ensures that you can manage the project effectively and engage stakeholders to get the maximum benefit from the process.

Curiosity

At its essence, research is about asking questions, and seeking robust evidence to answer them with accuracy. Evaluation is all of those things, plus making a judgment or drawing a conclusion at the end of it. One of my mentors, Professor Roberta Ryan, taught me early in my career that if you already know the answer, it’s not actually research.

We’re looking to work with people that are thirsty for new insight, that don’t know it all already, and they are ready to open their minds to discovering new insights and learning new ideas. This is where the magic happens.

Candour

I believe that those who openly share their learnings with others are leaders. It can be scary to put our hands up and tell others about things that didn’t work. But for our organisations to progress, we need to cultivate a culture of openness, learning and reflection.

I believe that every program manager and director has something valuable to share. I also firmly believe that we all need a ‘critical friend’, who can tell it to you straight, while practicing deep empathy.

At Patternmakers we’re honoured to play that role for our clients and partners. And there’s nothing more refreshing than simply telling it like it is.

Commitment

If you think it’s about collecting data, you’ve missed the point. Research isn’t really about the data, it isn’t even about analysis or findings. The value comes from identifying actionable insight - and implementing it. This requires enormous commitment. It also delivers enormous value. That’s why our projects don’t end with a report on key findings. We work with our clients to identify opportunities, prioritise the most important actions and develop implementation plans. We also follow up to help see it through, and reflect on the impact, which to be honest is often extraordinary. But it starts with commitment to continuous improvement.

Care

There’s a reason Patternmakers established a specialism in culture, creativity and community. It’s because we care deeply about the arts, cultural expression, recreation and bringing people together.

I left the professional services world having worked with people and organisations with dubious ethics. Today, I’m very deliberate in selecting clients and partners that demonstrate exceptionally high standards of integrity and care for others.

We develop respectful, warm, long-term relationships with our clients, who we care for, and who care for us. It makes us want to jump out of bed each morning and bring extraordinary energy to our work.

If these factors resonate with you, you might be ready to embark on something extraordinary. Good luck!

About the Author

Tandi Palmer Williams
Managing Director

Patternmakers’ Founder and Managing Director Tandi Palmer Williams is an experienced consultant and arts and culture research specialist.

Between 2013 and 2015, she was Research Manager for the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, based at Nesta in London.

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Patternmakers 20/4/19 Patternmakers 20/4/19

What career advice would you give your younger self?

In March 2019, our Founder Tandi Palmer Williams joined a panel at a KYHO Networking event called ‘Breaking the Mould’, held at UTS Startups. In this post, she shares her experience of imposter syndrome, burnout and entrepreneur lessons, in case it helps anyone out there embarking on a journey of their own.

I recently had the honour of speaking at a KYHO Networking event called ‘Breaking the Mould’, held at UTS Startups. It was a great conversation, covering imposter syndrome, mentoring, burnout and entrepreneur lessons. I thought I’d share my responses to some of the facilitators questions, in case this helps anyone out there embarking on a journey of their own.

Can you describe what your career path has looked like from graduating university to where you are now?

I spent the first seven years of my career at professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Firstly graduating as a Chartered Accountant, I then retrained as an Economics and Policy consultant and helped organisations conduct economic analysis to inform their strategy. It was a real thrill seeing my work leading to regulatory change, major investment and international partnerships - and I learned a lot from some talented economists.

But in all honesty, I was miserable. I was working late into the night, sometimes on jobs not aligned with my values, and my health was starting to be affected.

I could see that some things that we innately know are important, like cultural expression, sense of community and social bonding – aren’t easily measured in dollars and cents. I was working my butt off, but it wasn’t for what I believed really mattered.

I became fascinated with fields like cultural economics, triple bottom line accounting and social return on investment, and eventually followed my passion into the cultural sector and worked for three years in Research & Strategic Analysis at the Australia Council, the Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body.

After falling in love with my (now) husband, I moved to the UK and worked for two years at Nesta, managing the research elements of the $5m Digital R&D Fund for the Arts. I’m grateful for that experience seeing the inside of an innovation lab and having opportunities to work with some of the world’s most iconic institutions like the Royal Opera House.

I started Patternmakers back in Australia in 2016 after I had been freelancing for one year full time. Today I lead our brilliant team of four researchers, and a network of contractors and advisors across Australia and internationally.

At what moment did you decide it was right for you to start Patternmakers? What has the reception been like, and how did that feel?

From Covent Garden to Colac (VIC), I began to realise that many arts organisations and cultural institutions were experiencing similar issues: trying to grow audiences, secure funding and deliver greater impact.

I’ve now worked with organisations of all different structures and sizes and I’ve seen how some organisations grow and really make a difference, even in hard times when there’s an economic downturn, or public funding is declining.

They do it by becoming insightful institutions. It’s not about counting dollars and cents. If you’re an impact-driven organisation you need to be adopting the practises of research and insight to reach more people, secure funding and deliver even more good in the world.

Today, Patternmakers supports cultural organisations to become more insightful and impactful. With my team of researchers and strategists, we help cultural leaders collect data, create experiences people love, evaluate their impact, build compelling business cases and share their knowledge to grow the sector and change the world.

We’ve now been operating for two and a half years, and demand for our services has led to us to grow really strongly. It’s been a real rollercoaster.

But my reasons were also somewhat selfish… When my husband and I started planning a family, I started thinking about how I could grow a great business that could allow me to work flexibly.

I’m really pleased that I can now support other parents the same opportunity to balance work and family.

Have you ever felt imposter syndrome? If so, how have you broken out of that thinking?

Of course. We all live in fear that someone will find out that we’re not good enough to be doing what we do.

But I try and channel it into self improvement and professional development. I can recommend the book ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’.

Do not let imposter syndrome stop you doing things. Just make a commitment to yourself that fear and self doubt and insecurity is not going to be the driver of what you do & don’t do.

What advice would you have to young women who are entering the workforce and are feeling like a fraud or an imposter?

What I’m learning about tackling imposter syndrome is that it can help to identify and articulate the value that we bring to any conversation. Saying ‘I’m only this’ or ‘I’m just that...’ is not helping anyone. Even the youngest person in the room has something that no one else has: the perspective of youth and everyone wants to tap into that.

A colleague of mine Kathryn Geels, who now leads the Engaged Journalism Accelerator, recently shared with me the value of taking time out to reflect on your work, roles, track record and really articulate what your unique perspective is.

So for me, it’s that I understand the language of both art and maths. And it’s not until my 30s that I could see the patterns and connections and the narrative of my career, but looking back, it was always there.

How should a young person starting out go about accessing mentorship or acquiring a mentor?

Getting good guidance is critical. And there are actually three types of mentors I have accessed at different times: a great boss, a coach, and several mentors.

I’ve been lucky to have several great bosses in my journey, such as Bridget Jones, who taught me about the value of quality research closely linked with strategy. We were joint recipients of the Award for Collaboration at the Australia Council which was a great honour.

It definitely pays to seek out jobs with someone amazing to report to. You can even do reverse checks on them!

A great coach is also gold. I’ve worked with Monica Davidson from Creative Plus Business for the past three years and it has been partially subsidised by the NSW Government through Business Connect. So valuable.

A mentor, or in my opinion several mentors also play an important role. And as my co-panellist, career coach Rebecca McFarland, pointed out. It’s perfectly fine to have mentors that don’t know you are their mentor!

What has been the biggest challenge in your career to date?

In the early part of my career it was managing burnout and navigating organisational dynamics. As an ambitious, self-motivated employee there are times when bureaucracy can slow things down and it can grate when you hit certain roadblock. But there are many things to be learned in such situations too.

Since starting Patternmakers, the challenges are many, but so are the rewards! Producing work that is very high quality, while balancing the books does lead to many late nights, very few true holidays and worryingly blurred boundaries between work and everything else.

They say the entrepreneurs journey is a financial one and I tend to agree. There is a lot to learn about managing cash flow, assessing profitability and getting to know your business model inside out, and with every recruit, it can change. There have been months when I’ve wondered how we will make payroll, but it is a great discipline in becoming very, very resourceful.

In the next five years an area that will be demanding for me is HR and recruitment. Because for a business at this particular stage (and frankly, life generally) it’s all about surrounding yourself with the right people.

Did you receive a piece of advice when you were starting out that was particularly influential?

Don’t hesitate to put yourself forward. A good friend of mine, Morwenna Collett, encouraged me to apply for the Australia Council’s Arts Leaders Program. At the last minute, I put in an application. It was successful and it ended up being a pivotal experience that has shaped my world ever since.

If someone asks for a volunteer, put your hand up. If you see an award category that’s relevant to you, put an application in! You’ll be surprised how often you get further than you think. And building a great track record is the best thing you can do for your career.

What advice would you have liked to have heard?

Trust your instincts. I’ve taken on projects that I knew weren’t the right fit - and learned my lesson the hard way. More and more, I want to be selective about the people, projects and ideas that I let into my life.

And enjoy the journey! Research is the most exciting, enriching, fulfilling career. Being in the field, meeting people, hearing about their lives is such an honour and it’s so important to love what you do each day.

About the Author

Tandi Palmer Williams
Managing Director

Patternmakers’ Founder and Managing Director Tandi Palmer Williams is an experienced consultant and arts and culture research specialist.

Between 2013 and 2015, she was Research Manager for the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, based at Nesta in London.

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BlakDance launches its impact survey

BlakDance has recently launched an impact survey to gather feedback from its stakeholders. The aim is to build an evidence base that both BlakDance, and its stakeholders, can rely on for planning and advocacy work now and into the future.

What is the impact of BlakDance, and what should it prioritise in 2020 and beyond?

Patternmakers is working with BlakDance to seek feedback on its work, and gather input from stakeholders to inform its new strategic plan.

We’ve recently launched an impact survey to gather feedback from BlakDance stakeholders.

The aim is to build an evidence base that both BlakDance, and the First Nations dance sector, can rely on for planning and advocacy work now and into the future.

Take the survey now!

In the survey, stakeholders will be asked questions about their past activities and experiences with BlakDance and the assistance they’ve received. They will also be invited to share their ideas for the future of BlakDance.

Why is this important?

This survey is part of a larger project aiming to catch and keep stories about First Nations Dance over the next three years.

Since the National Indigenous Dance Forum in 2017, BlakDance have been working with arts evaluation specialists Patternmakers on more effective and proactive ways to gather feedback from stakeholders.

The organisation has collaborated on development of a ‘program logic’ and an evaluation framework to help streamline what data is collected, from whom, how often.

Why a survey?

Patternmakers has been conducting a range of interviews and workshops with BlakDance and key stakeholders. These have been informative and helped the evaluators to build a picture of the organisation’s work.

The time is now right for a survey to help to measure and prioritise stakeholder views. Although surveys don’t work for everyone, many stakeholders are already accustomed to completing surveys about other issues, and so BlakDance will test the use of surveys with its stakeholders this year.

Tandi Palmer Williams, Managing Director at Patternmakers says, ‘Instead of sending surveys after every event and interaction, we have agreed to survey stakeholders once in 2019. This data can be used for multiple purposes, including to inform the development of a new strategic plan for the organisation’.

Merindah Donnelly says, ‘At BlakDance, remaining humble is core to our business and we value input to keep us accountable to our communities and sector.’

Image credit: BlakDance

About the Author

Dr Catherine Davis
Senior Research Analyst

Catherine has a passion for data storytelling and the arts. She has particular expertise in mixed methods research design as well as community sector research experience.

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Patternmakers 27/2/19 Patternmakers 27/2/19

How research can help you shape new products & services

Research processes that can help project managers shape products, reduce risk and optimise around user needs. This article covers three relatively simple research methods that can be done at your desk, and don’t require big budgets or advanced technical skills.

I’m often asked how research can be applied in organisations to shape new products and services, particularly technology projects. During my time as Research Manager for the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts at Nesta, I wrote about research processes that can help project managers shape products, reduce risk and optimise around user needs.

Below are three relatively simple research methods that can be done at your desk, and don’t require big budgets or advanced technical skills. You can make these as big or small as you need to, but it’s important to have a plan, be systematic, and maintain an open mind as you go.

Following these three steps can help you ensure your project is innovating on current practice. They can also help you to set achievable objectives and a realistic budget, and align your work with key communities and potential partners.

1. Analyse the competition

Ask yourself: What is already out there? How are we different?

Analysing the current ‘state of the art’ is a critical first step in determining if an idea has legs, and how it can innovate on what’s already out there. Before starting any development work, have a close look at what others are doing in this space - and how existing platforms could be repurposed. Take a look at organisations like yours in other countries, ask around, and try and identify comparable products or services in other industries.

It can be interesting to identify what ‘the competition’ are doing right – and what they could do better. Once again, it’s good to be systematic, and to try and get as much of the ‘inside scoop’ as possible (How much did it cost? What is their ‘niche’? How many people are actively using it?)

For example, the Royal Opera House conducted a ‘competitor audit’ to help them prioritise features for their mobile project, and what they liked about existing offerings that they wanted to build on.

Scanning the competition can help you refine and mould your concept, and identify exciting windows of opportunity. It can also help you identify useful platforms, software or channels that you could use, and people you could partner with.

2. Measure the potential

Ask yourself: Just how big is the opportunity? What can we realistically hope to achieve?

Before you start to work on detailed plans and budgets, it’s worth taking a step back to measure the potential, or if you are exploring a new business model, ‘size the market’.

From experience, I know how easy it is to over-estimate the potential user-base for a product or service, which can lead to disappointing project outcomes. If you’re building an app to promote concerts to young people in London, work out how many young people there are in London, what handsets they use and what disposable incomes they have. If you’re going to promote it through the e-newsletter, work out how many people open the newsletter to give a sense of how many people you could reach.

For instance, artsdepot are segmenting the 65+ market in particular catchment areas, and making assumptions about conversion rates and sales potential to estimate the market for their ‘Silver Service’ membership scheme.

Remember that apps require someone to be aware of them, want them, have the right phone, know how to download them, actually download them, create an account, etc.

By measuring the range of potential, you can then set achievable targets and work out how much you can afford to invest in development, and in acquiring customers. It can also help you make technical decisions that suit your target market, such as prioritising operating systems and designing key features.

3. Review the literature

Ask yourself: Has someone tried this before? Did it work? If not, why not?

By understanding other research in the field, you can clarify the key issues for your project and navigate through obstacles that others have stumbled on. It can also help you to build your credibility as an expert and innovator in the sector, which can be helpful when trying to attract partners, funding and media coverage.

Reviewing the literature helped Marcus Winter identify the key features of game design for the Museum of Design in Plastics, and enabled Roma Patel to quickly structure their user evaluation.

The University of Leicester has this great guide to Doing a Literature Review. There are also fantastic resources such as Kings College London’s CultureCase to help you make sense of complex academic papers.

It’s a great idea to document your literature review, but if you are stretched for time, the process can be as simple as sharing knowledge with clever colleagues around the coffee table. Whatever method you choose, try to be systematic, so you don’t miss anything, and ask yourself ‘so what?’ as you go, so you can distil the implications for your project.

Originally published by Nesta as ‘3 research methods to give R&D the best chance of success’

About the Author

Tandi Palmer Williams
Managing Director

Patternmakers’ Founder and Managing Director Tandi Palmer Williams is an experienced consultant and arts and culture research specialist.

Between 2013 and 2015, she was Research Manager for the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, based at Nesta in London.

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Power moves: How evaluation can help you prepare for multi-year funding applications

Are you applying for multi-year funding in 2019? Here are five things you can do to strengthen your work, consolidate impact and improve your chances of success in upcoming funding rounds.

Are you applying for multi-year funding in 2019? Then you need to get your evidence base sorted! And it’s not too late to start.

Here are five things you can do to strengthen your work, consolidate impact and put your best foot forward in upcoming funding rounds.

1. STRUCTURE: Ensure your evaluation framework is up to date

If you don’t already have an evaluation framework in place for the organisation, now is the time to map your program logic or theory of change, and identify some questions relating to your efficiency, effectiveness and ultimate impact. Depending on your size, you might think about this at the project, program or organisation level – or a combination.

There are a bunch of free guides and tools for this out there, but we think the one in the Program planning and evaluation guide from the Australian Institute of Family Studies has just the right amount of detail.

If you’ve already developed this (or there’s something similar buried in your share drive somewhere), dust it off at your next team meeting and do a quick discussion on what aspects might need to be refreshed. Appoint someone to lead the work of getting it up to date, approved and communicated to your board and staff.

2. GATHER: Analyse your reach and impact

Impact evaluations are fast becoming an essential management tool for arts and culture organisations. They assist teams to understand the extent to which they are having an impact in the world, what is working well, and what isn’t, and exactly what factors are delivering the best outcomes. They can also help teams to work out the gaps and opportunities in their current programs and clarify the best future direction.

For instance, the Australia Council’s funding guidelines assessment criteria talk about identifying impact and need, which can be demonstrated through evaluation.

You can evaluate your impact through qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods research, depending on what is most appropriate to address the priority questions in your evaluation framework.

Some basic qualitative questions to ask are:

What was the best part about Program X?

What could we improve?

What have you taken away from your experience with Program X?

Some quantitative questions to ask are:

On a scale from 1 to 5, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with Program X?

On a scale from 1 to 5, how likely are you to recommend X to a friend or colleague?

You can also ask this last one on a scale from 0 to 10, and use the results to calculate a Net Promoter Score which can be benchmarked with other programs and events.

3. TEST: Gather evidence about what is needed in future

As a part of the strategic planning process, it can be helpful to gather hard data on what your community, participants and/or stakeholders want to see in future. This could include running a consultation process using interviews or focus groups, or running a survey of your stakeholders.

You can also prompt people with a list of potential new initiatives or priorities, and ask people to select their top three. Doing a temperature check like this can be enormously useful in helping you prioritise limited resources – and it gives you an evidence base to fall back on if people challenge your investments.

For example, Creative Plus Business conducted a survey to find out what people wanted from a creative business conference. Collecting data from their community gave them confidence that their plans were on track and is helping ensure the likelihood of a successful event.

As our colleague Bridget Jones at Wavelength said in a recent post, ‘One of the great things about planning is that it helps managers make the tough decisions about what to do - and what not to do - so they can be more successful.’ She also refers to some useful planning templates from Bridgespan to help you keep it real.

Your questions should partly be open ended, e.g.: ‘What would you like to see from us moving forward?’ or ‘What ideas can you share for our program in the next three years?’

4. SCAN: Analyse the case for investment

Before you lock down your strategic priorities, it’s important to conduct a scan of the wider environment. Analysing big picture statistical trends is an important step in prioritising initiatives and working out the case for investment.

You can do this by examining reliable sources such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics, thought leaders like Nesta (check out their predictions for 2019), data aggregators like Google Trends and academic research news articles like The Conversation.

Patternmakers also offer a series of short talks, designed for staff meetings, board meetings and strategic planning days (contact info@thepatternmakers.com.au for more information).

Your goal here is to look for alignment (or otherwise) between your plans, and where the world is heading in the next 1-5 years. For instance, topics like mental health are rising in importance, whereas some retail industries are under threat.

According to the Australia Council’s Strategic Plan Framework, you can consider producing a strategic/context analysis which summarises the strategic issues you expect your organisation to face over the next 3 years. This is often based on an assessment of your internal and external environments to identify the organisations strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and challenges. It is a distillation of analysis and research undertaken by your organisation to underpin the artistic choices you have made and the goals you have set.

5. PLAN: Work out how you’ll monitor and evaluate your progress

It’s good practice to set up your evaluation framework and methodology before you start a new funding period, new project or initiative. It doesn’t have to be super detailed, and things will undoubtedly change, but showing the assessment committee that you’ve thought about this in advance is just smart.

The key questions are basically what, when, how, why and who will be monitoring and evaluating your progress. How is the big one here, and specifically, how it will be resourced.

As a rule of thumb, I usually advise leaders in arts and culture organisations to set aside 3-5% of their resources for any given period or program for monitoring and evaluation. This doesn’t mean spending 5% on hiring a consultant, most of the work should be done internally, on things like the steps above. It’s also important to be growing your team’s skills – through things like training in research and evaluation.

___

So there you have it: Structure, Gather, Test, Scan & Plan. The geek’s guide to getting ready for your strongest application yet.

If this all sounds overwhelming, and you think there’s a case to invest in the help of a professional, you can get in touch to schedule your free consultation by emailing info@thepatternmakers.com.au. We can provide resources and templates to help you, recommend training that would suit your team, and scope out where you need professional support.

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