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S. Hollis Mickey
AMCV2220: Museums in Their Communities
Prof. Steve Lubar
February 16th, 2011

Analysis of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Strategic Plan 2010-2015

At some point, all large institutions must define a mission and decide how to best allocate

its resources to ensure every aspect of the institution embodies that mission. This is the process

of strategic planning. Strategic planning helps to produce enduring institutions with clear

direction. Museums greatly benefit from engaging in this process as much as any corporation or

business. Generating a meaningful mission and a structured path to following that mission aids in

establishing museums as both financially stable and culturally secure, as institutions that are

important to the vitality of their communities.

Strategic plans are intended to be effective documents for cohesively collating institution-

wide values and coherently mapping out ways to achieve short and long term goals. However,

not all strategic plans are created equal. Unfortunately, museum strategic plans frequently seem

weak in comparison to other organizations. Vague missions and values, generalized goals, and

incoherent steps to achieve and evaluate success are often found in museum strategic plans. Such

nebulous strategic plans do not offer much guidance at important junctures as to what would

serve a museum’s purpose and longevity. The Victoria & Albert Museum of London, England

offers an unique and exceptional example in its 2010/2011-2014/2015 strategic plan. Founded in

1852 as a resource for decorative arts and design, the V&A has grown astronomically since its

opening. Now, it houses over 4.6 million objects and served approximately 2.3 million visitors in

2009. As such a massive institution, the V&A must, and does, have a comprehensive, eloquent,

and compelling strategic plan. The institution’s most recent publically available plan contains a

clear mission, explicit goals for consistently enacting that mission, a directed plan for financial

well-being, and a strategy for continuing the V&A’s cultural importance.

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The format of the plan is designed to make these essential aspects of a strategic plan

accessible, understandable, and precise. The document begins with a concise statement of the

museum’s mission, as well as a brief statement of the central themes of the strategic plan.

Placing the mission and central themes on the first page without any other information helps to

emphasize their importance and demonstrate how these principles inform the rest of the

document.

Then, an introduction describes the financial situation of the institution. This lengthy

introduction highlights recent funding cuts to the museum, and thus suggests why the strategic

plan is being done at this moment. The introduction makes use of Key Performance Indicators

(KPI), a system for evaluating success usually used in external review. This suggests that this

document may, in fact, be geared for the very government organizations that have had to cut

funding to the V&A, such as the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Notably, the

introduction does not include any specific reference to how the strategic plan was generated,

information often contained in strategic plans themselves. Without such a description, the plan

reads as if an external review or those high in the corporation wrote the plan without much

consultation of those working actively in the museum. Describing the process of creating this

document, and more particularly who was involved in that process, might help employees or

other museum stakeholders understand from what perspective the plan was devised, and why it is

important to their job. Indeed, offering a transparent process might help garner their enthusiasm

for the implementation of the plan within their departments.

This introduction is followed by a table which contains a summary of the short and long

term visions for the museum. This table formatting is continued throughout most of the rest of

the document, which presents an extremely detailed breakdown of the large objectives. These
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tables perspicuously describe substantial goals—all decidedly stemming from the mission and

values of the museum—and break these goals down into manageable and measureable steps for

achievement. On the far left of the table are numbered objective themes. Corresponding

numbered columns describe short-term milestones for the 2010/2011, mid-term milestones for

2013/2014 and projected outcomes for 2014/2015. Next to each specific goal the plan lists what

KPI this corresponds to, signaling significant attention to government funding readers throughout

the document. The table format aids in clarity, and also gives any reader the sense that the plan

set forward is feasible.

The document concludes with a budget for the museum. This budget makes clear exactly

where budget cuts will be implemented and compares the new budget to past years. The budget

is followed by several appendices. The first is a full enumeration of the KPI’s of the museum,

taken from DCMS and the V&A Corporation. This is followed by an appendix of the names of

the individuals in charge of various branches of museum management and a description of that

management structure. Again, these portions of the document are largely formatted as tables.

Throughout the document table formatting helps with legibility. It seems that few museum

strategic plans so pervasively use a table format; more common is a bullet-point or outline. As

well, many strategic plans insert attractive images of objects or ‘candid’ shots of diverse

audiences in the museum. The V&A strategic plan is completely devoid of images or flashy

design—perhaps ironic since the V&A seeks to be the world’s premier design museum.

While a table is not the most eye-catching design choice, it gives legitimacy to the

document. It makes the plan convincingly appear data-driven and research-based. As well, it

visually demonstrates relations of large objectives to specific short-term target goals. The basic,

but practical, formatting of this strategic plan suggests that it is not meant for the general public,
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and perhaps not even large individual donors. Such strategic plans often include compelling

imagery and more abbreviated statements of goals and objectives. This audience of this plan

seems to be external funding organizations and internal management and employees who oversee

departments. The format seems to serve that purpose well, and offers an exemplary method for

clearly, concisely, and precisely communicating an extensive strategic plan.

Aside from the unique formatting, much of this document deserves significant attention,

but of its fifty-two pages, it seems most useful to explore more deeply the first page, which

contains the V&A’s mission and values and the strategic plan’s key themes, and to delve more

deeply into a few of the strategic objectives in the central portion of the document.

The V&A’s mission is “to be the world’s leading museum of art and design; enriching

people’s lives by promoting knowledge, understanding, and enjoyment of the designed world.”

This mission statement’s strengths are its compelling wording and specificity to the V&A. The

first portion of the mission—to be world premier—seems a natural desire for the V&A, which

indeed is one of the largest institutions of its kind. The desire to be top of the field is frequently

found in mission statements, but here it seems validated and realistic due to the specific size and

scale of this institution. The second portion of the statement suggests that the museum engages

audiences through both intellect and emotion, by cultivating knowledge and pleasure. In some

ways, this is quite remarkable; rarely does one hear a museum suggest that part of their mission

is to encourage ‘enjoyment.’ But, having enjoyment as a key component of a mission also

suggests an attention to a wide audience rather than a specific educated, or research-oriented,

elite. Both portions of the museum’s mission distinguish the V&A from other museums whose

missions tend to be vague and applicable to any kind of public institution.

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The one weakness of the mission is perhaps its last two words ‘designed world.’ These

words certainly speak to those with education in material culture and history of design, but for

the average public they are a bit oblique. Though, one might deduce they mean the world made

by human hands, as a phrase they read a bit like jargon.

The values of the V&A, listed after the mission are the following: Generosity,

Imagination, Coherence, Rigour. These four words, left unexplained, speak for themselves. Like,

the museum mission, they are an unusual set of values, most particularly ‘generosity.’ But, they

speak to the museum as an outward looking institution which seeks to be a productive force in

the community and in the world. The productive possibility of the museum seems also to be

found in the combination of the other three words. Locating imagination, coherence, and rigour

all at the same site suggests constructive, valuable, and meaningful creativity rather than

destructive, ephemeral, or disorganized production.

On the same page are the central objectives of the museum’s strategic plan. Placing these

side-by-side the mission and values helps to substantiate their relationship to one another. The

objectives are:

-To provide optimum access to collections and services for diverse audiences, now and in the future
-To be acknowledged and respected as the world’s leading museum of art and design
-To promote, support and develop the UK creative economy by inspiring designers and makers, and by stimulating
enjoyment and appreciation of design
-To operate with financial and organisational efficiency

It seems clear that these themes of the strategic plan enable and implement the V&A’s mission,

directly corresponding to the statement and to the list of values. These objectives are hopeful,

forward-looking, and inspiring, and fundamentally position the museum as a cultural force and

social benefactor.

The distinctively positive, impassioned ethos found in the mission, values, and key

objectives is fully reflected in all of the specific strategic objectives. These strategic objectives
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begin with general thematics, but are then broken down into very specific short and long-term

plans for and measures of attainment. Indeed, there are some thirty-three pages of these specifics.

The short-term goals are particularly exacting, in some cases enumerating attendance targets or

specifying extensive lists of individual building repairs.

Looking closely at a few of these themes and various milestone markers offers insight

into the plan’s practical approach to implementing broad ideals and values and embodying its

mission in every dimension. Take for example, the strategic objective “to provide optimum

access to collections and services for diverse audiences, now and in the future.” This objective is

then broken into 4 themes: building audience size and diversity, making collections accessible to

all, creatively enriching the lives of a range of public, and using the best technology to increase

access and acclaim. Each of these themes have several 2014/2015 outcomes supported by

numerous short and mid term milestones. The first theme offers a worthy example. This theme

offers three 2015 outcomes: 4.1 million visits to V&A collections, increased appeal and

understanding of the V&A brand, and more new users. The short and mid term milestones are

very exact, projecting numbers of visitors for exhibitions (ie Grace Kelly: Style Icon visitor

target 75,000) and generating concrete plans about brand awareness (ie Press conference to

communicate the V&A’s success over the last 10 years and publicise the FuturePlan Phase 2

Autumn, 2010). The specificity of these plans make success of the themes straightforward to

achieve and easy to evaluate. The exacting specificity throughout is at times tedious and

overwhelming to read, but is ultimately more useful for the museum than lofty goals without any

sort of tangible plan for implementation.

As a whole the strategic plan addresses nearly every aspect of the museum, again making

it a useful working document. Should unexpected situations or opportunities arise, this document
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likely holds an answer to ensure that the V&A continues to embody its mission. The plan

strongly frames how the V&A might reach out to the global community while supporting,

serving, and promoting London and the UK. The milestones to achieving this status include the

specifics of developing collection plans for African art and design, developing partnerships with

several named UK museums through exchanging exhibitions and judging local design

competitions. Examples such as these demonstrate that the V&A seeks renown through

generosity, a unique and admirable approach. The V&A also takes considerable steps to look

inward, enumerating steps to financial stability while also ensuring that all its processes are

transparent to its employees. Collections management and conservation as well as steps to move

towards more environmentally friendly practices are included in this larger theme as well. This

balance of attention to internal stability and external generosity situates the V&A as both secure

and dynamic in this moment of economic and cultural unrest.

Another notable theme is that of promoting creativity in the wider community. To do this,

the V&A offers a variety of approaches from expansion of digital media to innovative public

programming to collaboration with various other creative agencies. Inspiring creativity takes up

nearly six pages of the document, and such attention to this value seems extraordinary. Indeed, it

does seem that the V&A sees itself as a community creative center for collaboration rather than

an isolated arts institution. By making their commitment to a wide public clear in their strategic

plan, they offer a model for other arts institutions of many kinds who desire to be creative,

energetic hubs within their communities.

Generally, the 2010/2011-2014/2015 strategic plan of the V&A has many strengths. It

form and content make it a practical document for internal use. Its objectives are large, but its

milestone markers offer realistic and incredibly concrete ways of achieving those objectives.
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And, perhaps most importantly, the document as a whole firmly reflects the mission and values

set forth; offering a coherent and cohesive plan for the museum’s next five years.

The document does have one notable weakness which has been pointed to earlier. The

document is widely accessible to the public via the V&A’s website as part of their move towards

institutional transparency. This accessibility is certainly positive, but to the general public

without vested financial stakes in the museum, this strategic plan would certainly feel dense. It

lacks the lively, dynamic design of their website, and the creativity that typifies the V&A brand.

The museum would do well to craft an abbreviated, digestible version that captures the reader

available in addition to this lengthy document. Perhaps this more publically oriented document

would offer another means for the V&A to reach out to a wide and diverse audience and

strengthen its premier position in the museum world.

Despite this weakness, the V&A’s strategic plan serves as an example for museums of

any size. In this economic crisis, much art funding has been cut. Museums are no exception;

many are struggling to stay open. Museums have reached a moment of reckoning as cultural

resources are reduced and re-allocated and as social values are re-examined. In order to survive

the recession, museums must identify their purpose, and generate a plan for making that purpose

attractive and accessible to the public. Museums will not survive purely on the basis of financial

security. Museums must prove their worth. Museums must demonstrate themselves as

generative, productive forces in the world. The V&A does just that in its strategic plan. In this

way, the V&A is truly a paradigm, for museums, large and small, struggling in time of cultural

change to be meaningful and valued within their communities.

Strategic Plan 2010–2015 2010/11. Victoria and Albert Museum. 2010. Accessed February 6,
2011. http://media.vam.ac.uk/media/documents/about-us/2010/v&a-strategicplan2010-15.pdf