Latest / Project Podcast / Fixing Our Broken Planet: Natural History Museum’s inspiring call to action

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Fixing Our Broken Planet: Natural History Museum’s inspiring call to action · Project Podcast

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Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the chartered body for
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the project profession. My name is Emma Devita and I'm
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the editor of Project APM's course free journal and your
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host. In this podcast, I go behind the
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scenes at London's Natural History Museum, which is an APM
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corporate partner. The museum celebrates its 150th
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anniversary in 2031 and has kicked off a celebratory project
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programme that includes the creation of 6 new permanent
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galleries within the iconic building in South Kensington.
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The first gallery has already opened and that's where I
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headed. It's called Fixing Our Broken
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Planet and focuses on the planetary emergency and the
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solutions that scientists, including those at the Natural
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History Museum, are working on. It started life as a temporary
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exhibition that opened in 2021, but it was so successful it was
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decided a permanent home should be made for it.
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It subsequently became the kick off project for the Natural
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History Museum 150 Years Programme.
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As you might imagine, being a programme or project manager at
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the Natural History Museum, surrounded by dinosaurs,
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precious gems and taxidermied animals draws not only on strong
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project management skills but the ability to speak to all
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kinds of different stakeholders to get them on board, engaged
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and committed to a vision of what can be.
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Come with me to visit the gallery mid morning during the
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school summer holidays to get a sense of what's there.
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Samantha Bannister, who project managed the design of the
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exhibition, shows me around the rooms that shows off the
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architecture of the original building, which was completed
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back in 1881. The exhibition opened at the
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beginning of April and they're expecting to reach 1,000,000
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visitors by August. Yes, one of the whole sort of
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principles of this gallery, we've got a public span
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principle of showing off the architecture of of the building
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and bringing more daylight into our galleries.
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But the gallery itself was designed to be quite reductive
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because the whole sort of the premise of the galleries around
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highlighting the climate crisis. And so we didn't want to build
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anything unnecessarily. So.
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The design is quite reduced. We've just got showcases, we've
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just got the flints and the necessary graphics to explain
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what's going on. So yeah, there is a sort of an
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open, open plan feel to the gallery to reduce that use of
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unnecessary material. The NHM declared a planetary
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emergency and this is our sort of first physical exhibition at
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the South Kensington site, which sort of brings that to the fore.
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It displays scientists behind the scenes the work that they
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are doing to help to find solutions for the climate
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emergency. So we're looking at Specimen
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Solution Scientists Society as a sort of encompassing directive
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for the the exhibition. So it's meant to show you what
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the issues are, but bring you hope that solutions can be found
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and help you to take some actions away yourself to help to
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counter the planet. Treatment.
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The first exhibit I face is a huge Marlin.
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So this is a Marlin. So this is showing how
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overfishing of our seas can deplete our apex predators in
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our seas and that can affect the, the ecosystem of our our
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seas. So they're looking at the the
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DNA of this of this Marlin to understand how chemical makeup
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and specimen can help us to develop the solution for a
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healthier planet. I asked Samantha what her
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involvement in the project was. So I was the project manager for
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the, the sort of the exhibition development.
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So from deciding the scope of the project, developing the
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design, the 3D, the 2D design, the lighting design, the
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specimen selection, the narrative of of the exhibition,
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and then ultimately the installation of everything
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that's. In here alongside Sherry Louise
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with the the installation. So it was a two year programme
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from start to finish. And I think walking around it
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looks exactly how we envisioned it.
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Like there it it completely looks like the design that we
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were working through. We had a fly through created
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that sort of showed the space as it is and it is it's literally
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as it was on paper. So that's very nice to, to see
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that sort of the to be realised, especially with all sort of the,
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the sustainability of the sort of materials being at the fore
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and actually seeing that realised is and it's nice to see
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people walking around it. We were in here maybe 30 people
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at a time installing it and it felt very, very sparse.
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And then within the 1st 15 minutes of it opening, we had
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200 people come through the door and it's it's just not stopped.
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It's just great to see people engaging with these stories.
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What was one of the biggest challenges of putting the
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exhibition together? I guess the the really large
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specimens here. So we got the Marlin and and the
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bison over in the corner there. And in order to get the cases
5:34
in, for example, they had to be manufactured in a way that
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they're sort of demountable. So we could bring everything in
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in pieces and assemble them here and ensuring that we could sort
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of get the specimens into those cases.
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Everything in the gallery has had conservation work done to it
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before it goes on display. So we have an in house
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conservation team who do any remedial works to the specimens
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before they go on display. So everything to make them
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display. Were they?
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Why have we? Got.
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Bison. This is about the rewilding of
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bison into. I think it's into the to the UK
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basically they help with by grazing, they help to to lock in
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carbon and so yeah, so they're sort of a natural carbon thing.
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The exhibition doesn't intend only to educate, but to provoke
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conversation. These in screens in the centre
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here by the seating are our conversation starters where
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people are asked questions and then we sort of like a poll.
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Do you think, for example, that we should continue to deep sea
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mine in order to find the necessary minerals for batteries
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or should we not be allowed to to do that?
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And then we can gather that data and use that to sort of
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understand how what society is thinking about these these
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issues. And that will be used by
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different departments across the museum.
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So we've got our learning teams, our digital teams, our policy
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makers. Yeah, so it's stated that all
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help. Drive all of that.
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These are our film booths, and this one is specifically by a
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Nook winner, a Natural Environmental Research Council
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winner, and they give awards for scientific research that looks
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into environmental issues. And so we've got three around
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the gallery. So they're sort of scientists in
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conversation with everyday people that are doing things to
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to help the environment. I asked Samantha how she got to
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where she has. So I've been here for 10 years,
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always been in the project office that started in a sort of
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support role in the first instance.
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So I've been a project manager for delivering this level of
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exhibition for about two years now.
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I think at the museum we're we're looking to have more sort
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of engagement with the science that we do behind the scenes.
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So galleries now are sort of trying to showcase that a lot, a
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lot more, make people understand that the things that they're
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seeing on display are things that scientists that at this
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institution are working on. Be that in the dinosaurs
8:33
gallery, be that in this sort of climate action kind of space,
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people are working everyday with these collections.
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They're doing scientific research with them.
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Yeah. So it's a lot less passive in
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terms of you just sort of see, see a dinosaur in the gallery.
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You can understand who the people behind the research
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that's been done with. That is why it's in our
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collection versus somewhere else less sort of stuffy and more
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sort of this is a living breathing organisation that does
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a lot of cutting edge research into into things you meant to
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leave with, with hope as you as you leave that there are things
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that you as an individual can do in your everyday life to help
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with the the climate emergency. You don't have to be a scientist
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that's researching you as a as a person can do small things
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within within your life, within your everyday life that will
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help with the climate emergency. I leave the gallery, walk
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through the earthquake section of the museum and then through a
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discreet door into the project office, where I sit down with
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Meg McDonald, programme manager for Fixing Our Broken Planet.
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It gives me the bigger picture, but first I ask her how
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seriously the museum takes project management.
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More and more seriously as time goes on.
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So when I first started, we were a relatively small group.
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There was a push to sort of form a project management office that
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lasted for about 5 years. And then we sort of changed TAP.
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There are now sort of 30 project managers and project support
10:19
staff and admin, whereas we were a much smaller team back in the
10:23
day. And when with the projects that
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we do, we're really one of three strands, 3 core teams.
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So it is at the heart of so much of what we do in terms of
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exhibitions, building works and everything else.
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So it is, it has grown, it's sort of the stature and
10:43
importance, but it's always kind of been at the heart driving
10:47
these exhibitions and galleries forward previously and in other
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museums still you might find that there are more curator LED
10:55
exhibitions and galleries and it's more LED sort of by the
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content side. But there is obviously an
11:03
increasing, it always was. But now particularly with giant
11:07
master plans and refurbishments, there's a lot of construction
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work. And around that construction
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work comes a lot of coordination, a lot of
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stakeholder management and a lot of kind of regulatory aspects
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that need to be considered and adhered to.
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So having someone sort of be at the centre of that, you know, I
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always kind of like in PMS to a conductor, we're not playing any
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of the instruments, but we're at the core to make sure we're
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bringing in everything at the right time.
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We're giving everybody their cues.
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And I think that having that role in place and making it at
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the heart of the project really increases chances of sort of
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delivering on time and delivering to sort of the scope
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that you'd set out to. It also helps you along the way
11:56
make sure that you're talking to the right people.
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This is a huge partially visitor facing, partially scientific
12:03
institution. And in any number of the
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projects, whether you're looking at something that Sophie does,
12:08
which has to do with the building itself or any of the
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building's project managers, or whether you're looking at
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galleries and exhibitions, there's a certain amount of
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stakeholders that will always be involved.
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And when we tell people about all the people who we talk to
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and sort of list them off endlessly, people are often
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shocked. You know, they, they have their
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own sort of little view of what they're doing.
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And when they see the whole picture, they realise how
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important it is to have someone, essentially how important it is
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for someone to have the big picture in their mind so that
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the people who are delivering work packages can just focus on
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their specialties. As I previously mentioned, the
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Fixing Our Broken Planet or FOBP gallery started as a temporary
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exhibition led by Meg during the COVID lockdowns.
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It was open for about 10 months I think and we phased the build
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of it, which was a a real testament to how quickly we
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moved. So we opened one section.
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The first section was food and then we moved on to materials
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and then energy. It only had three sections.
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Then we've added the the 4th for the permanent gallery.
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But it was really hugely successful in ways that I think
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that we didn't necessarily foresee.
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It had about a million people through it and it's a free
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exhibition and it was on for a certain length of time.
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So that in and of itself isn't too surprising.
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But we found that there was a lot of interest from
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policymakers and change makers and we had sort of Greta
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Thunberg was in there being interviewed.
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And you know, we found there was this whole other audience in
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terms of policy makers and change makers that we always had
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links with, but who were interested in that and who
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wanted to come to that and wanted to see it.
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There's also another part of it where it was the first time
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where we'd really spotlit our scientists work.
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You know, it's the the permanent gallery is following the same
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formula in some ways as that temporary exhibition where you
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have the specimen, the science, that the scientist that's doing
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the science, a picture of that scientist in a quote.
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And we found that people really reacted to that.
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And it's like we found our voice when it came to the planetary
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emergency and that we found that people really trusted the
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scientists more than they trust this institution as a whole.
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It was the person to person dialogue that seemed to be the
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thing that really got people interested, engage and sort of
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trusted the information that they were getting.
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We named it Our Broken Planet, how we got here and ways to fix
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it because we wanted to make sure, you know, the temporary
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exhibition, you have the name and sort of the tag, you know, a
14:46
subtitle. We wanted to make sure that we
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were selling that idea of of that there's hope.
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Like here's the work that's happening.
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People are trying to fix this and here's ways you can fix it.
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And it's really important to us that people left with a sense of
15:02
hope because there's some really hard hitting, really hard to
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take facts that we give and in order to not make everybody
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despondent, walk out there being like, well, that's it.
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As you say, we're screwed. We can't do anything about it.
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It would that would be a failure on our part.
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What we want to do is make people understand that they can
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do things to help. And that's how the name sort of
15:28
changed into fixing our broken planet.
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We needed something that was shorter but still kept still
15:35
kept conveyed. The the seriousness of the
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situation is that we do have a broken relationship with nature.
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We didn't want to shy away from that.
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But putting the fixing in, it's like there is ways to do this.
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We can do this. All hope is not thought so our
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out of the kind of temporary exhibition and out of the
15:53
everything that we've learned. It was decided that this because
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the museum has a strategy to 2031 to make advocates from for
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the planet, you know, to make a place where both people and
16:06
nature thrive. It was decided that we would
16:09
create this into a longer term offer.
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Doing the work to the gallery had been on the table for a lot
16:17
longer before that decision had been made.
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They talked about different things that could go in that
16:22
gallery, different types of of exhibitions.
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And then when they landed on sort of that as a, as a lovely
16:29
space for fixing our broken planet.
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But also there was sort of side stuff that was happening, side
16:38
programming that was happening while we were in lockdown,
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mainly online because that's the only way that you could do it.
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We had some audience engagement events that were online.
16:47
And then this meant that we weren't just keeping it to South
16:50
Kensington either. It wasn't South Kensington
16:52
centric, it wasn't London centric.
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We could invite the nation and indeed people from around the
16:57
globe to take part in these discussions or watch people who
17:02
were activists or climate influencers speak on various
17:09
related topics. You know, they had, we had one
17:13
that had Jane Fonda speaking to a young activist and those
17:17
proved to be incredibly effective at sort of maximising
17:22
the reach of everything, getting that messaging out really far.
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I think the NHM 150 programme was sort of developed while we
17:31
were already putting Fixing Our Broken Planet in, but Fixing Our
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Broken Planet being the 1st permanent gallery that we'd put
17:40
in since 2016 when we opened the main hall, it seems like the
17:45
perfect place to launch that front.
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Make that the first of those. Originally we started with an
17:52
idea that the Fixing Our Broken Planet gallery in that space
17:56
would only be sort of three to five years.
17:58
But given the importance of the topic, we and our ongoing sort
18:04
of strategy, that was when it was the decision was taken to
18:07
make it the 10 year and then position it as the first of the
18:10
NHM 150. And the NHM 150 has grown out of
18:13
the fact that a, we have, we're going to be 150 years old in
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2031, which is we obviously want to celebrate that, but also
18:21
because we have an ever increasing number of visitors
18:24
that come here. And we have lovely gallery
18:28
spaces that have for decades now bin back of house bin collection
18:34
stores. And we have an opportunity to
18:37
refurbish them and open to the public and and bring the museum
18:41
back to the original Waterhouse galleries, the original
18:44
galleries that it was always meant to be.
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I ask Meg about what she has learnt from this project that
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will feed into the creation of the further 5 galleries as part
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of the 2031 programme. Lots.
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I think the broader programme is going to benefit hugely from us
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having on through this one at a time where they were all these
19:07
emerging things, where the Tennis Valley Science Park was
19:11
was beginning to take shape, where the idea of NHM 150 came
19:15
in, where the idea of making fixing our broken planet a
19:18
permanent gallery and with the surrounding programme all sort
19:22
of came together, but not necessarily in the right order.
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So there was a lot of sort of going down a certain way and
19:30
then having to catch up. I think having gone through that
19:33
process, will it help us better plan forward plan for the rest
19:39
of the galleries, which is something that we're absolutely
19:41
doing. The fact that it's a programme
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of a number of galleries means that it's, you know, it's baked
19:47
in that we will be looking across the entirety of it to be
19:51
able to work more efficiently, to be able to plan things now so
19:56
that it works across all of the galleries to minimise clashes.
20:01
We don't have a great deal of room here for parking stuff
20:05
temporarily and we're going to have elephants and dinosaurs to
20:10
move as well as innumerable smaller specimens.
20:13
So it's, it's really good to have I think, I think having
20:17
gone through this in more of a bits and pieces way is going to
20:21
really have us well equipped. To look at it all holistically,
20:27
take those lessons about spaces to, to, to work spaces to store
20:32
temporarily, you know, the things that might happen with
20:36
the fabric of the building. Things that we should expect to
20:40
be surprises, you know, because it is an old building.
20:44
All of those things are going to massively feed into it and make
20:46
our lives a lot easier in the long run, I think.
20:50
I asked about the budget for the gallery and, as part of that,
20:53
the use of innovative, sustainable materials.
20:56
It wasn't a ginormous budget, it was healthy and part of the the
21:03
design was obviously to be as sustainable as possible.
21:06
So not you'll have noticed that it's not very heavy onset works,
21:10
it's not a lot of built walls and you know, structures.
21:14
So that's sort of reflected in the budget.
21:18
But also we brought on a sustainability consultant, which
21:20
was something that we've never done before for this.
21:22
So there are some new things for which we invested some of that
21:25
money in, but it was a challenge too because it was using
21:30
sustainable materials, which a means you can't, if there's a
21:34
problem with the delivery, you can't go down to sort of B&Q to
21:37
go get more timber or something. But also because they aren't
21:42
widely available on the market, they have that sort of specialty
21:46
materials costs associated with them as well.
21:49
So I think the team did a really great job in coming in at, I
21:53
think they came in slightly under budgeting.
21:56
What's her advice to other project professionals who want
21:58
to experiment with more sustainable materials and
22:01
practises? Well, I, I think there's, you
22:05
shouldn't underestimate the amount of time it takes that
22:08
you'll have that you necessarily need to commit to, to sort of
22:12
research of these new materials. They're not known to people in
22:17
the construction industry. They're often made by smaller
22:20
companies outside of the country.
22:24
You know, there's it, it took our design team a fair amount of
22:28
time, probably more than we had expected to do the research.
22:32
And also it's because there is so many claims that on that
22:35
could look good on the surface. But when you start to dig down,
22:38
you can find many reasons why they become unsustainable or not
22:42
as green as they they claim. There's then materials that
22:45
aren't robust enough. You know, we have 6.2 million
22:49
people come through the gap the the museum last year.
22:52
We need stuff that's going to stand up to the sort of wear and
22:55
tear of that. So I would, I wouldn't
22:57
underestimate the amount of time for research and development of
23:00
these materials and also don't as don't underestimate the the
23:05
level of risk. And as long as you are capturing
23:07
that, spending time figuring out how to mitigate that, then
23:11
you're managing that as best you can.
23:14
I asked Meg about how successful the project has been and how
23:17
they measure that. Well, we generally have a number
23:21
of KPIs and benefits, obviously, that tie back to the strategic
23:25
aims of the museum. That's the very simple answer
23:29
when it comes to fixing our broken planet.
23:31
It's it, it has a layer of complexity because it, it comes
23:35
down to how do you measure creating advocates for the
23:39
planet? How do you know when you've done
23:42
that and the museum has actually developed sort of an advocate
23:47
advocacy engagement model that they are using, which is
23:51
basically to it to inform, to inspire and to empower.
23:57
And this is all gone through our wonderful sort of audience
24:00
research and evaluation team, because that's the tricky part
24:03
to capture. You can say, you know, we've had
24:06
a million people through in the first six months.
24:08
You can say, you know, we've had a number of pieces in the media,
24:13
we've had this coverage, we've had these policy makers come to
24:16
visit, but how do you actually measure what happens when
24:20
someone leaves and whether they take those actions?
24:23
And that's a much more that's, that's almost an impossible
24:26
thing to do. So what we can do is, is try to
24:29
quantify the sort of positive interactions and the onward
24:32
journey that someone might take through our channels and then
24:35
make sure that we're providing links and tools to other
24:39
organisations and wherever we can send them.
24:42
What's about the delivery of the project?
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It was a very hard deadline. This is one of the things about
24:49
the projects, particularly the, the, the public facing ones have
24:54
less leeway. I mean, some of the stuff that
24:56
the buildings team do absolutely have a hard deadline and they're
25:00
they, they face it innumerable challenges on that.
25:03
But when you're opening a gallery or temporary exhibition,
25:05
there's definitely, definitely a movable deadlines for
25:08
completion. And it can be really
25:09
challenging. And this team managed to pull it
25:13
off. So they they opened it on time,
25:15
despite some some small delays that are are small in and of
25:21
themselves. But when they start getting more
25:24
new, even more in number, it does have sort of have a, a
25:27
compacting consequence or outcome.
25:32
But they, they did, they did deliver it on time and they did
25:35
deliver it to budget. So for, and, and they delivered
25:38
it to the quality that they asked for.
25:39
And that's often where the stressor is when you have a, a
25:43
very, very, very firm timeline that in which you can't go past
25:47
you often something has to give. But they really worked very hard
25:50
at a number of teams across the museum to get that open in time.
25:54
Does the museum take a particular approach to managing
25:57
projects? We used to be, we used to try to
26:02
follow Prince 2 for a really long time because obviously that
26:05
was sort of the government way approach to project management.
26:10
But recently we have been looking more at APM and their
26:14
approach to it through the project management qualification
26:17
PMQ on which we've just loads of our PMS have just been sort of
26:22
trained on it. They've just written the exam
26:25
and we have our membership and that seems to be a better fit
26:31
for us as an organisation because it's very grounded in
26:35
practical approaches. Of course, every project is, you
26:42
know, we get a project that very massively.
26:45
So you know, I talk about ME programme managing FOBP
26:49
programme which involves learning international
26:52
partnerships and all of these teams.
26:56
But then I also just recently put a singular dinosaur in a
27:00
display case. So you have these varying
27:02
projects with varying amounts of money, varying amounts of teams,
27:06
but really when we're, we're quite strict on making sure that
27:12
we have that project management framework and it is the sort of
27:15
the APMPMQ that so that we have our documentation is, is the
27:20
same across all of the projects. And the way that we approach
27:24
stakeholder management, you know, lessons, all of that sort
27:29
of stuff is, is generally tends to be more APM these days.
27:35
Now let's turn to the detail of delivering the construction of
27:38
refurbishment side of the project, which was the
27:41
responsibility of senior project manager Sophie Dolan, who has
27:44
worked at the Natural History Museum for three years and in
27:47
construction project management for eight years, most recently
27:50
at the National Gallery Victoria in Melbourne, where she was
27:54
involved in the building of a new gallery.
27:56
So I'm actually sort of one of the few people in our team who's
28:00
from what I call more of a traditional background.
28:02
Our team are really diverse and have really interesting sort of
28:05
past careers and all sorts of different things.
28:08
I'm one of the few who sort of come from a traditional point of
28:09
view. So I did a construction
28:11
management degree at university in Australia and then I've
28:15
worked in project management since.
28:18
And then I did my 8:00 PM qualification earlier this year.
28:21
So I feel like I kind of was a qualified PM anyway, but it's
28:25
nice to have the extra stuff and I did actually get a lot out of
28:28
it and learned a lot out of that as well.
28:31
What's about dealing with people who might not be familiar with
28:33
the world of project management? Stakeholder management is such a
28:37
big part of what we do because whilst people might have a
28:42
general idea that the building needs upkeep or we need new
28:45
exhibitions and new galleries, it's if it's not kind of in
28:48
their, their team's line of sight and priorities and, and
28:51
staff resource and whatnot, it can be quite hard to sort of
28:56
balance that. So it's all about like early
28:58
communication, running some workshops with them, explaining
29:00
what we're doing and why is a big one.
29:02
And like, you know, if we're talking APM benefits really
29:04
comes into this because we have to explain to people like, you
29:08
know, there may be some disruptions, some noise and so
29:11
on for this amount of time. But why we're doing that is to
29:13
give you this new gallery and then you can display some of
29:16
your amazing specimens or give you a nicer workspace or, you
29:19
know, like everything we do is to benefit the museum and it's
29:24
staff and it's visitors and it's collections.
29:26
So which is no sort of small task, but I'd say it kind of
29:32
depends on your audience. Like we have some teams who
29:35
actually we have a lot of in house technical trades.
29:39
So like carpenters and joiners and AV specialists and people
29:43
who build robots and like do all that kind of stuff.
29:46
Most people have now outsourced that or get freelancers in.
29:48
Whereas we have an in house team again, some of whom have been
29:51
here for nearly 40 years, which is some of them built their
29:54
creepy crawlies exhibition, which is our next project to to
29:57
change that one up. So really useful talking to them
29:59
because they remember what's around.
30:01
Whereas some so they they tend to need that less kind of not
30:06
dumbing down, but sort of simple terms and whatnot.
30:08
They kind of get it. Whereas some of the teams who a
30:12
really specific science focus or or a curatorial focus, but you
30:18
know, we just work around our audience.
30:20
So we we love visuals. You know, we do big maps showing
30:22
this area is going to be impacted for this long.
30:25
Here's the route you can go And you know, we just we kind of
30:28
tailor as we go yeah early comms, really early comms and
30:32
keep and not just once like it's the repeated because people
30:36
forget people are busy. They have, you know, really busy
30:38
other jobs. We're saving the planet right.
30:40
You know, we've got a respect people's time and their main
30:45
work focus. We can't expect everyone to just
30:47
work around us all the time and our works.
30:50
So yeah, I'd say early and regular communication for sure.
30:55
You know, we do all the stakeholder mapping.
30:56
We work out, you know, the, the folks who need a lot more kind
31:02
of regular cons or like Taylor cons, whereas the ones who just
31:05
sort of need to know every month or So what you're doing.
31:07
We we map all that type of stuff out.
31:09
What's been really good that our team do is not just on a
31:12
specific project level. Do we do those columns and
31:15
information, but we do like, you know, coffee mornings and whole
31:19
company presentations where we explain what our team do and who
31:22
we are and why we're doing what we're doing.
31:23
Because I think sometimes and every team do it.
31:25
You know, sometimes, like I'm really not from a science
31:29
background. I can't stress that enough.
31:31
So sometimes I feel quite lost here with not lost here, but
31:33
sort of a bit out of my depth when they, when we get a
31:36
presentation about someone who's just discovered a new type of,
31:40
or, you know, something, I found it really interesting and I
31:43
think it's fantastic. But I'm kind of they sometimes
31:45
they're using words and I'm like, what does that mean?
31:47
So I think, you know, they do it for us, we do it for them.
31:50
And I think it's a really nice culture we have here in the
31:53
museum where we, we are encouraged to learn about what
31:55
all the other departments do. And I think that goes a long way
31:58
to then understanding when the difficult things come in doesn't
32:02
make it perfect. And then, you know, we
32:03
definitely have difficult conversations.
32:05
And I think the, the where it gets tricky sometimes too is the
32:09
priorities. So, you know, a lot of
32:13
organisations have this where, where it has to go to the
32:15
director level to say, do we lose commercial revenue by
32:19
stopping events to allow works to happen or do we keep the
32:22
events going and then the works are pushed back.
32:23
But that means we have a lot of money in, in, you know, delayed
32:27
construction time and we have to those decisions sit well, well
32:31
beyond us. But we again, we have a team of
32:34
excellent directors who have the best interests of the museum and
32:38
its staffing, collections and visitors at heart.
32:40
And they kind of they make those decisions.
32:42
But we we prepare little effectively, little business
32:47
cases to sort of explain. We're working with other teams
32:49
to say, look, here are your options.
32:51
How do you want to tackle this? Because when we're such a busy
32:53
live environment, we can't just stop all events.
32:55
We can't just stop having visitors from for a day, you
32:59
know, we, you know, but then we can't stop our works either.
33:02
So it's a really tricky juggle at times, but very luckily we
33:05
are supported by our our managers in that, which is
33:07
great. Let's rewind and allow Sophie to
33:11
tell us what her role covers. So yeah, so I'm a senior PM,
33:15
senior project manager here. Currently I'm working on the
33:21
similar type of thing of what I did for the last gallery.
33:23
So the, the gallery shell refurbishment of the what we
33:28
call Gallery 33. So that's the one that's
33:29
currently the creepy crawlies, which is a lot of people's
33:32
favourite from when they were a kid built back in the 80s.
33:35
So that one is due to now be removed.
33:38
So we're gonna strip that out. We, we, we sometimes call it the
33:42
children's gallery. Every gallery is the children's
33:44
gallery at this place. But that one in particular is
33:46
like really interactive and fun and yeah, it's bugs.
33:50
So kids like bugs and things like that.
33:52
So yeah. So that one is due to be
33:54
stripped out after for just about 40 years.
33:57
And we will, you know, recycle, donate, you know, as much of it
34:01
as we feasibly can. And then my role is very much
34:05
the restoration of the gallery. So it's a little bit different
34:07
to the FABP ones. That one, that gallery was in
34:10
much worse condition just for various reasons over the years
34:13
of, you know, water damage. And so we had to do a full roof
34:16
replacement. We replaced all the glazing we
34:19
did, replaced about 1/3 of flooring where it had rotted
34:21
away. It was all covered under vinyl.
34:24
Yeah. Basically it was a 1970s
34:27
exhibition called the Whole of Human Biology.
34:28
So it was all about the human body and how does it work.
34:32
And it was, for its time, it was extremely sort of trailblazing.
34:38
And it was a really new type of exhibition that was had come to
34:42
the UK. However, as Meg was talking
34:46
about before, they had no respect for the Victorian
34:49
architecture. So they built what we call a
34:51
space frame. So it's basically a white box on
34:53
the inside of the gallery. And then this big metal almost
34:58
looks like a climbing frame that ran across the ceiling.
35:01
So you could, if you look it up through it, you could sort of
35:03
see bits of the ceiling and so on.
35:04
But there was no celebration of the architecture.
35:06
They covered all the original oak floors with vinyl.
35:09
A real shame to be honest with you.
35:10
But it look, it was there for nearly 50 years.
35:13
So it, you know, it had a good life.
35:15
A lot of people fondly remember it from their own childhoods and
35:17
things. So, yeah.
35:18
So that one was again, big sort of decommissioning and strip out
35:22
process. So we had to take out all the
35:24
that one didn't have any actual specimens in it, but yeah, took
35:27
out all the models and the graphics and things like that.
35:29
Again, we donate, we recycle, we do as much as we can on that
35:32
front, and then you're left with this empty shell.
35:35
So then it's a huge process of because we were doing the roof
35:39
as well, we had to set up a big internal sort of structure,
35:42
scaffold structure, and then remove all the old slate tiles
35:46
and pull out all the old legs. And we had so many discoveries
35:50
on because what's tricky is because it's Grade 1 heritage
35:52
listed, you can't just go roofing it open to do surveys
35:55
when you feel like it. You have to a lot of it.
35:57
You're not given permission to actually have a look until
36:00
you're actually doing the works, which makes it really tricky
36:03
because you just find so many things.
36:05
And the roof filled up was not what we expected.
36:08
It wasn't even the depth we expected.
36:09
There was all sorts of things that meant we have to do a lot
36:12
of redesign. So this, it was a really
36:14
challenging project for that team.
36:17
I mean, I came in halfway and I found it challenging, let alone
36:19
the folks at the start. So it was just lots of surprises
36:21
because we did have some of the original drawings from the
36:25
original architect after Waterhouse, but not all of them.
36:28
So and like I mentioned being heritageist and we can't just go
36:31
like pulling things apart and having a look to see how they
36:34
work. So that to then inform the
36:35
design and the cost plans on. So we yeah, a lot of things were
36:39
not quite how we thought the yeah, building fabric surprises.
36:44
I will say on the flip side of that though is challenging as it
36:47
was and it did resulted a lot of difficulties for that project.
36:51
We now have a much better idea of what our buildings are
36:54
made-up of. And we've tested, you know,
36:57
concrete samples, we've tested paint samples.
36:58
We've through this project, we've discovered a lot of stuff
37:01
about not just the current sort of build, but how it has looked
37:05
over the last 150 years. So we've done the paint
37:08
analysis, we've done the analysis of the slate we had on
37:11
the roof and worked out the exact quarry it came from, like
37:13
all this kind of stuff. So we now know that the, you
37:17
know, next couple of gallery projects to come in
37:21
restorations, we're much better prepared and we have a lot of
37:23
lessons learned and a lot of information we can bring
37:26
forward, which I think is, you know, really useful.
37:30
And you could look at it in the negative way of, you know, it
37:33
was a really hard project and all these things kind of came up
37:35
and there were a lot of surprises.
37:37
But we're trying to think of it in the positive of thinking of
37:39
all that information we can apply to the next ones.
37:43
What did she learn from this project that she will use on the
37:46
next? Within reason, because it's not
37:50
always possible, is allowing for more contingency for things not
37:55
being where you think they will be in the build up of the the
37:57
building fabric or or the structure.
37:59
So time and. Resource time, resource budget
38:04
people, resource to I know, and this is something that the
38:07
exhibition team can speak about as well, is that.
38:11
I. Think initially because the
38:13
exhibition, it started a bit smaller than it ended up being.
38:16
It was just meant to be a temporary one.
38:18
It was resourced accordingly and then it grew with the, you know,
38:24
it was, you know, decision. It should, you know, be bigger
38:27
than it is. It wasn't just like scope creep.
38:29
It did, you know, we did say, look, let's actually make this a
38:31
bigger thing. It probably should have had some
38:35
more resources allocated. We did do a fair few things
38:38
quite well of, you know, bringing people back to the
38:40
benefits on why, why are we here?
38:41
Why are we doing what we're doing?
38:42
Stakeholder management was done quite well and change control
38:47
and so on, things like that. I think programme was one of our
38:50
trickiest ones and we were really unfortunately bound by
38:56
what our contractors were saying in their programme because that
38:59
was sort of the dates we would have to take to stakeholders and
39:01
take to put in our reporting and our governance and things like
39:04
that. And I think as the project got a
39:07
little unwieldy because it was just growing and having all
39:10
these issues, the programme became a really difficult one to
39:14
match because we didn't necessarily feel we had control
39:16
over it. And I was sort of sitting more
39:18
with the, the contractor. So possibly changing the way we
39:24
ran that and like seeing if there was a way we could not
39:27
necessarily have more influence over it because it, the builder
39:29
was telling us the truth. You know, this is this is what
39:32
it is and this is how long it will take.
39:33
But I think finding that balance between saying, yes, you, you
39:38
know, show us your programme, here's what you think we can do,
39:40
and then us having more influence over that and so on.
39:45
Because yeah, the the programme did grow a fair bit throughout
39:49
the throughout the job. Sherry Louise Rowe is a senior
39:54
projects and programme manager who helped bring the projects
39:57
over the line. She has worked at the Natural
39:59
History Museum for 21 years, working her way up from duty
40:03
manager to her current position. She explains that she now works
40:07
on the more strategically important projects and temporary
40:09
exhibitions, of which there are typically 3 running every year,
40:13
which take around 2 years to develop.
40:15
She normally runs a project team of around 4 professionals and
40:18
then a broader team of 12. Some of the projects have
40:22
included a tour of Dippy the dinosaur around the UK, an
40:25
exhibition on animal sex and moving the museum's statues of
40:29
Charles Darwin, scientist Thomas Huxley and the museum's founder
40:33
Sir Richard Owen around the building.
40:35
So I'm overseeing some of the temporary exhibitions, so the
40:39
one that Sam's doing on Jurassic Oceans and another one called
40:42
Great Ocean Forests, these are open in the next couple of
40:44
years. I oversee the art programme, the
40:47
project manager works on the art programme.
40:49
So we've got a gallery called the German Gallery, which is
40:53
sponsored partly by the German Foundation and it has to be an
40:56
art science type exhibition that goes in there.
41:00
Yeah. So in the past we've done things
41:02
like Gregor Sailor exhibition. We've had various artists that
41:07
we've commissioned done stuff. We had the Moon Museum of the
41:09
Moon here. That was really good.
41:11
I did that one actually. That's that was a really good
41:13
project. Yeah.
41:14
I asked her what's unique about working at the museum.
41:18
I think it is just the one for a better word.
41:21
The randomness of it really. Every day is, is different.
41:26
You know, it's not, you're not at the job where you're doing
41:28
the same, I know data input or seeing the same people.
41:31
It's very, you know. Different.
41:35
What skills do you need to thrive somewhere like this?
41:39
I think you have to be a good communicator and knowing how to
41:42
deal with the various, and it's only probably something you can
41:45
learn while you're here, because I knew nothing about science or
41:49
curators and conservation and how they feel about their
41:52
specimens and their objects. And if there is an issue
41:55
regarding them, you know you're going to treat it quite
41:58
sensitively and carefully, just can't bulldoze in and whatever.
42:04
So I think you've got to learn how to communicate effectively
42:08
to the right people in the right way.
42:11
How do you learn to deal effectively with specialists as
42:13
a project manager? I sort of put it on them, like
42:17
give them ownership of it, make them understand that I think I
42:21
understand that they're the, they're the expert.
42:24
So I'm relying on them to give me the right information to take
42:28
some ownership and responsibility for it.
42:30
And don't, I don't go in saying, right, I'm the project manager.
42:33
I'm going to be in charge of you or I need you.
42:35
We work as a team. I need you and your expertise
42:39
because I don't know, I think what best conditions are for a
42:42
specimen or I don't know, the best way for AV hardware to be
42:46
installed into the floor. You know, I'm relying on you as
42:49
my fellow project team members, but you know, we make this
42:52
project, we deliver this project together.
42:54
I just the conductor, the, you know, the band leader that
42:58
brings it all together and, you know, might be the head of the
43:02
face and the name of the document, but it's all the
43:05
others that really do all the work.
43:07
I ask her, how do you make a project a success at the museum?
43:11
Once you know, you know how the museum works and the the various
43:16
bureaucracies and the hierarchies and that that go on.
43:20
But you're still an important cog in the massive wheel.
43:25
But I think you can only do what you've got given in front of
43:28
you. If you haven't got a set amount
43:29
of time, ain't got a set amount of money.
43:31
We, I think that I think we very rarely fail.
43:35
You know, we always deliver on time within budget.
43:38
And as I think you just got to be, you could be quite calm as
43:42
well. You can't be too hot headed.
43:44
And yeah, you're going to have a level head about you and take
43:48
all the different personalities on and everyone's arguments,
43:52
whatever and just sometimes be a peacemaker, be a mediator.
43:55
You know you have different lots of hats to wear.
43:59
What are the hardest parts of delivering a project?
44:02
There are certain things that we're just giving a hard no on
44:05
and just like, you know, it's not even worth arguing it.
44:08
It's a no, it's not going to happen.
44:09
We need to find an alternative way.
44:12
You know, it might not be that we've got enough budget for
44:13
something or we just don't have enough time.
44:15
We haven't got enough time, right?
44:17
What do we prioritise and what can we say?
44:19
It's an exhibition. So we opened this gallery on the
44:22
3rd of April. It did get to a point where
44:24
we're like, right, what are going to be priorities that can
44:26
happen after we open? What can we not open without and
44:31
say, you know, there was a hard, that date of opening could not
44:33
change. There was press, there was
44:35
everything else set around it. It was out there in the public.
44:38
So we're like, OK, that wasn't have to wait till after.
44:40
No, wouldn't people wouldn't know, but for us we'd know that
44:45
was about priority and that sort of thing.
44:46
If it comes to money and it's which often unfortunately is an
44:50
issue, just say, OK, we might not be able to do the higher
44:55
spec or something. What's an alternative?
44:57
What else could we produce? Or, you know, does someone else
45:00
have to give? Or something else?
45:04
What was her involvement in the Fixing Our Broken Planet
45:07
project? So actually I didn't come on
45:10
till last May I think. So more Reba stage 5.
45:16
It just came obvious that it was almost too big for one person
45:21
and Sam had done a great job up until then, but it was going to,
45:24
you know, principals contractor was about to come on.
45:26
It was only going to get bigger and bigger.
45:28
So I came on to sort of just help Sam out really.
45:31
I took on a relationship with the principal contractor.
45:34
She took on some of the other smaller work packages and we
45:39
sort of then managed it together.
45:41
And I, and I say I oversaw all the install stuff while she did
45:45
all the other, but you know, the work practise that she'd been
45:47
managing up until that time. It's easier if she to carry on
45:50
doing that and I did the new things.
45:52
So the principal contractor, the installation schedule, all the
45:56
logistics about coming on site, all that sort of thing.
45:59
At the time didn't think that it was something that hadn't been
46:02
done before. I just thought it was like we've
46:04
been given a lovely brand new open space.
46:07
We need to fill it with someone that's going to look amazing,
46:09
which obviously colleagues were in charge of designing and
46:13
producing and whatever it was just it was more, I guess for me
46:18
and Sam, we knew we had a deadline.
46:19
It had to happen and it was getting everything ready for
46:24
that day again. It wasn't until afterwards, I
46:27
think you look back and think, Oh my God, this is the first one
46:29
we've done since whatever the date is more Hincy Hall, I
46:32
guess. So, yeah, I didn't typically
46:35
feel pressure at the time that it was something new.
46:37
It was more just like, Oh my God, we're running out of time.
46:40
We've got a lot to do in a short amount of time.
46:42
And it was a lot of very much all hands on deck.
46:45
And we built in like the contingency time.
46:47
We could do evening work, do weekend work.
46:49
I mean, luckily we didn't have to rely on weekend work.
46:52
I think we did a couple of evenings just to get, you know,
46:55
be also conscious. Don't want people to burn out
46:58
and, you know, because then that has a negative effect as well or
47:01
people going off sick or whatever.
47:05
So yeah, you just have to find the time and or bring an extra
47:09
resource if you're able to and just make it work.
47:14
I asked if she was there for the opening of the gallery.
47:17
We sort of stood outside because we hadn't, because the doors
47:20
that you went in this morning, everyone thought they were just,
47:23
that was hoarding because they haven't.
47:24
That's just how it was designed. It's going to look like that.
47:27
So those doors were shut the whole time.
47:29
So the first time we'd seen it open was the morning of the
47:32
third. And then we sort of stood on the
47:34
other side of the corridor, we got back to dinosaurs and just
47:37
watched everyone go with an hour really.
47:39
It was quite weird. And just watching how people
47:42
were reacting and acting in the gallery and around the showcases
47:48
and stuff. And it's always so busy.
47:51
You are relieved. And it hasn't really ended.
47:54
There's still lots of snagging and bits to continue with and
47:59
reporting and stuff. But yeah, it was a bit like, oh
48:03
God, I've done that. And it fell just in time for
48:05
Easter whole day. So I think nearly all of us took
48:07
breaks at different point and just like just forget about it
48:10
for a few days. What approach does she take to
48:13
projects? If you ask everyone in the
48:15
office, they'll all just say how laid back I am.
48:18
I don't get particularly panicked or stressed, and I
48:23
guess I'm quite methodical in that way.
48:27
And let's say it's all about priorities and listing what
48:31
needs to be done when, what can wait?
48:33
We can do that later. So rush for that and set in the
48:36
right deadlines at the right time.
48:38
And I just think, you know, I think we do is, is obviously for
48:43
people to come and enjoy. And they don't see what I think
48:47
that goes on behind the scenes, like whether, you know, blood,
48:50
sweat and tears or whatever. And there's just no point
48:53
getting what I'm trying to. They won't know if we've done
48:56
something wrong. The visitors won't know if
48:58
something you know that showcases that look quite right
49:01
or whatever. So I don't feel all those.
49:04
We always try. We always strive to get things
49:06
absolutely right. It's not the end of the world if
49:09
we don't. I guess you, you can't come in
49:12
with two fixed like say I have this style of project management
49:17
and that's that's it. Because it's not, it won't work
49:19
here and you have to have a flexible approach, be good at
49:24
communicating and be aware of all the different needs and
49:28
expectations from all the different stakeholders and
49:31
departments across the museum because No2 are the same.
49:36
What is the new galleries in the programme now?
49:39
Some are existing ones like we've done and need to be
49:42
stripped out and started again. Or I think at least one of them
49:46
is. Used to be a gallery, public
49:49
gallery years and years ago, but has since been taken by
49:54
collections and office space and whatever.
49:57
So yeah, it's like we said earlier, it's about bringing
50:00
back the fabric of the building to the visitors.
50:05
Samantha Bannister, who project managed the design of the
50:08
exhibition and who took me on the tour earlier, sat down with
50:11
me and gave me a bit more background on her role and the
50:13
work she's engaged in. I'm a project manager in the
50:19
Estates projects master planning department, and really I manage
50:24
public engagement projects. So these are things like ranging
50:28
from permanent gallery spaces to temporary exhibitions and
50:32
sometimes even commercial activities like the ice rink
50:37
that we used to do before the Urban Nature project.
50:40
And so, yeah, I'm really sort of on the the public engagement
50:44
side of things versus we've got our buildings PM that they look
50:47
into the infrastructure of of the building.
50:51
What's her role on the project? So I came in as sort of the the
50:55
start up stage just before we sort of kicked off concept
51:00
design. So yeah, responsible for sort of
51:03
setting the scope and the the parameters of the project,
51:07
getting in any of the design team members that we needed.
51:12
It was delivered in house by our NHM design studios.
51:16
So 3D design was was covered, but we needed to get in our 2D
51:22
designer QS PD. Three of the zones, the material
51:29
zone, the energy zone and the food zone were zones that were
51:35
represented in the original temporary exhibition.
51:38
Some of the specimens that were in the temporary exhibition have
51:43
been removed because they we have to consider how long
51:47
they've been on gallery from the conservation conditioning
51:51
perspective that we had to replace some of those stories in
51:55
order that we weren't damaging our specimens.
51:59
The longer a specimen will be on display, the more sort of
52:05
detrimental that can be to a specimen.
52:08
So your conditions have to be very set with temporary
52:14
exhibition. A lot of those spaces are kind
52:17
of like black box spaces, so there's there's no daylight in
52:20
those galleries. So in order for us to be able to
52:23
maximise what we can put on on display, but they're often on a
52:28
run for seven months. So you can put things on that
52:32
are considered more fragile because of the shorter time
52:35
frame. Whereas for this gallery, it's
52:38
meant to be in the space for a minimum of 10 years.
52:40
You have to understand what specimens.
52:45
Will be able to. Withstand that some of those
52:47
specimens will need to be rotated out, some of the stories
52:52
will need to be swapped later down the line in order that
52:55
we're yeah, we're we're managing the risk to those specimens.
53:00
The whole concept of the gallery is to enable us to update it as
53:04
science changes. It's meant to be a much more
53:09
sort of dynamic space, so we can swap stories in and out as the
53:14
science around something changes, as something is more
53:19
perhaps to the fore in the news, for example, like wildfires have
53:22
been quite in the news at at the moment, but there may be
53:26
something else that is more relevant to at the time that we
53:31
want to represent on the gallery.
53:32
It's ongoing. So, so the project team that we
53:35
had to deliver this this exhibition has it's sort of
53:40
disbanded and really the the the update side of things will be
53:46
led by our interpretation team, who are the people that do the
53:49
research into what stories we can tell and what specimens we
53:54
can put on gallery when we come to do those swaps.
53:58
Project management team will get involved again in order to
54:01
coordinate that. But yeah, that's sort of
54:04
specific looking at what stories we want to put on since outside
54:09
project. Yeah, we designed it.
54:11
And then in that time we're establishing the the content,
54:16
the narrative, what specimens we can use.
54:20
And then once all the design is finished and you've established
54:23
what stories you're using, you go into the construction phase.
54:29
So procuring principal contractors, procuring showcase
54:32
manufacturers and then we had to procure with the 3D ceramic
54:40
plinths as part of that subcontracted to our PC.
54:45
Yeah. So there's a sort of an off site
54:47
construction period where all of those things are being made,
54:52
manufactured and then we bring them to start and install them
54:57
in gallery. It started in the beginning of
55:01
November and we opened the 3rd of April.
55:06
I ask her what was the biggest challenge she faced.
55:10
Our biggest change I think was around the the prints that are
55:14
in the gallery. Those were developed, they're a
55:19
3D printed ceramic. It's quite an innovative
55:24
material to use. The reason reviews that is for
55:26
sustainability reasons. It's made out of natural
55:31
materials. It's all held together without
55:34
the need for screws and the car footprint of things like screws
55:39
we've sort of taken into account and stuff.
55:41
But because it's an innovative product, we had to go through
55:45
quite a bit of prototyping with that.
55:47
And we had some issues with things not drying correctly and
55:52
therefore not firing correctly. So it was quite a process to
55:56
sort of get that right. And that was quite sort of a
55:59
linchpin moment in our programme in terms of we can, we got the
56:05
showcases in and then we wrapped the showcases with those clips.
56:09
And that was sort of the major bit of work that was really
56:12
happening in that gallery. So we had a long lead time of
56:15
like enabling works waiting for these ceramic clips to come in.
56:20
What lessons will she take from it?
56:23
So the whole sort of the point of of this as well was it wasn't
56:28
necessarily for us to create the most sustainable gallery
56:33
possible though, because as I said, there were constraints
56:37
around that. But for really for us to attempt
56:41
to reduce our sort of cup footprint around our gallery
56:45
production. But really so that we can sort
56:48
of create an initial assessment of how this gallery has
56:53
performed so that future galleries can look back at what
56:57
we've done and understand where they could improve on the
57:01
process. So it's really to yeah, to
57:03
create this is an assessment from a sort of carbon
57:07
perspective of delivering this gallery so that yeah, future
57:11
galleries can try to improve in terms of the next galleries.
57:18
We've taken a lesson around the working in parallel on the base
57:24
field side of things as well as the exhibition development side
57:27
of things. Whereas for this, for this
57:30
exhibition of this gallery, the base build was very much in
57:38
front of the exhibition development.
57:40
And that was some around the decision about what was going to
57:44
be put in there. And we didn't know that FOBP was
57:48
going to be the gallery that we were going with at that stage,
57:52
but it just meant that the interface between the two
57:55
projects were there was some some things that had been sort
58:00
of developed as part of the exhibition.
58:03
The base build that had we known the exhibition was going into
58:08
it, we probably would have looked to do slightly
58:11
differently. So going forward across all of
58:15
our new galleries, we are working more in parallel with
58:19
that base build and that exhibition development of the
58:22
base build can more easily achieve what the exhibition
58:26
design requires. I leave the project office and
58:31
I'm emerging to a throng of museum visitors.
58:34
It's been a privilege to go behind the scenes at the museum
58:37
and understand what it takes to put together a new gallery like
58:39
this and how's this fits into the institution's globally
58:43
important role in combating climate change.
58:46
No matter which sector you work in, I hope you found something
58:48
in our conversations that might inspire you or help you in your
58:51
project work. Anyway, thanks again to Meg,
58:55
Sophie, Sherry, Louise and Samantha for joining me and to
58:58
you for listening to the APM Podcast.
59:01
Just to mention, you can find out more about my Natural
59:03
History Museum visit in the Autumn 2025 issue of Project
59:07
Journal. Don't miss it.
59:09
And don't forget to look out for more episodes or to rate and
59:12
review us. Wherever you get your podcasts.
59:15
We'd welcome you to get in touch with your comments, feedback and
59:17
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59:22
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59:29
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