BlindArt by the Sea - Project Management 2014

Project DescriptionThe project BlindArt implies integrating the BME app in the tactile tours provided bySxS, which would enable the blind people to not only find their way without needingso many guides (as one guide per two people – SxS, 2014), but also to have theopportunity of revisiting their favorite sculptures after the guided official tour. Thiswould give them a sense of independence, and enjoyment of the SxS at a personallevel, while they can decide themselves which sculptures for how long to revisit.While they enjoy the exhibition on a personal level, they can be encouraged toupload a picture (such as a “selfie”) with their favorite sculpture that inspires them,on the Facebook page of SxS by using an appropriate hashtag (#BlindArt) whichwould send the picture to a dedicated album of this activity. While using the Web2.0, they can share their personal perception of the sculpture in an original way, byassociating it with a song. Thus, they can express the way they perceive the worldthat they cannot see, through something that they can hear, by adding the songtitle in the description of the uploaded picture. Consequently, the sighted visitors ofthe Facebook page can grasp a piece of the blind people’s perception of theworld, and thus understand their entertainment needs better. This understanding fitsin the SECI model of Nonaka (Nonaka, 2000) by articulating the tacit knowledge thatregards the blind people’s way of perceiving the world and their self-fulfillment needs(Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs) which involve creativity and artistic potential. Thisprocess involves knowledge creation through the externalization of tacit knowledge,since the knowledge that is made explicit about the blind people will give way to thesociety to mold the services provided to them in an innovative and fitting way. Thesame process is supported by the UNGCDR signings, where the promotion anddevelopment of the disabled people’s creative and artistic potential and skills willlead both to their own benefit, and to the enrichment of the society (UNGCDR). One

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example of a possible enriching innovative outcome would be ways toinvolve the blind community in the artistic exhibitions of the ARoS ArtMuseum, Art Gallery of West Australia (Sydney), or the Art Gallery ofNew South Wales (Perth). Most of the volunteers at the tactile tours ofSxS belong to these three Galleries (SxS, 2014), where the awareness ofthe BlindArt project could be raised in order to externalize and sharefurther knowledge about the blind people’s artistic needs.A second part of the project, which focuses on developing the blindpeople’s creative potential and skills, is a selection of ten best matchesof sculpture pictures and song titles uploaded by the blind people. Theselection should be made based on the number of Likes that eachupload gets, and let the most “liked” sculpture/song match win. Thedevelopment part comes in, as the selected visitors are given thematerials and opportunity to make their own sculpture, in a sharedcontext, using the BME app in the process, after aninformational/advice meeting with their favorite sculpture’s artist. Thiswould promote the recognition of skills and merits of the visuallyimpaired (which UNGCDR mentions) and thus externalize in the sameway the knowledge about their value and skills, that the municipalitiescould make use of and benefit from.

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SxS expects 250.000 visitors in Cottesloe, while the Bondi and Aarhus exhibitions areexpecting 500.000 visitors each (SxS, 2014). However, with such a big audience, aconstant challenge that SxS faces is “to fit the public’s expectations” (SxS, 2014),and do so in an effective manner for the long term. The app that BME provides, isan effective solution to meet the blind visitor’s expectation from an exhibition withsuch a big audience in two developed countries. The app’s functionality allowsthe blind visitors to get by the exhibition by themselves, while using themicrovolunteering which is free from the social pressure that appoints the guides.The app could be integrated in the tour and provide a solution which enables theindependence (of the constraining high guides number) and self-esteem that areso pursued and valued by the blind people (BME, Business Plan, 2013).Moreover, in Nonaka’s (2000) terms, the municipalities can benefit fromexternalized knowledge about the blind people’s potential and needs that ismade explicit to them through the hashtag community on Facebook (#), wherepictures of favorite sculptures associated with songs are uploaded. These uploadsrepresent the actual knowledge that is externalized by being shared with thevisitors of the Facebook SxS page.As an event with high potential and support from the society (such as the ArtGalleries of West Australia and New South Wales, Aarhus Kommunne and ARoSMuseum – SxS, 2014), the right of the disabled people becomes a high concern,due to the recent signings of the UNGCDR, where the municipalities are requiredto take action in “promoting awareness of the capabilities and contributions ofpersons with disabilities”, and to “promote positive perception and greater socialawareness towards persons with disabilities” (UNGCDR). Involving an event wherethe knowledge about the blind people’s skills and needs is articulated through a


creativity process and social media content upload followed byselection based on Likes; will aim to enable them enjoy the cultural andartistic events and thus solve the problem of being “hindered to fullyparticipate in the society”(UNGCDR) on an equal basis with the sightedpeople. While the blind people are encouraged to share their skills andpotential, they will come out of their social isolation and be open tocontributing more to the enrichment of the society, such as acceptingto take part in research for medical treatments (Blindfold my AarhusPractice Case, 2014). This is supported by the UNGCDR, where it isstated that “the opportunity to develop and utilize their creative, artisticand intellectual potential, will not only work for their own benefit, butalso for the enrichment of society”(UNGCDR). The benefit of thedisabled people from the full participation in such communities, is thegain of “an enhanced sense of belonging” (UNGCDR).


How do the objectives help reach the goal and solve the problem?1. The creativity events involve prior meetings with the artist of the sculpture fromthe selected uploaded pictures, where the blind people can get personal adviceon creating their own sculpture. Then, the selected blind visitors spend time in ashared space where all of them can create their own sculpture together.Therefore, the exposition of their own sculptures would help externalize theknowledge about their creative value, and thus allowing it to be shared byothers, which sets grounds for new knowledge (Nonaka, 2000). While knowledgeabout the blind people’s skills is crystallized in this way, the sighted people in thesociety will acknowledge their merits and involve them in their communityactivities, which is part of the goal.2. In Nonaka’s (2000) terms, the BME’s explicit knowledge about the blind peopleand about the app should be shared with SxS tactile tour guides, by teachingthem how to use the app throughout the tour, in order for them to be able toconvert it into tacit knowledge by integrating the app in the exhibition activitiesfor the blind visitors. This will lead to further knowledge conversion, while thevisitors using the app will be able to revisit their favorite sculpture and createconstant content on the Web 2.0 by uploading pictures of the sculptureassociate with song titles in a relevant hashtag community: #BlindArt. This onlinecommunity where there is continuous upload, would resemble a shared contextwhere the blind people’s perception of the world is made explicit, such as a Ba,which is a “platform of knowledge creation by collecting the applied knowledgeof the area into a certain time and space and integrating it” (Nonaka, 2000).The upload of pictures represents knowledge about the blind people’sperception of the world, articulated in the social media, and thus made explicit


and available to the community of the SxS Facebook page visitors, whocan in their turn share and create further knowledge to the societyabout the blind people’s needs. By gaining and creating newknowledge about the blind people’s needs, the society can furthercreate effective and innovative ways of molding the cultural andartistic activities to the blind audience. Thus, a continued knowledgeconversion process takes place, while the society also gains tacitknowledge about how to approach the blind people, which stands forinternalization (Nonaka, 2000).This whole discussed process (see SECI Model figure) involves acontinuing conversion and exchange between tacit and explicitknowledge, which enables the creation of new knowledge forinnovation purposes.


The PSO analysis (Kampf, 2012) will take into account the most relevantstakeholders regarding BME’s project, namely:Sculpture by the Sea (SxS), who aim to keep the Bondi, Cottesloe and Aarhusexhibitions as free events to an extended public (Sculpture by the Sea, 2014), andtherefore need constant support and partners. BME can support SxS by forming apartnership while implementing a project which would address the visually impairedaudience. There are already established guided tactile tours for each of theexhibitions (SxS, 2014), but they involve the blind people at a low degree – sincethey do not have the freedom and accessibility to revisit the sculptures they likemost, after they have finished the tour; not having the opportunity to attend otherevents within SxS either. Therefore, as the United Nations Global Compact onDisability Rights (UNGCDR) puts it, the visually impaired people encounter indeed“barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basiswith others”. This is relevant for the SxS, which does not meet the visually impairedvisitor’s wish of enjoying the exhibitions and events to a full extent. The projectsuggested would involve the blind visitors in a creativity focused event. Knowledge:a partnership developed between SxS and BME would embody the explicitknowledge about the blind people’s needs (such as the ones mentioned in theUNGCDR), into tacit knowledge, while SxS will take BME app information (alsoexplicit knowledge) and learn by experience how to integrate it in their exhibitionseffectively. This process tuned with creativity events addressed to the blind


community, will enable SxS to meet their needs effectively, and thusextend their audience in the long term.BME could make use of this project, since there is lack of awareness ofthe app especially at the international level, while the organization’sambitions involve going global. Therefore, an event such as BlindArtwould promote the app as an effective solution for the blind people’sroutine problems. Moreover, BME would enforce the blind community inall the three exhibitions cities, and a relevant network of blind userscould be established. Knowledge: The BME app solution would becommunicated to the blind visitors by the tour guides, and thereforecommunicate explicit knowledge of it by raising awareness.The visually impaired are typically feeling pitied and like a burden tothe society (BME Business Plan), which would make guided tactileuncomfortable with so many guides tours (with one guide per twopeople – SxS, 2014), and the blind visitors would feel the social pressureof the help that they get from the guides. After completing the tactiletours, the app would come as a microvolunteering solution with helperswho are volunteers that only use as little time as they want, whichwould initiate an independent feeling among the blind users andwould contribute to their self-esteem and self-perception (BME BusinessPlan). This would also lead to more knowledge about the app amongthe blind people (especially in Australia, where the awareness is low),who would be able to use it as an effective solution in their own routineas well. Moreover, engaging the visually impaired in making their ownsculptures would stimulate their creativity and would make them beaware of their value to the society while contributing to the exhibitions.Including the blind people in the society, not only by functional means,but also by their contribution to social events, will extend theirparticipation in the society, which according to the UNGCDR, “willresult in their enhanced sense of belonging”. Knowledge: As they usethe app as a solution in their search for their favorite sculpture, theyperform internalization in Nonaka’s terms (2000), since they will embodythe know-how (tacit knowledge) of using the app while experiencing it;and then they will hopefully integrate the app as their daily routinesolution. The creative events, such as creating their own sculpture,would contribute on the other hand to externalizing the knowledge oftheir potential and needs to the society which can thus act upon thisknowledge in a benefitting way for both the blind people and thesociety at large.The municipalities of Aarhus, Sydney and Perth have the opportunity ofmaking use of BME’S technology, since they are part of OECD countriesand have easy accessibility to smartphones and 3G/4G Internet


connection. This accessibility gives way to saving money regarding thecosts to the society, while the visually impaired app users will be moreindependent of the costly services provided by the governments,namely an annual cost of £34 billion for a typical OECD country (BMEBusiness Plan). Moreover, the implementation of the app in the blindpeople community will contribute to fulfilling the recent UN signings ondisability rights. An event that involves the blind people’s creativepotential, as well as promoting it on the Facebook SxS page, will“promote the recognition of their skills, merits and abilities”, which is oneof the measures that the states signing UNGCDR committed to. Anothermeasure is for the disabled people to “enjoy access to culturalmaterials in accessible formats, and to develop and utilize theircreative and artistic potential”(UNGCDR) , which will contribute to theenrichment of the society (UNGCDR). Knowledge: By uploadingpictures on the hashtag community on Facebook, the blind people’sperception of the world is made explicit to the viewers, which wouldenable the municipalities to integrate their needs more effectively inthe cultural and entertainment domain of the city (as requested by theUN). This process involves externalizing the tacit knowledge about theblind people to the society (Nonaka, 2000).




The Network Diagram (Wysocki, 2009) illustrates the sequence of thetasks from the Work Breakdown Structure. Each task is named by the IDnumber from the Gantt chart which has been iteratively composedwhile, and after the Network Diagram creation process. As it is shown inthe slide, under the ID number of the task, the task’s duration in days isstated, while in the upper corner of the task bubble, there is the crosscontaining the Float time, the Early start day, Early finish, Later start andlate finish.The starting day has been chosen as 0 in order to clarify the concept offinal task Early finish being the overall Project Duration, which is 95 workdays.The Total Floats is calculated as LF – EF in order to reach the number ofdays that a task can be delayed without delaying the overall projectduration. One of the calculated floats is on task ID 3 “1.1.1.1.2 Findvisitors’ preferences in terms of material needed to complete thesculpture creation”, where the Late finish is day 79 and Early finish is day71. This leaves us with 8 days of total float, while the task has to becompleted before the next task ID 8 can start, which is “1.1.2.1.2.2Educate the guides in a meeting about the BME app use throughout asculpture creation process.”. Task ID 8 has to start the latest in day 79 inorder to be completed, which makes it mandatory for task ID 3 to becompleted by day 79, so that the participants’ preferences concerning


material and resources needed to create sculpture, are establishedbefore educating the guides about the sculpture process involving theuse of BME app. It is necessary that the guides know beforehand whatmaterials will be used, so that their instruction on using the app withinthe workshop would fit the nature of the materials and tools used.

Each of the task duration has been roughly estimated in terms of fulltime working days. For instance, “1.1.1.2.1 Communicate presentationof BME to the artist” referred to by ID 4, involves creating documentsabout BME Organization goals and objectives, including a presentationof the functionality of the application provided. The documents are toinclude information about how the artist can adapt their advice aboutcreating the sculptures, and the materials they recommend, to theapplication provided by BME which will be used by the blindparticipants. After the documents formulation, the task includes ameeting with all the artists whose sculptures pictures have beenselected from the hashtag community in the competition; and apresentation of the documents discussed. The whole process ofdocuments formulation would take about a week, since theintroduction of the organization has to be adapted to the artists’understanding of the blind people’s needs; and a complex fittedamount of information has to be inserted. Communicating thedocuments to the artists will take about ten days, since they have to becontacted on available times, and the gathering for the presentationhas to be synchronized to all the artists’ availability. This matter needs tobe adapted to the artists’ schedule, since they are the ones providinguseful information to the participants. All in all, this task is argued to takeabout 15 work days.

An example of multitasking would be ID 10 and ID 12, which both startafter ID 11 finishes “2.1.2.1 Create presentation and rules for competitionto be introduced to the blind visitors by the guides”.The task ID 12 “2.1.2.2 Educate the guides in presenting the competitionopportunity to the blind visitors.” cannot be started before thecompetition rules and presentation are formulated in task ID 11.Therefore, task ID 12, has to start afterwards. The winners selectionhappens after the pictures upload flow from the SxS ends, and after theselection there will be a workshop where the winners are provided withthe necessary resources in order to build their own sculpture creation.Therefore, task ID 6 “1.1.2.1.1 Select a workshop shared time and place”can only take place after the competition terms are established andcommunicated, so that the time and place are consistent with the


terms of the competition, regarding whether the workshop should waitfor a long date for the winners to be appointed, or whether budgeting,or an open air or a building area would fit those competition terms.The task ID 10 “2.1.1.1 Instruct guides on informing the blind visitors about the app” involves using the presentation and rules documents created by ID 11 task, and organizing meetings with the guides of the already established tactile tours. This can only be done after the formulation of the documents from task ID 11 is finished, because the competition relies on the app use in terms of searching for the favorite sculpture after the guided tactile tours. The blind visitors will not have a guide available at that time, therefore the BME app will be the only tool that they can use in order to enter the competition, and upload the picture of their favorite sculpture matching it with a song. Thus, task ID 10 and 12 are tasks to be completed at the same time, especially since the they are both instructional tasks that can be done within the very same meeting (both educating about the competition, AND instructing about the app). This will give a resource advantage in terms of time and instructors required.

The critical path is represented in the diagram by the arrows and the circles colored in red, which is “the sequence of tasks that must be completed on schedule in order for the project to be completed on schedule”(Wysocki, 2009). The critical path has been determined by selecting the tasks which lead from the start to finish and sum up the longest duration period, while having 0 days of total float each.


The project has been appointed to start arbitrary on the 11th of May 2015, so that the tasks can be initiated right after submitting the refined Project Plan to the SxS in May 2015. If the project is finished on the estimated time, namely 95 working days which corresponds to 133 calendar days, out of which 38 weekend days have been skipped; consequently the project is ought to be finished by the 21st of September, 2015.







References:Kampf, C. (2012). Chapter 3: Project Conception Documents and Work Processes, Project Management: A Communications Approach. unpublished manuscript. , pp 1-35.Nonaka, I., Toyama, R. and Konno, N. (2000). ‘SECI, Ba, and leadership: a unified model of dynamic knowledge creation’. Long Range Planning, 33, pp 5–34.Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Wysocki, R. K. (2009). Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme, John Wiley & Sons.Sculpture by the Sea. Retrieved from www.sculpturebythesea.com & www.sculpturebythesea.dkUnited Nations Global Compact on Disability Rights. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/convention/convoptprot-e.pdf


http://www.sculpturebythesea.com

http://www.sculpturebythesea.dk

http://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/convention/convoptprot-

BlindArt by the Sea - Project Management 2014

Documents

blind peoples way

blind peoples artistic

blind community

people sxs

artistic potential

original way

fitting way

knowledge creation