evan kerrigan

Analyzing the Information Sharing Practices of the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology

Project manager for semester-long team project that employed contextual inquiry and work modeling to improve the processes and information flows within the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.

Contextual Inquiry & User Research

My team conducted interviews with a cross-section of the Kelsey Museum community—including administrative staff, museum staff, docents, and doctoral students—as they were active in their work environment. The aim of these interviews was to shed light on how information flowed throughout the organization with a focus on the recording, dissemination, and maintenance of policies and procedures, in particular, we examined how information was created and shared, observed breakdowns, and examined how staff and students sought out information.

Following each interview, our team would assemble to share the interview data. The shared field notes and synthesized interview data were organized into affinity notes (shown below). These notes allowed us to construct a variety of models to visualize the various forces at play within the Kelsey and ultimately formed a large, wall-sized affinity diagram, which helps organize and make sense of large ethnographic data sets.

Project Management

At the project’s outset, my team recognized me as the most senior member and with the most professional working experience, and as such, unanimously voted that I be the project manager for the group. As project manager, I assigned roles and tasks to team members while ensuring that our project remained on schedule through agenda setting, weekly meetings, and continuous follow-up as required. Our team met all of our deadlines while delivering quality products at every milestone.

Final Recommendations

Through the contextual inquiry process, we learned that the organization was in good shape overall in terms of communication and sharing information; however, we also uncovered four major challenges that faced the Kelsey Museum: duplication of effort, some disconnect between social groups, technology barriers to elderly staff, and a dearth of easily accessible and reliable documentation. From these findings, we generated seven recommendations including improved information technology and training, planned social gatherings, improved orientations for new community members, suggestion boxes, and creating a comprehensive handbook for community members.

Our final presentation was given to the client liaison and our recommendations were well-received. According to our client liaison, our findings matched well with some of the organizational problems that they suspected, and that some of them were going to be implemented as soon as possible.

download final report (13.4mb)