>As a newly appoined Museum Assistant Director I have be given the
>daunting task of having to create "Operational Performance
>Measures" for our institution.


There are a few handy operational performance ratios that you can use to
measure efficiency and effectiveness, if you must force some quantitative
measuring tools on what you do.  These tend to be based on either attendance
or some dollar figure (whether income or expense).

Contact the American Association of Museums and ask for the reprint package
"Evaluation in a Museum Setting."  The specific article is entitled
"Measures of Merit?" from MUSEUM NEWS, September/October 1991, by Peter Ames.

For a benchmark, try running your ratios and comparing them to those of some
"ideal" museum.  Data can be easily gotten from the Association of Art
Museum Directors' annual data surveys or maybe the AASLH.  The only problem
with these ratios is that, like anything based in numbers, they can be
fudged to accommodate a target range.

At the Indianapolis Art Center, we have target "key quality factors" and
"key dollar factors" that we evaluate every year for appropriateness based
on the mission and the goals for the next year.  We are also wrestling with
performance evaluation measures, and have found that some of the quality
management systems like Baldridge, TQM, or ISO 9000 have some measures we
can use (although all have some problems when applied to a museum).

Julia Moore
Indianapolis Art Center
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