[Not terribly on topic for museums and machine-readable data but since the space was available, and arguably an optimal organisational structure enables better digital outputs, here we go!]

These notes are written up from an unconference session in Denver with a bunch of Europeans stranded post-MW2010 by the Icelandic volcano in April...

The question we're trying to answer is: what's the optimal structure for a digital team?

The answers to this question will help us optimise our organisational structures, and work better within the existing parameters of our organisations.  The survey design should be driven by this question, and the pilot will help us check whether we're asking questions that will really help us answer this question (and avoid the temptation to add other interesting questions). It may also form the basis of a future Museums and the Web submission, or other intra-museum working, to help advise and inform organisations who are considering their own changes.

The pre-survey questions will help segment the results on important organisational characteristics.

Pre-survey questions

Type of museum (art, science centre, social history, local, national, subject specific/specialist, all) - checkboxes

Size (number of full-time employees)

Location (country)

Primary funding source (checkbox - national/federal government, local government, EU, sales/tickets, philanthropy/donations, endowment/trust)

Physical venues (i.e 0 .. n)

Possible questions

Departmental structure

Organisational structure

Reporting line

Who has sign-off?

Who is responsible for content creation?

(and do you have someone for content creation/editing in your team?)

Who commissions new projects?

Who leads projects?

Do you host 'digital only' exhibitions?

How are user interface/experience issues designed?

Is your team responsible for managing back-end web technology (i.e. hosting, data backup, etc)?

Who consumes your product (online, gallery, etc)

How many tiers between you and the head of your organisation (e.g. CEO)

How much time do you spend out of work learning/keeping up your skills and knowledge?

So those questions are a bit of a brain dump around the table - how should we group them to keep the survey within sight of ten questions overall?

Big subjective questions

What would be an optimal structure for you, and why?

Where are the gaps in your team?

Questions to think about

How many quantitative questions, how many qualitative? Can we do a basic survey with the ability to follow people up for more sensitive, subjective questions?