What is a site visit?

What is a site visit?

Some of this may seem basic to many of you. It won’t be for a lot of people that are being asked to go out and do a job that they have been given no training or information on how to do. Those people are guessing on how to proceed. Many are often too embarrassed to ask basic questions about what they are supposed to be doing. Many only know they haven’t done their job correctly when they fail. Many are employed and managed by people that don’t know their employees job was done incorrectly until it fails. That’s because there are too many people in our industry that either don’t share information, don’t know how to explain what it is they are doing or they don’t have the time or the responsibility to do so. This is how capable but inexperienced people get pushed into jobs on a trial and error basis. We let them figure it out on the job. I don’t believe that’s good enough, responsible or fair.

I recently posted a position for a project manager and I interviewed dozens of people at the top of our field. I asked basic questions. They came from both commercial and non-profit organizations. I conducted interviews in a room filled with books, artwork, furniture and various objects. I started the interview by asking if they were familiar with estimating, quoting and planning relocations, projects or small moves. Everyone said “yes, they do it every day.” I then said, “This entire room needs to be relocated to a storeroom about one mile away from here. I need a quote. What information would you provide in your quote?” I heard crickets! OK I said I need to know the packing time, labor and materials required to safely move this room locally, I need to know how many truckloads, size of vehicles, size of staff, number of hours, number of days and I want to know the packing procedures and materials you would suggest. I want you to walk me through your process of gathering that information. What is your procedure for a site visit?” “What information would you be looking for? How do you develop that information into a quote and a timeline?  What questions do you need to ask me?” I got nothing back but wild guesses on how to proceed. No one knew the line items or how to gather the information. This was from people that were already doing this for a living and who did it daily. I asked the next logical question which is “how do you quote a job?” and the answer I got multiple times was “I ask my head packer how much time he or she needs.” My follow-up question was “and how do you know if they are wrong? How do you monitor quality control of your time and materials? How do you give your client options?” I got shrugs and embarrassed looks back. It’s not their fault. Nobody trained them, nobody checked up on them, nobody was responsible for their results and they had nowhere to turn for the answers. I don’t just see this in industry I see it in my classroom. My students aren’t kids trying to find a job. They are experienced adults that are already doing the job. They work for museums, foundations, galleries, art service companies or they own their own art related businesses. They start off embarrassed, but they suck it up and get the information because they are already doing the job and nobody has trained them and there are no books on it and they need to learn the basic information in order to succeed.

I don’t intend to be linear, this isn’t a training program, it’s a blog so that means I get to jump around and talk about whatever catches my fancy. I will stay on topic though and not dive too much into politics or sports.

So what is a site visit? Not how do you perform a site visit but big picture answer, what are we accomplishing by visiting a site for a project or job?

My basic definition is: A site visit is a tour of a project location to acquire the information necessary to complete a budget or quote or to develop a project plan.  The objective of a site visit is to confirm information needed to complete a budget or quote, to determine an objects size and weight for shipping or storage, to determine packing and crating requirements, to determine site conditions or to determine installation requirements.

Reasons for a site visit are varied and it is important to keep in mind that the request for information may only be specific to the requesters needs. A site visit could be as simple as a request for the packing of a single object or to verify a location’s restrictions.  It can also be as complex as the relocation of multiple objects or an entire institution.  A site visit is never just an object visit. The object is the easiest part of the visit it is the site itself that will screw up your plans. You could design the perfect, safest crate possible for the object you’re visiting and it will mean nothing if it wont fit through the door, if it’s too heavy for the elevator, if your truck has no available parking to deliver or pick up… and the variables continue.

What I tell my students and trainees is “when you go on a site visit you already know what will go right with the job. You’re looking for the things that will go wrong.

Some of you reading this will work in a museum, a commercial gallery or an art services company. These are not separate industries. It really is all one industry. We all work together at some point and some of us have worked in all these branches of our industry at various points in our careers.

When I discuss a task I am speaking to anyone that may need to perform that task. When I mention obstacles such as access points or traffic patterns you should look past the specific examples and look for its universal possibilities. As part of your site visit for example,  you should be observing traffic patterns and traffic flow that could affect time and cost on your project.  This could refer to vehicular traffic.  This could also refer to foot traffic crossing your access to an interior storeroom in a museum.  Both are obstacles to flow and access. There is no difference between the interference of a school house next to your house-move’s main exit for load out and a museum storeroom exit that is also on the same corridor as the staff cafeteria. They are both traffic problems. If you think that through further they are not both just traffic problems but they are traffic problems with a specific time element. If you were preforming either site visit it wouldn’t be enough to note the school house or the cafeteria. You would also note the times of highest traffic and the patterns that could cause delays so that you could work your project around those time patterns.

The point is that a site visit is to not only inspect an object or objects it is also to inspect the surrounding area and location and to document any obstacles to your project’s success. The objective of your site visit is to document the things you require to make your project a success and also to document those things that could cause your project to fail.