BlindArt by the Sea - Project Management 2014

Project Description
The project BlindArt implies integrating the BME app in the tactile tours provided by
SxS, which would enable the blind people to not only find their way without needing
so many guides (as one guide per two people – SxS, 2014), but also to have the
opportunity of revisiting their favorite sculptures after the guided official tour. This
would give them a sense of independence, and enjoyment of the SxS at a personal
level, 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 to
upload 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) which
would send the picture to a dedicated album of this activity. While using the Web
2.0, they can share their personal perception of the sculpture in an original way, by
associating it with a song. Thus, they can express the way they perceive the world
that they cannot see, through something that they can hear, by adding the song
title in the description of the uploaded picture. Consequently, the sighted visitors of
the Facebook page can grasp a piece of the blind people’s perception of the
world, and thus understand their entertainment needs better. This understanding fits
in the SECI model of Nonaka (Nonaka, 2000) by articulating the tacit knowledge that
regards 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. This
process involves knowledge creation through the externalization of tacit knowledge,
since the knowledge that is made explicit about the blind people will give way to the
society to mold the services provided to them in an innovative and fitting way. The
same process is supported by the UNGCDR signings, where the promotion and
development of the disabled people’s creative and artistic potential and skills will
lead both to their own benefit, and to the enrichment of the society (UNGCDR). One
1402082 Luisa Sadi (Pascu)

example of a possible enriching innovative outcome would be ways to
involve the blind community in the artistic exhibitions of the ARoS Art
Museum, Art Gallery of West Australia (Sydney), or the Art Gallery of
New South Wales (Perth). Most of the volunteers at the tactile tours of
SxS belong to these three Galleries (SxS, 2014), where the awareness of
the BlindArt project could be raised in order to externalize and share
further knowledge about the blind people’s artistic needs.
A second part of the project, which focuses on developing the blind
people’s creative potential and skills, is a selection of ten best matches
of sculpture pictures and song titles uploaded by the blind people. The
selection should be made based on the number of Likes that each
upload gets, and let the most “liked” sculpture/song match win. The
development part comes in, as the selected visitors are given the
materials and opportunity to make their own sculpture, in a shared
context, using the BME app in the process, after an
informational/advice meeting with their favorite sculpture’s artist. This
would promote the recognition of skills and merits of the visually
impaired (which UNGCDR mentions) and thus externalize in the same
way the knowledge about their value and skills, that the municipalities
could make use of and benefit from.
402082 Luisa Sadi (Pascu) 1

SxS expects 250.000 visitors in Cottesloe, while the Bondi and Aarhus exhibitions are
expecting 500.000 visitors each (SxS, 2014). However, with such a big audience, a
constant 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, is
an effective solution to meet the blind visitor’s expectation from an exhibition with
such a big audience in two developed countries. The app’s functionality allows
the blind visitors to get by the exhibition by themselves, while using the
microvolunteering 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 the
independence (of the constraining high guides number) and self-esteem that are
so pursued and valued by the blind people (BME, Business Plan, 2013).
Moreover, in Nonaka’s (2000) terms, the municipalities can benefit from
externalized knowledge about the blind people’s potential and needs that is
made explicit to them through the hashtag community on Facebook (#), where
pictures of favorite sculptures associated with songs are uploaded. These uploads
represent the actual knowledge that is externalized by being shared with the
visitors of the Facebook SxS page.
As an event with high potential and support from the society (such as the Art
Galleries of West Australia and New South Wales, Aarhus Kommunne and ARoS
Museum – SxS, 2014), the right of the disabled people becomes a high concern,
due to the recent signings of the UNGCDR, where the municipalities are required
to take action in “promoting awareness of the capabilities and contributions of
persons with disabilities”, and to “promote positive perception and greater social
awareness towards persons with disabilities” (UNGCDR). Involving an event where
the knowledge about the blind people’s skills and needs is articulated through a

creativity process and social media content upload followed by
selection based on Likes; will aim to enable them enjoy the cultural and
artistic events and thus solve the problem of being “hindered to fully
participate in the society”(UNGCDR) on an equal basis with the sighted
people. While the blind people are encouraged to share their skills and
potential, they will come out of their social isolation and be open to
contributing more to the enrichment of the society, such as accepting
to take part in research for medical treatments (Blindfold my Aarhus
Practice Case, 2014). This is supported by the UNGCDR, where it is
stated that “the opportunity to develop and utilize their creative, artistic
and intellectual potential, will not only work for their own benefit, but
also for the enrichment of society”(UNGCDR). The benefit of the
disabled people from the full participation in such communities, is the
gain 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 from
the selected uploaded pictures, where the blind people can get personal advice
on creating their own sculpture. Then, the selected blind visitors spend time in a
shared space where all of them can create their own sculpture together.
Therefore, the exposition of their own sculptures would help externalize the
knowledge about their creative value, and thus allowing it to be shared by
others, which sets grounds for new knowledge (Nonaka, 2000). While knowledge
about the blind people’s skills is crystallized in this way, the sighted people in the
society will acknowledge their merits and involve them in their community
activities, which is part of the goal.
2. In Nonaka’s (2000) terms, the BME’s explicit knowledge about the blind people
and about the app should be shared with SxS tactile tour guides, by teaching
them how to use the app throughout the tour, in order for them to be able to
convert it into tacit knowledge by integrating the app in the exhibition activities
for the blind visitors. This will lead to further knowledge conversion, while the
visitors using the app will be able to revisit their favorite sculpture and create
constant content on the Web 2.0 by uploading pictures of the sculpture
associate with song titles in a relevant hashtag community: #BlindArt. This online
community where there is continuous upload, would resemble a shared context
where 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 knowledge
of the area into a certain time and space and integrating it” (Nonaka, 2000).
The upload of pictures represents knowledge about the blind people’s
perception of the world, articulated in the social media, and thus made explicit

and available to the community of the SxS Facebook page visitors, who
can in their turn share and create further knowledge to the society
about the blind people’s needs. By gaining and creating new
knowledge about the blind people’s needs, the society can further
create effective and innovative ways of molding the cultural and
artistic activities to the blind audience. Thus, a continued knowledge
conversion process takes place, while the society also gains tacit
knowledge about how to approach the blind people, which stands for
internalization (Nonaka, 2000).
This whole discussed process (see SECI Model figure) involves a
continuing conversion and exchange between tacit and explicit
knowledge, which enables the creation of new knowledge for
innovation purposes.

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

community, will enable SxS to meet their needs effectively, and thus
extend their audience in the long term.
BME could make use of this project, since there is lack of awareness of
the app especially at the international level, while the organization’s
ambitions involve going global. Therefore, an event such as BlindArt
would promote the app as an effective solution for the blind people’s
routine problems. Moreover, BME would enforce the blind community in
all the three exhibitions cities, and a relevant network of blind users
could be established. Knowledge: The BME app solution would be
communicated to the blind visitors by the tour guides, and therefore
communicate explicit knowledge of it by raising awareness.
The visually impaired are typically feeling pitied and like a burden to
the society (BME Business Plan), which would make guided tactile
uncomfortable with so many guides tours (with one guide per two
people – SxS, 2014), and the blind visitors would feel the social pressure
of the help that they get from the guides. After completing the tactile
tours, the app would come as a microvolunteering solution with helpers
who are volunteers that only use as little time as they want, which
would initiate an independent feeling among the blind users and
would contribute to their self-esteem and self-perception (BME Business
Plan). This would also lead to more knowledge about the app among
the blind people (especially in Australia, where the awareness is low),
who would be able to use it as an effective solution in their own routine
as well. Moreover, engaging the visually impaired in making their own
sculptures would stimulate their creativity and would make them be
aware 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 their
participation in the society, which according to the UNGCDR, “will
result in their enhanced sense of belonging”. Knowledge: As they use
the app as a solution in their search for their favorite sculpture, they
perform internalization in Nonaka’s terms (2000), since they will embody
the know-how (tacit knowledge) of using the app while experiencing it;
and then they will hopefully integrate the app as their daily routine
solution. The creative events, such as creating their own sculpture,
would contribute on the other hand to externalizing the knowledge of
their potential and needs to the society which can thus act upon this
knowledge in a benefitting way for both the blind people and the
society at large.
The municipalities of Aarhus, Sydney and Perth have the opportunity of
making use of BME’S technology, since they are part of OECD countries
and have easy accessibility to smartphones and 3G/4G Internet

connection. This accessibility gives way to saving money regarding the
costs to the society, while the visually impaired app users will be more
independent of the costly services provided by the governments,
namely an annual cost of £34 billion for a typical OECD country (BME
Business Plan). Moreover, the implementation of the app in the blind
people community will contribute to fulfilling the recent UN signings on
disability rights. An event that involves the blind people’s creative
potential, as well as promoting it on the Facebook SxS page, will
“promote the recognition of their skills, merits and abilities”, which is one
of the measures that the states signing UNGCDR committed to. Another
measure is for the disabled people to “enjoy access to cultural
materials in accessible formats, and to develop and utilize their
creative and artistic potential”(UNGCDR) , which will contribute to the
enrichment of the society (UNGCDR). Knowledge: By uploading
pictures on the hashtag community on Facebook, the blind people’s
perception of the world is made explicit to the viewers, which would
enable the municipalities to integrate their needs more effectively in
the cultural and entertainment domain of the city (as requested by the
UN). This process involves externalizing the tacit knowledge about the
blind people to the society (Nonaka, 2000).

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

material and resources needed to create sculpture, are established
before educating the guides about the sculpture process involving the
use of BME app. It is necessary that the guides know beforehand what
materials will be used, so that their instruction on using the app within
the workshop would fit the nature of the materials and tools used.
Each of the task duration has been roughly estimated in terms of full
time working days. For instance, “1.1.1.2.1 Communicate presentation
of BME to the artist” referred to by ID 4, involves creating documents
about BME Organization goals and objectives, including a presentation
of the functionality of the application provided. The documents are to
include information about how the artist can adapt their advice about
creating the sculptures, and the materials they recommend, to the
application provided by BME which will be used by the blind
participants. After the documents formulation, the task includes a
meeting with all the artists whose sculptures pictures have been
selected from the hashtag community in the competition; and a
presentation of the documents discussed. The whole process of
documents formulation would take about a week, since the
introduction of the organization has to be adapted to the artists’
understanding of the blind people’s needs; and a complex fitted
amount of information has to be inserted. Communicating the
documents to the artists will take about ten days, since they have to be
contacted on available times, and the gathering for the presentation
has to be synchronized to all the artists’ availability. This matter needs to
be adapted to the artists’ schedule, since they are the ones providing
useful information to the participants. All in all, this task is argued to take
about 15 work days.
An example of multitasking would be ID 10 and ID 12, which both start
after ID 11 finishes “2.1.2.1 Create presentation and rules for competition
to be introduced to the blind visitors by the guides”.
The task ID 12 “2.1.2.2 Educate the guides in presenting the competition
opportunity to the blind visitors.” cannot be started before the
competition rules and presentation are formulated in task ID 11.
Therefore, task ID 12, has to start afterwards. The winners selection
happens after the pictures upload flow from the SxS ends, and after the
selection there will be a workshop where the winners are provided with
the 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 and
communicated, so that the time and place are consistent with the

terms of the competition, regarding whether the workshop should wait
for 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.dk
United Nations Global Compact on Disability Rights. Retrieved from
http://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/convention/convoptprot-
e.pdf

BlindArt by the Sea - Project Management 2014

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