Mural Arts Philadelphia is the largest public art program of its kind. For over 30 years, Mural Arts has united artists and communities through a collaborative and equitable process, creating nearly 4,000 artworks that have transformed public spaces. Mural Arts empowers people and stimulates dialogue with programs that focus on youth education, restorative justice, mental health, and wellness. Mural Arts builds bridges to understanding with projects that attract artists from Philadelphia and around the world to create and preserve public art.
The Project Management Office (PMO) is responsible for the intake of new project applications and the management of more than 100 public art installations per year. Working closely with forty project managers, the PMO ensures that each project secures the necessary funding and agreements, finds an appropriate location and artist, passes design review, and is installed and dedicated within a reasonable time frame. The PMO supports project managers as they navigate through a variety of unique challenges to create community-rooted public artwork.
In order to successfully complete a project, project managers are trained on the administrative requirements of Mural Arts. New project managers receive a series of onboarding/training meetings with a Senior Manager. Additionally, guides for completing important milestones, such as finding a wall for a mural or completing design review, are shared internally and posted to the PM Microsite. The Project Managers Roles & Responsibilities document outlines the general responsibilities of the project manager throughout a project’s creation.
To supplement the ongoing support provided by the Director of Project Management and the Senior Manager, the PMO would like to implement a series of professional development trainings throughout the year for all active project managers. These training sessions would serve as a refresher on the Mural Arts process and an opportunity to share best practices among colleagues. A clearly defined training curriculum is needed to ensure that each project manager receives the necessary information and support that is required to see a project to completion.
The Fels student fellow would be responsible for:
1. An audit of existing training practices and tools
2. Developing a specific training rubric for annual PM professional development
3. Creating an onboarding training kit to support the Senior Manager’s work onboarding new PMs
The training rubric will outline a schedule for professional development training, ideally to take place annually in the slower season (December - February). To support this work, the Fels student will review the current training survey to identify key training topics for project managers as well as identify ideal styles for training (i.e. hands-on workshops, lectures, etc.) as well as identify guest presenters (both internal and external to the organization). The student would then identify a shared tool to enable project managers to share their experiences and resources amongst each other.
The onboarding training kit would include a summary of project management best practices at Mural Arts. The overview would be broken down to five sections that covers the different responsibilities throughout each phase of the project. The five sections include: (1) Investigation, (2) Project Planning, (3) Design, (4) Implementation, and (5) Completion Phase. The Fels student would synthesize all training materials into a single guide that can be a resource for PMs throughout their onboarding and beyond.
January 2024: Partake in PM onboarding with Senior Manager.
February - March 2024: Audit of existing training methods.
April 2024: Develop and present recommended strategies for annual training/professional development.
May - June 2024: Develop onboarding toolkit to support Senior Manager training.
July 2024: Implementation planning and lead information session for PMs.
August 2024: Implementation support.
