'In a museum of interests, understanding capacity is a first step' - Job Andringa | Young Executive

In addition to a commercial purpose, the Mauritshuis also has a strong social and educational focus. This is because the museum, as custodian of the National Collection, has a responsibility from the Ministry to exhibit the collection to the broadest possible audience. This means that Mauritshuis has an extensive program throughout the year: during exhibitions, there are courses and seminars for both young and old to attend. The museum also has a busy school season: both primary and secondary schools visit the museum daily for a guided tour, museum lesson or workshop.

In addition, to remain financially healthy, the Mauritshuis must also rely on its business clientele. Every year, companies, associations, and foundations rent several rooms in the building for conferences and meetings. This source of income is indispensable and, together with the many sponsors and support foundations, forms an essential part of the museum.

The convergence of all these activities, actors, and interests within the museum also logically produces friction. The Mauritshuis has the potential to grow within all these activities in the coming years, but it must do so sustainably and always with an eye on the collection and the experience. The Mauritshuis' client request to Boer & Croon was to provide insight into the possibilities, including the frameworks.

First, interviews were conducted with all Mauritshuis management team members. The focus of these conversations was to understand the various activities the museum undertakes each year. In addition, an important issue was to identify the future ambitions of the departments: how many more tourists, group bookings, lectures and events do the departments want to organize?

The next step was to substantiate this numerically. Data was collected on the number of visitors on a year, month, week, and day basis. An inventory was also made of the number of events organized, programming, and tours. We could recognise specific patterns by making this data transparent and comparing it over the years and with each other. The first important insight was Providing insight into when activities demand capacity from the museum.

As employees described it, one of the major limiting factors was the security department's capacity. To map this out, we started making calculations based on the rosters and the hours needed to keep the museum open. In this, several scenarios were drawn up so that the museum could understand how much extra security was required to be hired or hired to staff the additional events and crowds.

At the end of the project, which lasted about four weeks, a final result was delivered, with concrete advice for the Mauritshuis management. The first concrete point was understanding which museum activities require capacity and when. A second takeaway was clarifying the departments' concrete (growth) needs and their implications for the museum. Lastly, drawing up multiple scenarios for expanding security at the museum was a handhold for the management to start the conversation about a future-proof Mauritshuis.