Maximize the ratio between the budget and the results

To achieve the best result even when the budget is limited

Each visitor center construction project has a limited budget. he can be A budget of hundreds of thousands of shekels, or tens of millions, but at the end it is limited, and if you act in a professional and orderly way - there is a high probability that the result Be the best possible within the budget.

During my visits to many centers in Israel and around the world, I came to a limited number

of sites where it was evident that they were established without budget restrictions, but as mentioned these

unrepresentative cases.

A prominent example in Israel of an almost unlimited budget is the 'Ano' visitor center, or by its official name: Us - The Museum of the Jewish People. were reportedly invested Instead of 100 million dollars, and according to the visit to the field, you can see the investment the petition in every corner.

But if we return to the ground - each project has a budget ranging from hundreds of thousands for several tens of millions of shekels, when usually it is only a few millions. 

The deliberation of the entrepreneurs and the planners will always move in maintaining a balance between investing in the structure and the technical aspects, and investing in the content.

There are no clear rules that can give answers to questions, but rather there are questions discounts that may help entrepreneurs make the decisions that affect distribution the budget.

Here too we will return to the first and main question of every visitor center - what is the purpose of the place?

What is the main story you want to tell the visitors? 

If we return to the rules that should be the basis of every center: study, emotion, experience and fun - we can respond to each of the rules at very flexible budget levels.

For example, it is possible to produce an exciting film even for 100 thousand NIS, and it is possible to create a film even for a million NIS. Unfortunately, by the way, you can also spend budgets higher than a million NIS and still not manage to excite....

In the bottom line - when you come to divide the budget for the planning and execution of the center, you must allocate the minimum required to respond well to each component of the quartet of: learning, emotion, experience and fun. How much exactly to invest in each of the components? It has already entered more into the realm of the taste and style of the entrepreneurs, or the style and character that suits the content of the project.

One of the things that became clear to me - both in projects with a modest budget, and in those with a large budget, is that when the entrepreneur employs a professional content and execution consultant - and not someone from within his organization - he saves a lot of money. Sometimes it's hard for an entrepreneur to see this - because it's an additional budget that he didn't plan for.

Similarly, we would not imagine that a developer would build a new building and not pay the inspector to save money. It is clear to anyone with common sense that savings in supervision - may charge high prices down the road.

A little story to illustrate please: a few years ago I was invited to a class reunion - after more than 20 years of not seeing each other. One of the friends from the class told me about his occupation - a senior management member of one of the largest companies in Israel. When I told him about my field of expertise, he said: We are just in the advanced stages of building a visitor center - maybe you will meet with the project manager on behalf of the company?

I arrived at a meeting with the project manager who said as soon as I entered: Yankel, I have no idea why we are meeting! I have consultants and managers and professionals and I don't need anyone else on my head...

I answered him: Listen Danny (pseudonym..) I will not waste your time or mine, nor your company's money. Show me the detailed plans and the budget - and maybe I'll applaud you and say that everything is good, but maybe the result will be different.

After a few days, I was invited together with the performing company to present the detailed plans to me. How can I say with the gentleness required - there was an unreasonable gap between the goals and objectives of the developer, and the content plans for implementation, and the budget, and I reflected these gaps to the project manager on behalf of the developer. 

As a result of the meeting, the plans were stopped and we went to a renewed and precise definition of the program, following which a plan was built that is more suitable for the client, with a clear alignment between the budget and the execution.

What happened later in the course of the project is already a story for another film.

Blessings and success to all involved in the craft.