It is now time to start our new topic on "Strategic Planning." Kay Flatten, TAPin project manager at the Centre for Information Research & Training in the Faculty of Computing and Information Studies of the University of Central England, will be our guest editor. I'll let Kay introduce herself to you in her introduction to our new topic...
They hope to establish a culture change within their information services which will include their personal roles as facilitators of networked resources. It is hoped that the procedures that Karen (list manager), myself (discussion leader), and others, (list members) follow can act as a model for similar semi-structured professional discourse on a topic which ultimately ends up archived as an electronic volume. The topic, Strategic Planning, will be of interest to these librarians and information professionals because they are the front line of a UK strategic initiative. The success or failure of eLib culture change strategies may be reflected in the TAPin librarians.
Q. Do strategic plans ultimately depend upon the day-to-day actions of the people within organizations who deliver the services?
Strategic planning and professional development:
Biographical details as an example: I was an associate professor of biomechanics in the U.S. until 1989. On the belief that an Information Age was dawning and physical education was likely to be slow in its uptake, I resigned and began my MLS at Indiana University. On the belief that global communication was a major part of future change, I took a BUNAC work abroad post after graduation. My research background led me to the Centre for Information Research and Training at University of Central England. The centre is within the School of Information Studies which offers library and information undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. My current research project is TAPin.
Q. As roles change, is such CPD strategic planning necessary?
Learning about strategic planning in library school:
I learned about the importance of strategic planning for libraries from classes at Indiana taught by Jim Neal and Blaise Cronin. I believe that the profession must transfer such strategic thinking to graduates. The changes occurring in information services dictate that organizations position themselves to meet demand. If the tools and skills needed to meet this demand are expensive and evolving, then strategic planning is even more important for survival.
Q. Should we formally teach strategic planning and if so how?
The British (perhaps English) view:
My impression of my current colleagues opinions about strategic planning and its place in LIS coursework is mixed. For the most part it is perceived as "an American thing," and as such is trivialized. Americans are often seen to state the obvious. I learned this on the tennis court when I noticed I was the only one who called out the score before serving. When I asked someone, they responded, "We all know the score, so why go calling attention to it!" If we know what works then just get on with it. Likewise, LIS professors might say they are adding to their courses to keep up with changes, so a unit or class on strategic planning in LIS would mean something more basic was not taught and their loads can't take another elective.
I am however struck with the strategic planning which seems to be built into GB government. The one thing that is constant is change. There is so much restructuring that I can't keep up with the different qualifications available. This may actually hurt attempts by LIS organizations to plan strategically, or to teach LIS professionals to do likewise. If you put a five year plan into place in the UK, it is guarantied to become obsolete because the powers controlling the funding will change variables which undermine your plan. It demoralizes almost any strategic thinking. The "bubble up process" can't work if there is recurrent "top down" change.
Q. Is change so much a part of culture today that planning must be short and dynamic?
The origins of strategic planning:
In preparing this introduction I spoke to someone who disliked strategic planning because it has military origins. He perceived it was all about beating others to the spoils. The Oxford Dictionary defines the word strategy as:
"Generalship, the art of war, management of an army or armies in a campaign, art to impose upon the enemy the place and time and conditions for fighting preferred by oneself." (Sykes, 1982)
Q. Do we need to teach our students aggression in order to secure a place in the Information Marketplace of the future?
Shall we all begin the battle? Your turn to move!
Reference:
Sykes, J B (ed) (1982). The Concise Oxford Dictionary:of English Language, Seventh Edition. Oxford: Clarendon, p 1052.
Kay Flatten stated:
"If you put a five year plan into place in the UK, it is guarantied to become obsolete because the powers controlling the funding will change variables which undermine your plan. It demoralizes almost any strategic thinking."
If one fully accepts the changes which necessarily occur in this long time perspective of five years, and if one is willing to adapt the vision dynamically, strategic planning becomes an useful and even encouraging instrument. Nobody is a prophet; it is neither possible nor necessary that the originally set aim becomes true!
Kay further asked if we need to teach our students aggression in order to secure a place in the Information Marketplace of the future. I think that individual career planning has much to do with recognizing oneself, the own inclinations and potentials; it has also to do with estimating trends and future developments; finally, it has to do with the selection of working opportunities. Therefore, I would rather replace the word "aggression" through "alertness."
I am told that the vision of Frito-Lay, Inc, is "snack food within reach of every American." Some love the vision and some fear it. Regardless of personal feelings, within the company the vision drives strategic thinking in a way that data on current market share, distribution systems, etc. cannot. (For foreign readers, Frito-Lay is a major U.S. manufacturer of potato and corn chips, crackers and other snacks.)
The service sector today often waits for outside leadership and complains when other priorities shape the leader's vision. We need to develop our own vision and the strategic plans toward the vision. Neither we nor Frito-Lay will necessarily get there, but striving builds strength.
Will users of networked information envision librarians as persons skilled in assisting with digitally stored information?
Or will such users slog along in browsers and search engines feeling isolated from human support?
Will they think of email as an enquiries desk?
If end-users of networked information do not have such visions of librarians could that be a strategic goal as important to LIS as easy access to snack food was to Frito-Lay?
William said:
"(Strategic planning) depends on one part of factors which are known and controllable; on another part the goal is depending on parameters which are known but only partially or not controllable; sometimes even unrecognized influences may play a role. Under these circumstances we are not able to define any strategic target in an exact and exhaustive manner."
The people in LIS are uncomfortable dealing with the "unknown" and "not controllable." After all, they spend a great deal of their working day seeking the known and organizing it. It is exactly that fear and distrust of the unknown which is holding us back and threatening our own extinction.
Was there ever a more important time for strategic focus in LIS and LIS education?
Much importance is currently attached to VISION. Apart from the fact that most attempts at vision and mission statements are desperately awful, visionary statements are likely to be valueless or, worse, alienating unless they are supported by two crucial elements of strategic planning and implementation. Effectiveness in these areas requires the ability to select (and therefore reject), and the control of resources so that they can be directed to support the selected strategy.
It is probably the difficulty of doing these things in libraries which produces the lack of strategic planning orientation which, as Kay Flatten accurately observes, is common in Britain. A former chief librarian who was an early advocate of a more managerial approach in libraries explicitly stated that his approach was opportunistic rather than strategic, i.e. this was conscious and deliberate rather than an omission.
For most librarians the ability to select/reject is severely constrained - the greater the element of political control the more severe the constraint. In public libraries in particular the combination of political control, professional norms,values and specializations, and the provision of services for the
It is commonplace for a profit-making organization to discontinue products or services to focus on new or more profitable ones; how often does this happen in libraries?
Because in most instances the financing of libraries is not directly linked to the take-up of services but to national or local political thinking some of the basic factors operating in the complex process of private sector strategic planning and implementation do not operate here. There are neither direct penalties for maintaining unprofitable lines nor rewards for successful ones; rather there are the difficulties of dealing with continually shrinking budgets without the freedom to make the major, tough decisions which might produce anything other than incremental and short-term reactive responses,or even the promise of financial success if they were successfully made and effected.
The alternative way of financing development is to take advantage of as many pockets of money produced by the operation of political decision making as possible. This requires alertness to diverse and sometimes obscure opportunities and the cunning to be able to convincingly reshape the presentation of the service to make it seem relevant to the political purpose. In other words, to be opportunistic.
A librarian was recently speaking enthusiastically about the new strategic approach of her service. I asked how she reconciled this with the emphasis which change management placed on nimbleness in responding to sudden changes and the negative effects which strategic planning could have on this. She rose to the occasion: Our strategy is to be opportunistic.
For example in 1975 it was reasonable to expect that distributed systems would be used in work groups and that telecommunications would be used to connect workers to information. These two scenarios were projected based upon:
The information support services required by managers developing strategic plans is an appropriate topic for inclusion in a LIS curriculum that deals with information acquisition, analysis, use and user behavior issues which surround information resource facilitation, in this case, for managers tasked with planning activities.
Perhaps strategic planning is an area where cooperation between the LIS and management faculties can best serve the needs of students depending upon whether their interest is in the information aspects or the practice of planning. By splitting the topic it is possible that business students might get a more interesting treatment of information sources, organizing principles, description, etc., in a LIS program and library students might get a more practical treatment of the conduct of planning as a managerial activity in a business program.
Presumably, one of the main problems remains in the fact that the input to the library is on the financial, the output rather on the ideal side. What can be done to deal with the special conditions under which libraries operate?
School of Information
Faculty Recruiting
The new School of Information at The University of Michigan is growing rapidly and anticipates making a number of faculty appointments over the next several years beginning in 1997. The School was chartered in March of 1996 as a major initiative of the University to develop and apply an integrated understanding of human needs and their relationships to information systems and social structures. The School's mission is to generate new knowledge, deliver quality professional education, educate new scholars, and build partnerships to solve fundamental problems.
The School currently has almost 30 faculty, and they have advanced degrees in many disciplines, including library science, history, information science, computer science, engineering, psychology, economics, education, political science, and public policy. The faculty are engaged in numerous sponsored research projects, including the areas of digital libraries, collaborative work environments, information retrieval, information access, and electronic commerce. The faculty supervise approximately 25 Ph.D. students, many of whom are involved in the School's sponsored research projects. There are currently 250 students studying for their Master of Science in Information (MSI) degrees in such areas as library and information services, archives and records management, human-computer interaction, future systems architectures, and organizational information systems.
The School has embarked on a multi-year plan to expand its academic and research programs, including corresponding increases in the size of the faculty and student body. This expansion is being facilitated by innovative use of information technology to support all of its programs, including technologies that relax the constraints of time and distance. In alliance with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation the School is developing ambitious global educational and service activities that will be key elements of the School's instructional programs. Detailed information about the School, its mission, and its activities can be found at www.si.umich.edu.
We seek applicants from any information-related field who are eager to join us in helping to define and shape a new, emerging intellectual discipline along with the associated academic and research programs. Most of these appointments will be made at the Assistant Professor level, but we are willing to consider senior appointments. Because we have a number of positions we are also willing to explore proposals for linked, multi-person appointments. We may also be able to make joint appointments with other Schools and Colleges at the University where appropriate. Candidates for these positions would ordinarily have a Ph.D. in a relevant field, and must possess a commitment to working in an interdisciplinary environment.
Applicants should submit the following materials: a curriculum vitae, a statement of research and teaching interests, a list of at least three people who could serve as references (including e-mail address), and a cover letter that explains how you think you would fit into the School's new directions. Send these materials to:
The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity/affirmative action educator and employer. Minorities and women are encouraged to apply.
William Liebi pointed to the daily actions of the people delivering the services within organizations as being the starting point and the target of strategic planning. The current climate in libraries is not very conducive to new and different roles. Staffing is low and user demand is high. Our TAPin librarians are found measuring bookshelf space and leading orientation. They have great difficulty finding the one day a week to devote to networked information. If they don't work in a networked environment they can't be expected to understand the strategic implications it holds.
William further identified the issue of control, or lack of it, in strategic planning. Control Culture better defines most libraries; whereas, Culture Change does not.
Several speakers pointed to strategic visions instead of strategic goals. It is questionable how visionary librarians or LIS educators are. I have found great reluctance from both groups in accepting information from the Internet or specifically from the Web. Their vision is limited.
If they did have such a vision there would be a greater willingness for librarians to, as William said "take initiatives to establish the image of the librarian as a competent and skilled expert for retrieving digitally stored information."
LIS students are probably better at this vision than their teachers. As one speaker said,
"Individual career planning has much to do with recognizing oneself, the
own inclinations and potentials; it has also to do with estimating trends and future developments"
Today's students are much more comfortable with reading from VT screens and moving in a hyperlinked environment than are their professors.
Some of our discussion looked at the corporate world and messages for LIS. I particularly liked David Drummond's story about Frito-Lay's strategic thinking to have "Snack food within reach of every American." This vision drives strategic thinking in Frito-Lay Co. Has any library service considered having Netscape on every enquiry desk?
The lack of activity in LIS strategic planning can perhaps be summed up in David's comment, "The service sector today often waits for outside leadership and complains when other priorities shape the leader's vision." Allen referred to this waiting and following pattern for LIS when he talked about "the more time available to develop approaches and adaptations the less costly and more effectively the evolution may occur. By allowing management an extended time (20 years) to contemplate and reflect on the diffusion of information technology one might expect..." I don't think LIS can afford that kind of approach in the current information climate.
I wish to thank those who contributed to this topic. It has served to confirm what I had felt was true in LIS. The future will happen in spite of us! TAPin will be measuring the impact of a strategic initiative to change the roles of selected librarians and the academic staff they support. The results of that study may prove me wrong. I must caution myself that as lead researcher I am in danger of developing a negative bias.
Home DiscussionAllen Brewer, MBA, MLS
The practice of strategic planning is intended to permit management the maximal advantage of time to adapt to possible and likely environmental conditions. If one describes the evolution of an organization toward some set of goals or objectives in terms of time and costs using a tool such as PERT (Project Evaluation Review Technique) the leverage of strategic planning can be seen as deriving from trading off time for costs where the less time a project has the greater the relative cost of some task. The more time that is available to adapt to an environmental change the more likely the adaptation will be constructive, the less intrusive the adaptation can be made, and the more likely the adaptation will be viewed as a normal evolutionary process in the life of the organization.
Student
College of Library and Information Services
University of Maryland
abrewer@oriole.umd.edu
While both of these assertions were reasonable in 1975 they were probably more generally recognized in 1985 and were intuitively obvious in 1995. For an organization seeking to evolve an enterprise information resource strategy which distributes resources throughout the organization the more time available to develop approaches and adaptations the less costly and more effectively the evolution may occur. By allowing management an extended time (20 years) to contemplate and reflect on the diffusion of information technology one might expect some of the following adaptations to develop to limit costs and improve benefits:
I believe the practice of projecting or forecasting the future is a more reasonable managerial activity than has been suggested by some of the authors in this thread. I would prefer to direct a student to a business school for a comprehensive treatment of strategic planning or the practice of planning. A detailed treatment of SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, threat) analyses and other techniques used in developing and implementing strategic plans is better left to a course that already covers these issues and to a faculty conducting research into planing and organizational development.William Arthur Liebi
Melvyn Crann observed in his posting that the finance of libraries is in most instances controlled through political thinking; this circumstance hampers the ability of the library to select new and reject outdated library services. The author also remarked that strategic planning, as it works in the private sector, does not fully function within a library environment.
Academic librarian
Stadt- und Universitaetsbibliothek Bern
CH-3000 Bern 7 Switzerland
Voice: +41 +31 320 32 259
Fax: +41 +31 320 32 99
liebi@stub.unibe.ch
We would be glad to hear something about any implemented NPM approaches within libraries or other information intensive environments.
University of Michigan
While recruiting will continue for several years, we expect to make 2-3 appointments for the fall of 1997. To be considered for these initial appointments please submit your material no later than December 1, 1996.
Faculty Search
Office of the Dean
School of Information
University of Michigan
550 East University Avenue
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1092
U.S.A.Kay Flatten
It is time to close our discussion on Strategic Planning in LIS and LIS education. There was a limited response to this topic. That may reflect the lack of importance strategic planning is perceived to play in LIS and LIS education. Some of the comments made in this discussion alluded to the lack of strategic planning in LIS.
TAPin Project Manager
Centre for Information Research & Training Faculty of Computing and Information Studies
University of Central England
Perry Barr
Birmingham
B42 2SU
Voice: 0121 - 331 5619
Fax: 0121 - 331 5675
Kay.Flatten@uce.ac.uk
