Strategic Planning for Rural & Small Libraries: Achieving Excellence One Step at a Time

Transcription

1 Gail Santy Central Kansas Library System Strategic Planning for Rural & Small Libraries: Achieving Excellence One Step at a Time

2 Signs you need a strategic plan: You don t know where you will be in one year OR you know where you want to be, but don t know how to get there. Everything on your to-do list is a top priority. You pursue all opportunities for fear you may miss the big one. Your patrons go to other businesses for services you provide. When asked, they say they didn t know you offered those services. You and your staff complain because you have too much to do in too little time. You ve been at this library thing for years and you know (think you know) what your patrons need and want, but you ve never asked.

3 Traditional Strategic Plan Framework Mission Statement. Why you exist as an organization. Vision Statement. What your library will look like in the future. Values. Your guiding principles. SWOT. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. Competitive Advantage. What you do better than your competition. Long-term Objectives. What to do to reach your vision. Strategies. Methods to help reach your goals. Short-term Priorities. What, when, and who; these are measurable. Action Steps. How a goal will be met. Scorecard. Your key performance indicators, how you are doing.

4 Simple Strategic Plan Framework What are we doing especially well? What must happen to ensure that we continue doing well and even improve? What are some of our most promising opportunities? Why are they promising? What should we do to pursue them and turn them into things we do especially well? What are we currently doing poorly? What do our customers tell us we should improve? Exactly what should we do to improve these aspects of our library? What competitors are howling at our doors? What makes them a real threat? What should we do to minimize the risks posed by these competitors? What other forces (e.g., social, demographic, political, economic or technological) threaten us? What should we do about these threats?

5 Simple Strategic Plan Framework Answers to these questions are the basis of simple strategic planning. Apply project management to make certain the actions get done. Project Management: Responsibilities. Who is the project manager for each task? Time frames. When will the action begin? When should it end? Resources. What resources are available for implementing the actions? Review. When will key decision makers meet to revisit the progress against the plan? Success. How will we determine our overall success?

6 Simple Strategic Plan Framework Document the results of strategic planning along with project management details. Keep it short. Give copies to those who play a role in implementing the strategyall staff member and library board members, all financial stakeholders, Friends of the Library groups. The best way to communicate the strategy to most people is through objectives. Objectives take the strategy and translate it into language that everyone can understand and implement. They also break the strategy into component pieces that are appropriate for each process.

7 It's hard to go through an exercise as big as "where do we take the company?", and end up with something you can wake up every day and execute. Jonathan Lambert for most organisations, the notion of Strategic Planning is stuck in the 1960s and asserts that in today s fast-to-try, fast-to-fail and fast-to-learn society this once and done, annual strategic budgeting and planning process is doomed to fail. Peter Borner "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." Sun Tzu

8 Kai = Change Zen = Good (for the better) Kaizen = Continual improvement Kaizen is the daily process to help you convert strategy to reality. Kaizen helps you prioritize and set into motion the actionable steps of your strategic plan. Kaizen shows you how to make big changes through small, steady increments. Kaizen humanizes the workplace and encourages improvement and productivity.

9 Will it work in libraries? The 5S Kaizen principles provide a system, eliminate waste, improve performance productivity and job satisfaction. Seiri- Sort, Clear Out Seiton- Set Things in Order Seiso- Clean and Shine Sieketsu- Standardize Shitsuku- Self Discipline

10 Seiri- Sort, Clear, Classify Separate the essential from the non-essential. Let go of all you no longer need or what no longer serves your patrons and community. Make room, create space. Weed your collection. Change your library arrangement. Move the furniture, shift the shelves. Evaluate your traditional services and programs. Ask your patrons what they want. Use statistics, not emotions, to make tough decisions.

11 Seiton- Straighten, Simplify, Set in Order, Configure A place for everything and everything in its place. Get organized in stages. Set the basics in place first. Policies that help staff function better. Procedures to do things the easy way. Your library will be shaped by what you want. Be clear on your direction and make your actions align with the vision.

12 Seiso- Sweep, Shine, Scrub, Clean, Check Check for opportunities to improve. Build spirit, pride, and connection to your space, your role, and your community. Increase your awareness of your library s impact on others. What does my community need the library to be? Is this new action aligned with our strategic goals?

13 Sieketsu- Standardize, Stabilize, Conformity Ensures we don t always do what we always did. Set up standards and best practices for procedures. Standardized expectations makes them automatic and empowers everyone to make gentle adjustments to maintain benchmarks.

14 Shitsuku- Sustain, Self discipline, Custom and Practice Everything starts here! Shitsuku results in behavior change and motivates to achieve. Make the other S s part of everyday life for continuous improvement. Hold yourself accountable to the strategic plan. Take some time to think about and acknowledge all you ve achieved. What s next?

15 Think big, start small! Remember, Kaizen is the mindset of improving continuously. Attention to the small things pays off. The completion of BIG things cannot be done by drastic measures and change. It must be done in SMALL increments over time. Kaizen works because all of us are able to undertake small achievable changes. It gives you a sense of certainty, which builds your confidence, and motivates and propels you to stay the course.

16 Kanban- it starts with your brain! Kanban is a visual tool to help you picture, organize, and complete the actionable steps of your strategic plan. When faced with major changes or obstacles we freeze. We feel overwhelmed and are less likely to know where to begin. Kanban breaks down large projects into bite-sized tasks. Take small steps and watch them grow. Kanban encourages small, incremental continuous changes that stick long-term.

17 Kanban works to communicate incremental, continuous, evolutionary change. Start with what you do now- evolve your current process. Agree to make incremental changesagree on a gentle approach to improvement. Respect what is already in placeeliminate initial fears. Visualize the flow- look for changes that need to happen in the work. Limit WIP. Manage flow. Make process policies concise- without this understanding, discussion tends to be emotional, anecdotal, and subjective.

18 Why limit WIP? Do less at a time, do things more efficiently, and end up doing more overall by doing less right now. When we set a WIP limit, we tell ourselves and the world that we want to get work done quickly, and we want to do a quality job. We recognize we can pay attention to some things effectively or to many things poorly.

19 To Do Doing Done Gail Santy, Central Kansas Library System Kanban harnesses the power of visual information by using sticky notes on a whiteboard to create a picture or your plan. It automatically communicates status, and puts the work into context. Seeing progress is motivating and reassures stakeholders change is happening. Hoshin Kanri is a Japanese term which translates to, Ship in a storm going in the right direction.

20 Applying Lean to Annual Strategic Planning Credits and Further Reading Don t Think Small, Think Lean How 5S Kaizen Principles Help You Improve Your Performance Kanban Blog, Getting Started Kaizen an Introduction Practice Your Personal Kaizen The Principles of the Kanban Method

21 Credits and Further Reading Strategic Planning in Smaller Nonprofit Organizations Strategic Planning Kit for Dummies Cheatsheet Strategic Planning, Lean and Agile? Using Kaizen as Part of Your Strategic Plan for Continuous Improvement What is Kanban? What is a Kanban? Why Limit Work in Progress?