Success stories of implementing 80/20 Innovation-style program in a small library
Small libraries need innovation just like larger libraries, but
typically staffing is small enough that nobody has scheduled time away
from the service desks to do focused brainstorming. While there is a lot
of creative planning happening in off-hours or while working the floor,
has anyone gotten management/board approval for a staffing plan with
scheduled innovation time?
MariBar
Comments
- anarchivist: What's your definition of "small", and what kind of library setting are
you talking about?
- MariBar: Small is 10 or less for me. I'd prefer to hear about a public library
setting, but I'd be happy to work with ideas from special or academic
libraries with less than 10 staff and a varied audience.
Answer by bess
We had something like this at one of the academic libraries I worked at.
It was a larger institution than you're talking about, though. Part of
the way we got it to happen was that several staff members already had
side projects that we worked on in our spare time. Once these got a bit
of attention, it was a fairly easy sell to convince supervisors that
staff should have time to work on those projects at work, too.
In my experience, staff who want to innovate will innovate whether or
not they have special innovation time set aside at work. Unfortunately,
I've also seen that staff who are not inclined in this direction will
resent the implication that they should be doing their regular jobs plus
feeling burdened with the task of "innovating" something -- difficult to
do on command.
Comments
- MariBar: Thanks Bess. I was hoping that a formalized program would help spur
innovation while avoiding the implied demand for working in off hours,
but it looks like that isn't happening in practice.
- dsalo: This assumes staff members and innovations have a 1:1 (or 1:M, in the
best case) relationship. When this happens, it's fantastic, but it's not
always the case. When several staff are needed to work on one innovation
-- especially if those staff cross reporting lines -- it's more
complicated. Perhaps in a staff of 10 this doesn't happen?
- MariBar: In my experience, reporting/department lines are pretty lightly drawn in
small libraries. The question of how high a percentage of staff can work
on a single innovation project is a good one though. The higher the
number, presumably, the stricter the guidelines for proposal acceptance
and a greater expectation of success. That could be an early
deal-breaker. Thanks for the insight.
Answer by Mary Jo Finch
When someone at our library (23 employees) has an idea, she writes up a
proposal describing the idea and delineating the goals and the costs
(including time). It is presented to the applicable staff at a regular
meeting, and together we decide if we are going forward with the idea,
and what we might give up (cost and time-wise) to be able to afford the
idea. We have also done this at an annual meeting where multiple ideas
were proposed, and everyone was asked to suggest a service or program
that we could eliminate. We voted on what to add and what to get rid of,
and that became our plan.
Comments
- MariBar: Thank you Mary Jo. Your program sounds like it achieves what I'm looking
for. Do you give the process a formal name, or is it just part of how
your library works?
- Mary Jo Finch: Unimaginatively, the annual meeting was called Librarians' Brainstorming
Meeting. I am inspired by your question to come up with a better name!
In the normal course of things, whenever someone suggests something that
others seem to think might be a good addition, the person is asked to
write up a proposal. Proposals get passed if we can fund them (usually
by dropping or reducing something else, and sometimes by pushing it to
the next budget cycle where there might be more money). A proposal can't
be considered until it is complete.