Presentation by Lisa Gayhart, Anika Ervin-Ward, and Jacqueline Whyte Appleby at OLA Super Conference 2014

1. Communicating Changes in Digital Services
Lisa Gayhart | Anika Ervin-Ward | Jacqueline Whyte Appleby
OLA Super Conference 2014

2. Agenda
● What is Communications? Why do we need to do it?
● What is Change Communications?
● Communicating Change: Case Studies
○ OCUL Organizational Effectiveness Review
○ Consortial RFPs
○ Scholars Portal Journals interface changes
○ University of Toronto Libraries’ new catalogue interface
● Scaling up and down: communications at your institution
● Takeaways and questions

3. Who is here today?
Are you from an academic/public/school/specialist library?
Are you part of the digital/systems/IT team?
Are you public service/management/other?
Are you from a large/small library?
Are you involved in your library’s/teams communications? If not, who is ?
Have you seen a communications plan before?
Have you written a communications plan?
Are communications usually part of your project plan?
What do you think ‘communications’ are?

4. What is ‘communications’?
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Communications is a conversation (two-way)
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Common goal not persuasion
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Reciprocal - learn from each other

5. Why communicate?
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We want to help!
Make services better for everyone
Increase in user satisfaction
Build relationships and break down silos
Increase transparency, especially around technology
Increase recognition / justify resources
Demystify library technology, development, and testing
Non-event status

6. What is change communications?
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A tool AND a process (not just something that has to be done)
Strategic & purposeful
Part of the overall change process or project rollout
Multi-level, multi-site
Relationship building and strengthening
Learning opportunity not just a ‘teaching moment’
Engagement tool

7. Key Considerations
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Context
o stakeholder relationships
o organizational and industrial culture
o existing communications practices
o external influences
Change & uncertainty
Time, resource & information limitations
Flexibility and responsiveness

8. Communicating Change:
Case Studies
● OCUL Organizational Effectiveness Review
● Consortial RFPs
● Scholars Portal Journals
● University of Toronto Libraries Catalogue

9. Case Study
OCUL Organizational Effectiveness Review
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• Background
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OCUL is a consortium of libraries from the 21 Ontario universities
2013 review resulting in broad structural change
Impact on entire organization
Consultation with key stakeholders
Communicating the why, the when, the how

11. OCUL Organizational Effectiveness Review
The Plan
The Rollout
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Aim
Stakeholders
Message
Medium
Timeline
Review
Announcement
In-persons
Stage updates
Operational comms support
Collaborations

12. OCUL Organizational Effectiveness Review
What Next?
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long term project
work in progress
continued collaboration
constantly assessing the plan
responding to stakeholder needs

13. Case Study - OCUL RFP Process
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OCUL = 21 institutions with FTEs ranging from 1,000-80,0000
Scholars Portal also acts as a service provider to non-OCUL institutions
including
o Universities outside of Ontario
o Colleges
o Hospitals

14. OCUL RFP Process
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• An RFP is an opportunity to scan the landscape - use it!
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What does the community want?
What is essential? vs. What is nice to have?
What tools are available?
Who wants to partner?

15. OCUL RFP Process
Stakeholders
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OCUL library staff
Other library staff
OCUL business office
Current vendor
Potential future vendors
Users

16. OCUL RFP process
What does each stakeholder group want to know, and what’s
the earliest date it would be useful for them to know it?
What information do we need from stakeholders and
how/when can we get it?

17. OCUL RFP process: Communication plan
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Purpose of the plan
Desired outcomes
Strategy
Target audiences
Key messages
Distribution methods
Evaluation methods

18. OCUL RFP process: Communication plan
ocul.on.ca
public info
we are doing this, here’s who to contact
ocul.on.ca/
rmembers
OCUL members w/
login credentials
timelines, selection committee members
Selection committee
meeting minutes, criteria, everything!
wikispace

19. OCUL RFP process
Snags
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Managing logistics without actually making the decisions
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Distributed networks - who wants this information?
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Confidentiality & protocol of the procurement process

20. Case Study - Scholars Portal Journals re-write
● Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)
● Time for a refresh!

21. Case Study - Scholars Portal Journals re-write
The Plan
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Share screenshots well in advance
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Introduce a beta tab early and actively solicit feedback
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What do users like about the old site? What will they miss?
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What are user expectations, based on other databases they use?

22. Old platform

23. New platform

24. Case Study - UTL New Library Catalogue
• Background
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o New library catalogue interface development (2012-2013)
o Launch (Sept 2013)
Goal - essentially working towards a “non-event”
Focus
o Getting users involved in the process (buy-in)
o managing change in service
o responding to user needs/wants
Our challenge
o wide user base with different needs
o getting in touch with our users (and non-users)

25. Our feedback process in 2013
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Opened channels of communications with users
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Continuous cycle of feedback and response
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Occured throughout various stages:
o development
o beta testing
o launch
o post-launch

26. Who was involved?
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Led by project team (development, design, communications)
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But involved department as a whole
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Support from administration
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Reached out to many groups - continual promotion, repetition of message,
building buy-in and engagement

27. Why go to the effort?
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No surprises!
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Two-way communication - we learned from our users and they learned from us
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Working together to make a heavily used resource better for all
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And, selfishly, raising the profile of our department and putting a face to ITS

28. How did we gather feedback?
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Open channels of communication
o email, website, online forms, in-person events, meeting and committee
updates, training, focus groups, usability testing, informal discussion
o call to action - focus on user participation rather than news updates
o “why should I care?”
Response management
o Jira implementation
o standardized response times and messages
o staff participation

29. Feedback form in the library catalogue

30. What did we do with the feedback?
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Respond and share with team/department
Informed development process in many areas
o e.g. redesigned icons, roll ups in search results, placement of tool set, etc.
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Snowball effect - led us to more users/non-users
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Relationship building - created good will (keep this going)

31. What we learned from this experience
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How to take feedback gracefully
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Managing user/team/library expectations
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Get in front of the message
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Everyone is a brand ambassador
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Timing is everything - never enough lead time….except when it’s too much

32. Scaling up and down:
Everyone can communicate change
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Engage front-line staff
Everyone is part of communications
Get buy-in and heed organizational culture
Make feedback easy: webform, Twitter, polls
Be empathetic to user problems
Be realistic
Be prepared to respond to feedback (take action)
Be consistent
When to automate vs the personal touch

33. Takeaways
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Communications is about relationship building
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Iterative process
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Get early buy-in
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Be transparent
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Be flexible and focus on collaboration

34. Takeaways
Know your:
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Communications goals and message(s)
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Users & stakeholders
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Communications channels
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Desired outcomes

35. Questions?
Anika Ervin-Ward / Administration and Communications Coordinator
Ontario Council of University Libraries / anika.ervin.ward@ocul.on.ca
Jacqueline Whyte Appleby / Client Services Librarian
Scholars Portal / jacqueline@scholarsportal.info
Lisa Gayhart / Digital Communications Services Librarian
University of Toronto Libraries / lisa.gayhart@utoronto.ca