Librarians as Project Managers: The Internal Service of Library Project Management
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Librarians as Project Managers: The Internal Service of Library Project Management
- 1. Librarians as Project Managers The Internal Service of Library Project Management Rebecca Miksch, IT Initiatives Librarian NCSU Libraries October 2018
- 3. Do More with Less!
- 4. NCSU Libraries - A Case Study
- 5. Projects in the Libraries ● Departments ● Committees ● Fellowships ● Grant-Funded Positions IT Initiatives Librarian
- 6. About Me ● MSLS from UNC ● Started at NCSU: September 2016 ● 10 years in the private sector leading projects ● PMP
- 9. Training
- 10. Project Management Team Purpose: The Project Management Team facilitates library- wide project management activities and provides focused assistance for key initiatives when appropriate. The team enables project-related communication between departments and administration.
- 11. Project Management Inventory ● Project “name” ● Goals ● Description & reason ● Lead ● Team members ● Cost ● Start/End Dates ● Effort ● Priority ● Roadblocks ● 143 total projects submitted ○ 22 from IT ○ 14 from User Experience ○ Only 12 projects submitted by multiple departments ● 5 people associated with 11+ projects ● Most projects were medium effort with high priority
- 12. Issues & Next Steps ● Planning ● Consistency ● Understanding & awareness ● Prioritization ● More consultations ● Further training ● Improved documentation
- 13. Project Management & You
- 14. What project-related challenges have you experienced?
- 17. Questions?
Notas del editor
- Welcome, presentation title, name, job title I’m actually going to do something a little unorthodox and introduce myself in about 5 more slides….I’ll get there though!!
- I want to start by learning something about all of you! Who here has been part of a project team? Maybe putting together & leading a new course or workshop - a book move - a new exhibit or display - a new building or renovation of an old one - rolling out new software - an event Who has led a project? Who feels comfortable leading projects or like you’re well equipped to lead projects?
- As librarians, we wear many different hats Academic Reader Technology guru Organizer Instructor Wayfinder We serve lots of different patrons At NCSU alone, we serve students, professors, visiting researchers, campus partners, and the general public Increasingly, we find ourselves wearing even more hats, taking on more roles, and serving more “patrons” including ourselves and our colleagues We find ourselves in situations where we need to do more with less Less resources Less colleagues Scarily...less skills...
- NCSU Libraries is organized traditionally, into functionally focused departments (IT, Collections, AskUs, etc.). Department heads and managers often serve as de facto project managers. A handful of committees & subcommittees exist to drive cross-organizational work. Committee chairs have functioned as leads for the work & ideas. The Libraries also has a fellowship program. The fellows focus on home department work as well as on initiatives - or projects. Fellows roles in initiatives vary and can take on elements of project management. Similarly, a handful of grant-funded project positions exist, and the individuals in these roles can serve as project managers or liaisons. About 3 years ago, NCSU Libraries’ newly hired Department Head for Information Technology and the two associate dept heads in IT decided that IT needed to get a better grasp on managing projects To this end, they created the role of the IT Initiatives Librarian. This included traditional PM work - setting scope, timeline, deliverables It also included helping department as a whole better prioritize incoming project requests and internal project work 2 years ago, I started in that role
- In order to deliver project success, IT wanted to evaluate and select a PM Tool for tracking projects. We adopted Trello Business Class. We also scoped a handful of projects as first-year efforts Upgrading our staff intranet (software project) Updating our public projects page on the Libraries website (content project) Creating in-room Help & How To documentation for staff conference rooms, while identifying opportunities for future improvement (training & hardware project) Mapping the current IT request management workflow in order to identify and address pain points and inefficiencies (process & workflows project) What we discovered We already had the resources and skill sets to do the work We needed to maintain headspace for each project Someone to keep the work in scope Someone to kick off next steps and keep track of scheduling Someone to liaise with stakeholders throughout the organization Someone to help identify crossover between projects or projects and regular work
- What I like about this image is the repetition of maps around the room. I often compare project plan/charter to maps of varying detail. The detail can differ between two maps that show similar things, but both maps provide information. The same holds true with a project plan. As IT project success grew due to project management, it began to attract attention throughout the organization Along a similar path, two other departments - Acquisitions & Discovery and Finance & Business - were also expressing an interest in project management. And TRLN (Triangle Research Libraries Network - NCSU, UNC, NCCU, and Duke Libraries’ consortium) hosted a Scholarly Communications Institute, and one of the groups focused on project management in the TRLN Libraries There was a growing buzz around PM as people and departments saw it as a way to do more with less. PM allows Libraries’ staff members the opportunity to focus on what they do best and not managing the (unplanned) handoffs and project as a whole
- Multiple departments began to request project management training Better understand common terminology Develop a consistent way of thinking about project work Cross-departmental consistency Began to expand content Started as content that I developed based on PMI best practices and Library Juice Academy PM course Added in content from old PM training within NCSU Libraries Added in more hands on training: practice writing a charter and developing roles & responsibilities matrices Colleagues joined as instructors Others with an interest in PM & experience managing projects Individuals who were more seasoned instructors Collaborated with librarians at Duke & UNC to offer a half-day introduction open to any TRLN librarians
- Libraries charged a standing committee with representation from across the organization Charged with facilitating PM activities, providing PM assistance when appropriate, and fostering communication related to projects What has this meant in practice? Further PM training Work to gather a cross-organizational inventory of large, high impact projects (more about this on the next slide) PM consultations with departments and/or individuals (vary in topic & driven by our “customer”, i.e., colleague) Effect of this team Acknowledgement of the strategic importance of PM for the Libraries Further opportunities to develop consistent practices & use common terminology Recognition that resources are available to help PM work Advice Sounding boards
- PM Team asked every department in the Libraries to submit an inventory of high cost, high resource, high impact projects Left more specific definitions up to each department to determine Wanted to better understand what each department considered “high cost”, “high resource”, or “high impact” Project “name”, goals, description & reason for doing the project, project lead, project team, cost, start/end dates, priority, roadblocks encountered Inventory goals: Understand which Libraries staff were over-allocated at a high level Understand how departments thought of, approached, managed their work Understand the overlap between departments with regards to projects Thus far: Inventory has just been completed by all departments Some departments reached our proactively for further discussion about projects & project management We will be reaching out to all other departments for follow up conversations about our observations Report up to Director’s Council merely on the pervasiveness of project work in the organization
- In the end, my role and the role of the PM Team have been to serve our peers and colleagues The role of a PM Librarian isn’t new, but it is at State. We have been helping to address project issues such as A lack of planning A lack of consistency in how projects are managed, tracked, and driven A lack of common understanding and awareness about the importance and helpfulness of planning Prioritization of projects (in relation to other projects and maintenance/routine work) As we continue forward, the PM team will strive to grow PM by Providing more consultations Continuing training Offering tempaltes and helping project teams and departments develop project documentation
- Obviously, NCSU Libraries’ model is just one path towards implementing project management in a library There are many different ways that project management can be adopted and implemented in a library Similarly, there are many different PM issues that an organization could be striving to address
- Questions about PM issues people experience
- Given all of those challenges, how can you turn projects into something good? How can you begin adopt project management in your library? Make a business case Identify a key challenge or a couple key issues that you want to solve with PM Ideally, find metrics that will allow you to measure the success of projects that use project management Think about whether you need a dedicated (or multiple dedicated) PMs or if you can have a team charged with fostering PM best practices or it is just a group of interested individuals Don’t be afraid to start small! Maybe ask people to consider in & out of scope statements Maybe ask people to set deadlines & try to hold to them Maybe try to write SMART goals for projects
- So what? Project management is nothing new, but it’s often a new role or expectation in libraries We, as librarians, are being asked to do more with less. Project management is one way to do just that If we plan wisely, consider how to use our resources efficiently, and hold ourselves accountable, we can accomplish more with greater success. In working on projects, you don’t have to be a project manager to be a leader. You can lead from the rear by asking questions that help define things like scope, roles, and schedules. You can take it upon yourself to plan and manage. Or, you can collaborate with colleagues to lead projects - and your libraries - more successfully
- If time allows: What are some project management practices your library already does? Questions for me about PM at NCSU Libraries/my role/how you can lead projects?