Presentation delivered at the University of Lund, 19 September 2012.

1. Library Strategy:
models and measurement
University of Lund
Wednesday 19th September 2012

2. Summary
1. To provide some models and frameworks
for strategy and measurement
2. To consider how these apply in real
situations (York & Lund)

3. WHAT IS A STRATEGY?
Strategy Refresher

4. Definition
‘Strategy is the direction and scope of an
organisation over the long term: which
achieves advantage for the organisation
through its configuration of resources
within a changing environment, to meet
the needs of markets and to fulfil
stakeholder expectations’

5. Characteristics of Strategy
• Long-term direction
• Advantage
• Scope of activities
• Matching of activities to environment
• Contextual
• Different to operational management
‘ambiguous, complex, organisation-wide & fundamental,
with long-term implications’

6. Framework
• Understanding strategic issues
– Strategic analysis
• Decisions on strategies
– Strategic choice
• Making strategies happen
– Strategic implementation
Johnson, G & Scholes, K : Exploring corporate
strategy. 5th ed. Prentice Hall, 1999.

7. Levels & Effects of Strategy
• Corporate - overall
purpose & scope
• Business Unit -
particular market
• Operational - to deliver
the above strategies
leading to
• major resource changes
• operational changes
• structural changes
• competency changes

8. Strategy Triangle (Earl)
• Top Down
– Senior management & Business plan
• ‘Inside out’
– Staff & technical creativity
• Bottom Up
– User views (eg from LibQUAL+)

9. University of York Plan
• Excellence
• Internationalistion
• Inclusivity
• Sustainability

10. Lund University Plan
• Cross-boundary collaboration
• Internationalisation
• Quality enhancement
• Leader, teacher and employee excellence

11. Strategy Development 1
• Environmental analysis
• Current systems evaluation
• Information need
• Future systems evaluation
• Options and resources
Earl, M.

12. Strategy Development 2
Business Planning:
• Local Profile
• Market Structure
• Competitive Position
• Market Forces
• Local Strategic Implications

13. Strategy Development 3
Corporate Planning:
• Corporate Objectives & Targets
• Gap Analysis (External & Internal)
• Strategic Appraisal (SWOT)
• Formulation & Decision (Options)
• Implementation (Action plans & Budgets)

14. Documentary Sources
• Local
– Vision
– Mission
– Forward Plans & Existing Strategies
• Government Policies & Plans
• Sectoral analyses
– Higher Education (national & international)
– Information & Scholarly communication
• Research findings & futurology
• Internal documents

15. Data Inputs
• Review of existing Information
Strategy, reflections on progress
• Review of other University Strategies
• Departmental MTP/LTP documents
• Survey Outcomes: NSS, PRES, Staff
Survey, Library, IT
• External strategies:
Gartner, UCISA, Educause, SCONUL, National
Archives

16. Emergent strategy & scenarios
Scenario development is a means of providing a
more coherent and dramatic picture of what
the Research Library might look like in the
future (longer term)
This vision of the future may form an
introduction or an appendix to a formal
strategic plan, providing a compelling or
challenging narrative

17. A Scenario is …
• ‘A self-contained envelope of consistent possibilities
which describe the future.’
• ‘Conceptual stories composed around carefully
constructed plots.’
• ‘Scenario planning attempts to capture the richness
and range of possibilities, stimulating decision
makers to consider changes they would otherwise
ignore … it organises those possibilities into
narratives that are easier to grasp … scenarios aim to
challenge the prevailing mind-set.’

18. Scenario building
• Consider the main environmental trends for the
future (these may arise from a PEST analysis)
• Translate these into opposing ‘uncertainties’
• Choose a pair to set against each other, and identify
the two possible variants for each issue
• Use the matrix to create up to four scenarios arising
from the possibilities
• Label each with a subtitle, and characterise the
future vision implied as fully as you can

19. Decisions?
• Which scenario for the future would you like
to choose?
– Which is the most likely?
– Which is the least likely?
– Which is closest to the status quo?
• What implications are there for the Research
Library in terms of choice of strategy?
• How can a desirable scenario be brought
about through an implementation plan?

20. ANALYSIS PHASE
Strategy Phase One

21. Analysis options
• Environmental analyses
– PEST
– Scenarios
– Futurology
• Organisational analysis
– SWO(O)T
– Portfolio (Boston Box)
• Stakeholder analysis
– Needs
– Stakeholder power

22. Environmental analysis objectives
• To understand the environmental influences on
your research library (global to local)
• To collect data to set the environmental
analysis against your organisational strengths
and weaknesses (gap analysis)
• To consider actions required to achieve a
better fit to prevailing conditions
• To generate a set of the main constraints and
drivers of the strategy

23. York and Lund …
“world-class information services for a world
class University”
“strengthen international position and
competitiveness”

24. Organisational analysis objectives
• What are your library’s Strengths and
Weaknesses in relation to the marketplace?
• What needs to change to achieve the vision, or to
meet changing requirements
• Are all elements of the portfolio still needed, and
what need attention either practically or
politically?
• What are the key areas the strategy needs to
address?

25. Information Services SWOT
Strengths
• Building / Physical Space
• Creativity and Collaboration
• Embedding Academic Liaison into departments
• Partnerships and Collaborations
Weaknesses
• Celebration/Communication of achievements
• Patchy engagement with student bodies
• Links with planning (MTP/LTP)
• Fragmentation with staff in different office buildings

26. Information Services SWOT
Opportunities
• Student experience funding
• New forums for engagement - Academic Co-ordinators, GSA
Forum, Student/staff liaison groups
• Membership of RLUK
Threats
• Above inflation increases in content subscription costs
• Raised expectations in new funding regime
• Needs for funding with student growth

27. STRATEGIC CHOICE
Strategy Phase Two

28. Strategic Choices 1?
• No Change
• New Markets (Penetration or Development)
• New Products
• New Business Areas (Diversification)
After Ansoff, I.

29. Strategic Choices 2?
• Cost leadership - lowest price
• Differentiation - uniqueness
• Focus - particular segment
Porter, M.

30. Testing your strategy
Does it achieve:
• A distinctive value proposition
• A tailored value chain
• Trade-offs (choices) different from competitors
• Fit (strength/alignment) across the value chain
• Continuity (facilitates appropriate innovation)
Porter, M.

31. IMPLEMENTATION
Strategy Phase Three

32. The Information Strategy

33. York core strategic programmes…
A unified information strategy:
1. Information systems
2. Portals and access systems
3. Content
4. Infrastructure
5. Policy
6. Environments

34. Enablers
Vision Statement
The environment to permit and encourage the core
programmes to progress
Portfolio
– Relationships
– Quality
– Staff and Culture
– Resourcing
– Collaboration and Partnerships

35. Lund LUB Strategies
• Information services
• Research support
• Support for education and learning
• Physical and virtual learning environments
• A worldwide library

36. Programme Management
Rationale:
• Integrated delivery of change
• Framework for senior management to direct
• Better management of risk
• Improved control
• Bridge the gap between strategies and projects
• Consistent policies, standards & working practices
UK Office of Government Commerce

37. MSP approach
Vision led and Outcome driven
Vision as opposed to specification
Outcome as opposed to benefit
Thus your programmes are based on “outward
facing description of new capabilities”
arising, and measured by results generating
change in “real world behaviours or
circumstances”

38. Senior Staff Structure: focus on strategy

39. An outcome driven strategy:
Content programme
1. An array of information resources which matches requirements and competitors
2. Better availability of core material for teaching
3. The capability to create and build digital special collections as required
4. An increasing volume of digital information for teaching, research and
administration
5. The ability to offer, manipulate, store and preserve media in all relevant formats
6. The capability to embed the right content into teaching programmes
7. Users and stakeholders engaged with helping select what is required
8. Effective collection, management and distribution of the University’s knowledge
assets

40. Programmes
Defined by:
• Vision statement
• Blueprint (Roadmap?)
• Business case
• Organisation
• Project portfolio
• Benefit profile
• Stakeholder map
Governance requires:
• Quality management
• Stakeholder management
• Issue resolution
• Risk management
• Benefits management
• Resource management
• Planning and control

41. Project management
“The rational management of change”
Identify a portfolio of projects which will achieve
the vision expressed in each programme
The implementation plan will need
timescales, resources required, and the benefits
and impact of each

42. Project matrix

43. STRATEGIC MEASUREMENT
Monitoring progress

44. One Director’s perspective …
• Articulating the value proposition
• Translating what we understand about changing need
into strategies and plans
• The transformation and sustenance of our services into a
different social, technological and economic future
• To demonstrate that our value proposition encompasses
a contribution that transcends narrow and local
assumptions about the library’s role

46. Some frameworks
• Critical success factors
• The Balanced scorecard
• EFQM
• Quality maturity models
• A Value scorecard

47. Critical Success Factors
Definition
A term used to mean the most important sub-
goals for an organisation. CSFs are what must
be accomplished for the strategy to be
achieved. CSFs are followed by the key
processes for the strategy - the activities that
must be done particularly well for the CSFs to
be achieved.
After Oakland, J.

48. Critical Success Factors
The minimum key factors or subgoals that the
organisation
must have or need
and which together will achieve the strategy
Not necessarily directly manageable, but provide
direction and success criteria.
Each is necessary and together they are sufficient
for the strategy to be achieved.
No more than eight, no less than four.

49. Application
• Can be used at all levels
– Organisational (Library)
– Programme
– Project
– Service

50. Proposed Critical Success Factors
1. We must meet information needs
2. We need sufficient resource to achieve
aspirations
3. We must inspire and enable innovation
4. We need to engage the University community
5. We must align with University plans
6. We must manage risk and comply with
regulation

52. EFQM (2003). Introducing Excellence. Brussels: EFQM. Available at:
http://www.efqm.org [Accessed 30 March 2005]
Leadership
People
Processes
Key
Performance
Results
Policy &
Strategy
Partnerships
& Resources
People
Results
Customer
Results
Society
Results
Innovation and Learning
Enablers Results

53. Capability Maturity Model

54. Transcendent contributions to …
• The student experience
• Research impact
• Reputation
• Internationalisation
• Financial sustainability
• Society

55. A Value Scorecard
• Relationship & reputation capital
• Organisational capital
– Tangible assets and resources
– Intangible and meta-assets
• Library virtue
– Impact and social capital
• Library momentum

56. A narrative of momentum?