Pebble - ashleynperkins.weebly.com · Web viewThe strategic planning committee will be comprised of the managing librarian, the technical services librarian, and the Pebble Family

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PebbleFamily Life and Educational Resource Center

Amy Middleswart, Neelima Nigam, Ashley Perkins, Amber Strangstalien, Dhyana Westfall LI 805XOOctober 31, 2012

Strategic Plan

Table of ContentsExecutive Summary 2Organizational Profile 3

Overview 3 The Organization 3 Guiding Values 4 Mission 4

Preparation and Planning 5 Library Management team 5 Planning Factors 5

Current Realities 7 Environmental Scan 7 SWOT Analysis 8 Organizational Performance. 9 Gap Analysis 9

New Priorities 10 Strategic Profile 10 Future Vision 10 Strategic Initiatives 11 Action Plan 11 Performance Management 15 Contingencies 16 Concluding Remarks 16

Appendix 18 Title Page 18 Team Narrative 19 Team Meetings Minutes 22

Pebble: Strategic Plan 2013-2016 Page 1

Executive Summary

The Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center has undertaken an initiative to improve the materials and services they supply to the community of Hartford by January 2016. Through a variety of funding sources The Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center has acquired the means to remodel its library, and expand its physical collection and web presence. These updates will involve making the library’s physical location more accessible to patrons with mobility issues, creating a family friendly area with age appropriate resources, toys and snacks for children, an expanded mens’ health collection, a modern meeting room where guest speakers and librarians can broadcast talks via the library website and chat with patrons to answer their health questions remotely, and a modern website that has chat services, an archive of recorded guest speaker talks, links to community and state resources, a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page and streaming live talks from health care professionals.

By making these changes Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center believes that they can increase their value to the community of Hartford. In order to measure this increase in value the library staff will be tracking the number of patrons that use the library, and the number of unique IP addresses of computers accessing the library’s website. It is the Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center’s goal to increase patron foot traffic by 25-30% and library website traffic by 50-70%. The library staff will measure foot traffic by counting the number of patrons attending programs at the library, counting the number of reference questions answered, and by counting the number of patrons who walk into the library who engage in self-service use of the library’s collection. There will be a separate count for the use of the men’s health materials both in the library and online. The webmaster of the library’s website will be responsible for counting and reporting the number of users, and frequency of use, of the library’s website. Through these counting methods and the use of online and in-library surveys, the library staff will be able to assess the effectiveness of their efforts and make changes in the library’s programming and web content to better serve the citizens of Hartford.


Organizational Profile

Overview

The Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center (The Pebble) has provided information and education on parenthood and reproductive health care to the community since 1986. The Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center is the library associated with the Pebble Family Planning Clinic. The center serves the community both by appointments and by working with those who walk in. The Pebble acquires patrons by word of mouth and also by referral through organizations such as schools, colleges, churches, DHS and other community outreach organizations.

The time has come for the organization to expand and improve services. We can expand our reach through our web presence. This will allow us to serve not only those in the city and its outlying areas, but also patrons anywhere in the world. Our website will provide resources and primary health information 24 hours a day.

The physical location also needs some improvement and remodeling to make the facility more inviting, family oriented, and to help diversify our collection. We believe these changes will increase the facility’s usage. Additionally, The Pebble also wants to provide more programming to our community, such as talks with experts on parenting, relationships, health and sexuality. There will be an online chat component that will protect the anonymity of patrons who may not feel comfortable asking questions in person.

To achieve all this, The Pebble needs a substantial amount of funding. Funding will be secured with the help of community bake sales, benefit dinners, book sales, and other fundraising activities. Further funding will be secured through donations from individuals and foundations. In addition, The Pebble has received a federal grant of $50,000. These funds will provide us enough support to cover the goals outlined in our strategic plan over the next three years, starting in 2013.

The Organization

The Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center is located near Hartford Community College in Hartford Town Plaza. This stand-alone organization is comprised of a family health clinic with an adjoining library as well as serves the 750,000 people who live within the city limit. The small two-room facility has five employees. One MLS library manager and one MLS technical support librarian, both of whom oversee the reference desk, and three paraprofessional staff members. The Library manager reports to the board of directors, which consists of three community members, a Clinic Administrator and the Technical Librarian.

The renovation will provide a remodeled consulting room, a kid-friendly area and a meeting room with projection equipment, a computer and sound system for holding talks and presentations. The strategic plan is designed to increase foot-traffic in the facility in part by expanding the materials aimed at men. Historically, our services have focused


on women and womens’ health, but we believe we can have a greater community impact if we expand our services to educate men about their health, relationships and parenting strategies also.

With regard to our web presence, online chats have opened the door for many more people to seek out help while maintaining their anonymity. Furthermore, the improvements to our website will allow those who are mobility challenged, or have difficulty mustering the time and transportation resources necessary to visit us in-person, to receive the benefits of accessing educational materials or e-mailing with healthcare professionals.

Guiding Values

Our values hold that healthy communities are made of healthy individuals. We believe that by helping the citizens of Hartford learn healthy strategies for living and engaging with each other that all of our lives will be improved. That is why we are committed to providing the individuals and families within our community the resources they need to create and maintain healthy relationships.

Mission

Our mission is to serve the diverse population in our community by educating its members about healthy relationships and improving the reproductive health care information community members have access to.


Planning Factors

Library Management Team

The strategic planning committee will be comprised of the managing librarian, the technical services librarian, and the Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center board. The managing librarian would be involved as s/he is the most familiar with the library space. S/he knows what holes there are in the collection in order to know what sort of resources to order. In addition, s/he knows what needs to happen to update the physical space in the library and how to implement the changes with minimal impact to the library’s users. The technical services librarian would be involved as s/he knows how to update and maintain the website. The technical services librarian would be in charge of coordinating with the health care professionals for various programming facilitated by the library. The board would need to be involved as they are the ones that oversee the decisions about doctor time spent in the library. In addition, they would be the ones to approve the time spent by the health care professionals in the library.

Planning Factors

One factor involved in strategic planning is The Pebble Family Planning Education Resource Center Board. The board is composed of a Clinic Administrator and community members, as well as an MLS librarian. The librarian knows what needs to happen to update in the library space and how to implement those updates, they also coordinate with the Clinic Administrator to arrange when the doctors will be in the library. The Technology Services Librarian knows how to update the website and provides tech support for various web chats and other webcast programs.

The current economic recession is also a factor that may affect planning. The economic situation means that our patrons may have fewer resources (in terms of time to visit our facility in person, or money to spend on the transportation to get there). This increases the importance of being web accessible. While patrons may not own computers, many people achieve internet access via their cell phones. Additionally, while the funds we have raised mean that we can accomplish our goals, we have to be frugal when choosing materials for carpeting or flooring. We may also need to have some contingency plans in case unanticipated costs arise once the remodel is underway.

While we can remodel our current facility to make better use of the space, we do not have the budget to buy another building to expand our collection and services. This means that we will have to weigh the size of the conference room where talks, and private reference sessions, will be held against the need for physical shelf space and the family friendly area also proposed for the facility. The pre-existing structure will affect our choice of locations for routers and wiring for the technology we will purchase. Due to the building’s cinder block construction, we will have to work around that when we make the installations, rather than doing what we might do if we were building from


scratch.

There are no planned changes in staffing levels, but our staff will have to adjust to the new space and the new services that they will be expected to offer patrons. For the paraprofessional staff this might mean becoming familiar with the new layout, and the location of new materials about men’s health issues. For the MLS staff, there will be technology that they will have to learn to use, and new programming that they will be expected to plan. Since everyone on staff is excited about the changes, we think they will adjust well and learn quickly.


Current Reality

Environmental Scan

The Hartford area consists of two counties with a total population of 750,000 with a per capita income of $22,643 leaving 13.1% of individuals and 8.5% of families below the federal poverty line. Within the city limits there are five high schools that each are only eligible for federal funding as long as the sexual education curriculum consists of abstinence-only education with no mention of contraception methods, which is making The Pebble Family Planning Health and Resource Center all the more necessary in the community.

Within the last 10 years, Hartford has seen a demographic shift within the community of an increase in single parent households, an increase in the high school drop out rate, and a widening in the achievement gap between students of differing socioeconomic backgrounds. These economic downturns are in direct correlation with the state of sexual and health education within the community as Hartford has also seen an increase in teen and other unplanned pregnancies, STDs, as well as more 911 calls and arrests for domestic violence related issues.

As the Hartford economy continues to struggle, the community members have become more and more wary of spending money on things that do not show themselves to be immediately essential which is why it is imperative that The Pebble make the changes outlined within this strategic plan to show the community how essential these services are and to make a positive impact on the community. It is also important to note that as the Internet has become more and more accessible, community members need help navigating and sifting through all of the information. For this reason, it has become imperative that the clinic library expands its current holdings, increase its web presence and build programs that will increase library usage to create a more informed community.


SWOT Analysis

Strengths

There are many up to date sources for women’s health issues.

There are adequate resources for children, including resources for pre-readers and young readers through teenage literature.

The library has ample space for the high volume of patrons including reading chairs and study tables.

The website has many resources, including access to databases and common health care related questions.

Weaknesses

Outdated material, the library opened in 1986, as such it still has some material that has not been updated since its purchase.

Uninviting family atmosphere, the library was designed with adults in mind. There is no section of the library that would appeal to children.

Reading space in the library was designed for individual readers. Families are taking floor space to read together as the furniture is not conducive to multiple bodies.

Outdated website.

The website does not have easily accessible resources as the links are buried on the site and are not places in intuitive locations.

Opportunities

A chance to build a more informed community who is supportive of the library.

A chance to expand service to populations across the country.

A chance to help lower the rates of unwanted pregnancies and STDs.

A chance to provide support to the entire community.

Threats

Lack of funding.

Worsening of the economy.

Public library


Organizational Performance

Currently, The Pebble Family Planning Health and Resource Center has a staff of five which includes one MLS library manager, one MLS technical support librarian and three paraprofessionals who work in conjunction and in support of the librarians. We have a relatively small reference collection which caters to mostly women and children as well as a somewhat outdated website consisting of mostly contact information and library hours.

One of the main goals at The Pebble is to dramatically increase our web presence by creating a website that will be beneficial and informative to all members of the community. If the information an individual is looking for is not on our website, it is our hope that our website will be able to direct that individual to where they need to go to find that information either through our librarian chat service or our page dedicated to links to services and information from outside of our organization. We also hope to greatly increase the use of the physical library by doing more outreach to men in the community. As it stands, the library is mostly geared towards women and children. However, we have found that with the increases in domestic violence arrests and STDs, within the male population, men are in great need of our services as well.

To measure the library’s performance in regards to these goals we will be tracking traffic online and in the library. Online usage will be monitored by the number of hits the website receives as well as click-throughs to other pages on our site and the outside links we provide. When we have our virtual chats and guest speakers we will be able to track how many IP addresses are tuning in as well as what the responses are in the discussion forum. Measuring the use of the physical library will be a little more difficult since our collection is not in circulation, and we will not have those statistics to rely on. There is an electronic counter at the door to the clinic that can track the amount of foot traffic the library gets from day to day. What will be beneficial is for our librarians or paraprofessional staff to have monthly meetings where they discuss and document how many people came in on what days and during which times as well as what their questions or needs were and how the staff member helped them. These meetings will provide a great way for staff members to see what the trends are and what they are doing to help to, in the long-run, provide better and more efficient service to each patron.

Gap Analysis

The Pebble Family Planning Health and Education Resource Center has been doing an incredible job providing support to clinic staff, physicians, and patients. Currently there is very little library patronage by community members who are not already using the clinic. It is our goal to increase the use of physical library by 25-30% and to increase web usage by 50-75%.


New Priorities

Strategic Profile

We envision the future of the Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center to be of great value to both the local community and the global community. We have witnessed great societal changes since the Resource Center opened its doors almost 30 years ago in 1986. Since then, we have seen a huge increase in electronic communication and information sources. The demand for safe, welcoming spaces, which can accommodate children and their caregivers, has also risen. In order to stay relevant to our community members and remain funded by our generous donors, we are focused on achieving 2 major goals within the next 3 years. Under each goal, we have listed a set of objectives which are designed to provide specific tasks, reasonable time frames and give the organization a clearly articulated plan.

Future Vision

The vision of The Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center’s future is to update the physical space of the library as well as to reach out to the community in innovative ways. As the community becomes more engaged online, their resource needs have also transitioned to being online. As such, the Pebble Resource Center library will update the look of their website. In addition, they will provide resources for the community online. These resources will include providing weekly virtual chat services with healthcare professionals. In these virtual chats, patrons can ask potentially embarrassing questions with anonymity. The Pebble Resource Center librarians will also be available for virtual chats, being able to supply supplementary resources that the patron(s) can reference later.

In addition, as the traditional family and their values in the community are changing, the physical demands of the library are also changing. The Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center’s collection will be updated to reflect the needs of the men in our community. This will include physical resources on male reproductive health, male sexual development, and parenting books written for a male audience. Along with the collection being updated, the library has seen an increase in parents using the library for family time. As such, the library will create a section of the library that is family friendly that fosters parents and children bonding over books. This will include a section of the library being transformed with brightly colored paints, rugs, and decorations. The library will replace some of their individual reading chairs with couches where parents and children can sit and read together. The couches will be placed in the portion of the library designated for family use.

The new mission of The Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center is to reach out to the diverse population in the community, to educate its members and improve the reproductive health care and sexual health information they have access to. Additionally, The Pebble Family Planning and Health Education


Resource Center is committed to adapting the physical and online space and function of the library based on the changing needs of the community.

Strategic Initiatives

Initiative #1: Become a popular and consistent resource to all members of the community.

Initiative #2: Increase web presence and expand online services

Action Plan for Initiative #1

Objective 1.1: Update and expand men’s collection and educational resources

o Library manager will coordinate with paraprofessional staff and library patrons to identify gaps in existing men’s collection

o Maintain online and in-library material request formso Emphasize immediate processing of newly acquired materials to ensure

availabilityo Advertise about expanded resources

Timeline

o Initial planning and reorganization of the men’s collection will take place during the first 6 months (January 2013- June 2013). Throughout the remaining 2 ½ years, suggestions will be formally considered every 3 months and the clinic will work to acquire relevant materials.

Measurable Outcomes

o Development of men’s collectiono Increase in male patronageo Positive patron and staff feedback

Objective 1.2: Remodel space to better accommodate families and children.

o The Pebble Resource Center Board will coordinate with local architects to discuss inexpensive options for renovation

o Procure donations (picture books, games, furniture, toys etc.) for establishing a family space, purchase the remaining items

o Provide interactive stations/toys where play is encouraged and a small amount of noise is tolerated


o Provide a restricted snack areao Advertise new addition to facility.

Timeline

o Spend first 8 months (January – August) planning redesign and acquiring dollar or material donations. Advertise new space while building over next 4 months (September – December). Throw grand opening in January 2014. Monitor usage patterns closely during next 2 years and make necessary adjustments.

Measurable Outcomes

o Increase in foot-traffico Greater use of children’s materials

Objective 1.3: Construction of a meeting room hard-wired with technology for holding talks and conducting presentations

o The Pebble Resource Center Board will collaborate with local architects and engineers to discuss possibilities for equipment

o Allow for reservations of the conference room to be made in-Library or online

o Provide unreserved blocks of time where people are free to conduct business or to use equipment

o Organize community discussions with local or visiting expertso Procure donations for technological equipment (projector, computer,

sound, recording device)o Advertise services

Timeline

o Spend first year planning construction and acquiring dollar or material donations and next 6 months (January 2014- June 2014) building. At this time, conduct survey on potential speakers and topics of discussion to create a calendar for next year. Grand opening in June 2014.


Measurable Outcomes

o Reservations increaseo Attendance of library programs increaseso Evidence of frequent usageo Patron and staff feedback

Action Plan for Initiative #2

Objective 2.1: Increase website accessibility and improve usability.

Action Steps

o Evaluate the existing databases and offer suggestions for improved databases and e-resources

o Redesign website based on user suggestionso Create tutorials explaining how to use the available databaseso Install and staff a chat function for online reference questionso Maintain online presence through various social networkso Create and maintain an archive of past talks given at the library and onlineo Create, distribute and analyze a survey using Survey Monkey that

measures the effectiveness of the library’s websiteo Advertise new website on social media

Timeline

o The process of increasing usability from survey to redesign is expected to take 4 months (January – April) and be continuously monitored.

o Evaluation of e-resources and purchase of recommendations is expected to take about 6 months (January – June).

o Successful chat functions and an increase in online social networking is to be completed within first month and continuously maintained.

Measurable Outcomes

o Increase in web hitso Increase in database usageo Increased amount of online reference questions asked and answeredo More “likes”, comments, friends and followers on social networks such as

Facebook and Twitter


Objective 2.2: Provide virtual live chat with rotating healthcare professionals on a monthly basis along with question and answer sessions through email and social networks.

Action Steps

o Survey both the online and local community using Survey Monkey on potential health care experts and topics

o Contact speakers and create a scheduleo Employ meeting room hard-wired with technology for hosting and

transmitting presentations on-site to a viewable format available on library website

Timeline

o Successful chat functions to be completed during first month. Conduct surveys during the first 6 months (January – June) on potential speakers and topics of discussion for hosting on website starting June 2013. Hosting speaker on-site will occur when construction of meeting room in June 2014 is complete. Continue surveys for online guests every 4 months.

Measurable Outcomes

o High amount of online participationo Regular and consistent schedule of health care expertso Feedback from website users and monthly guests


Projected Costs

Objective Cost

Update Men’s CollectionMen’s ShelvingMaterial Request Forms

$5000 $400 $50

RemodelFurnitureToys, Games, Books

$5000 $3000 $1000

Technology driven meeting roomTechnological EquipmentGuest Speaker Stipend

$5000 $10000 $6000

WebmasterNew Website

$12000 $5000

Annual Survey Monkey SubscriptionSurveys printed on-site

$300 $100

Advertising/Marketing Efforts $2000

Unforeseen Expenses

Total

$10000 $64850

Performance Management

The majority of action steps we have outlined in the strategic plan are to be initialized within the first year of our plan. Since they will be carried out among only a small staff of 5 individuals and the Pebble Clinic Board composed of several health care professionals they will need to work together closely to achieve the goals. As we begin providing new services and making positive changes in the community, we are likely to secure more donations and permanent funders who appreciate our efforts and aim to help us succeed. In order to cover all our bases however, we have included $10,000 of unforeseen expenses in the budget in case we are unable to gather the necessary


donations we need for implementation of these new services.

The surveys to be conducted are staggered throughout the first two years (one through January 2013 regarding website usability, one through June 2013 regarding speakers hosted on website, one January 2014 through June 2014 regarding speakers hosted on site) which allows for a narrow focus and will help us to avoid potential resource conflicts. The most common resource between achieving our goals is that of staff time and it will be necessary to establish equitable workloads and clear communication among staff members for successful implementation.

Each objective has some method of evaluation and measurable outcomes are provided in the strategic plan. In addition to these guidelines, a wiki will be created for the librarians and the clinic board to share stories of progress or lack thereof. On a bi-annual basis, we will be able to use these measures to determine how well our new initiatives are working with the option to revise the strategic plan as needed.

Contingencies

While there are many events that could derail the strategic plan of the Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center, the most detrimental would be the loss of funds and not receiving support from the health care professionals at the clinic. As the library has secured the funding for the website update through a grant, the funding source for that project is secure. The library has saved and budgeted for the updates for its physical space in order to not over burden the budget in the years to come. There is no indication that the degree of donations received by the library will not change in the next few years. If this were to change, the library is committed to host more fundraising events to make up the deficit.

The other possible event that would be detrimental to the success of the strategic plan would be for the health care professionals not to support the online chat services. As the clinic board has already signed their support for the project, the library does not have any indication that the health care professionals would refuse to work with the library. However, if the health care professionals are disinclined to work with the library, the library and the clinic board will look at incentives to promote participation. The clinic board has also declared that if necessary they will make participation in the online forum mandatory.

Concluding Remarks

Here at the Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center we believe that the key to our continued success is the ability to adapt to the world around us. Since 1986 our mission has been to educate a diverse population about healthy relationships and to improve the reproductive and sexual health care information they have access to. Now, as we navigate through the 21st century in the face of changing information needs and expectations it is imperative to update our methods of dissemination.


The changes planned over the next 3 years and documented here have been shared and discussed with all parties involved. The staff and clinic board all have a vested interest in carrying out this plan to successful completion, and are fully capable of doing so. First, the donations we depend upon will only sustain our organization as long as we remain relevant to our users both in the community and online. Second, we feel a responsibility to provide support to men, women and children equally. Last and most important, we believe the suggested changes will reach greater numbers and positively impact more lives in Hartford and around the world.

We are confident the value of our improved services will become apparent to both the users and stakeholders of the Pebble Family Planning and Health Education Resource Center. However, because we live in such unpredictable times, we are prepared to deal with any uncertainties by referencing or re-assessing this strategic plan as needed.


Appendix:

Strategic Plan Team Retrospective

Five Fierce FemalesDhyana Cabarga, Amy Middleswart, Neelima Nigam, Ashley Perkins, Amber

StrangstalienLI805, Management and Information Organizations

October 31, 2012


Team Narrative

Forming

Most of the forming stage of this project occurred during our first meeting. We were able to create team roles and discuss possible topics. In addition, we were able to decide on many of our team norms and strategies for completing this project. We finalized our topic and some of the details during our first class weekend. Our forming stage of this project did not last very long as even in our first meeting some of the difficulties outlined in the storming stage were evident, particularly scheduling.

Our first two meetings we were able to conduct in face-to-face settings, one of which was conducted during the first class weekend. Scheduling for our first face-to-face meeting started to show the difficulties of coordinating all of our schedules. When we were discussing the team norms of our project, it became obvious to us that there was a lot of uncertainty over our abilities to coordinate our schedules. We hoped, but were not optimistic, that we would all be able to make every meeting.

Lessons Learned: With every additional person added to a group, schedules become harder and harder to match up for face to face meetings. This meant that online meetings became very important.

Storming

In the storming phase of our strategic plan development we discovered just how many challenges we would need to overcome in order for us to work effectively together as a group. One of the first challenges we encountered was the differences in our schedules. There were almost no times we could all meet up in person, and we realized that even meeting up online regularly was difficult. Ultimately, we found that we could usually find an hour in the late evenings once a week when we could all meet up online. One of the byproducts of our learning curve on this issue was in how we ended up dividing work. Initially, four out of the five members were able to meet up earlier in the evening with the fifth member joining later. This ended up being problematic because the four members who were at the meeting earlier came up with a plan for dividing up the work that did not take into account how the fifth member might feel. While four members of the group felt like dividing up the project by section was a satisfactory way of distributing the workload, the fifth member came at the project from a different perspective. The fifth member of the group, very logically, pointed out that we would create a good product if we each worked on whatever subsection of the assignment was interesting to us. The other four members of the group were becoming fatigued at this point in the evening, and it took the group a moment to realize that these two approaches did not have to be mutually exclusive. Ultimately, it was decided that if a group member had an interest in one particular subsection of the assignment, she would do that subsection, while the remainder of the section could be done by another team member who was happy to just work on a block of the project. In the end this approach worked well for us, but it was


not intuitive and took some back and forth to arrive at. The next challenge the group faced was the process of getting started writing. We had a real world library that we were going to model our strategic plan’s library off of, but because we were making up our own library there were a lot of unknowns about the size, location, budget, etc. that we needed to decide on in order to proceed. What ended up helping tremendously was when one of the group members responsible for the Organizational Profile just started writing and making up some of the necessary details. From there the group was able to use that as a starting place, and make adjustments where necessary. Once the ball got rolling the whole assignment opened up to us, and we were able to move forward.

Lessons Learned: Because four out of five members of this group had worked together before, we came to the assignment with a set of expectations about how work would be done (based on the successful strategies we had developed for a previous assignment). However, the new member to the group did not realize that this was the case. She, understandably, thought that since this was a new project that we would formulate new strategies based on what each team member brought to the new group equation. This experience emphasized both the need for good communication and the need for flexibility. Being able to explain what had been effective about old strategies was more helpful than saying “That’s how we did it before.” Similarly, being willing to try new things, and not clinging to a “We’ve always done it this way” attitude helped our group make progress.

Norming

According to theorist Bruce Tuckman, the norming stage of group development occurs when group resistance is overcome and group cohesion is very high. In this stage, each team member takes responsibility and has motivation to work for the success of the team’s goals. This stage involves agreement on how the group should operate.

The transition from storming to norming began when the group made collective decisions regarding the library setting and context. Since the work was divided among sections, it became necessary to communicate certain logistical figures. Once these characteristics were agreed upon, we could be consistent throughout our document. and move ahead with confidence.

Another indication of reaching normalcy occurred when we were able to determine the most effective way to conduct meetings. Clashing schedules permitted mostly online meetings facilitated through Google documents and Google chats. These online meetings were especially effective after we began setting strict ending times. This ensured we would stay on topic and accomplish the goals we set forth in the previous meeting.

Lessons Learned: We were all pleasantly surprised by how effective setting end times for group meetings is, and have come to the conclusion that it can be as vital as scheduling the meetings themselves.


Performing

Once the organizational profile was written, the performing part came naturally and quickly to the rest of us. We each wrote up the sections that we chose on our own time and then posted our rough versions into Google Drive so the rest of the group could have a look as well as to make sure the information matched what the other sections were saying.

After we each posted our sections, it was time to edit and synthesize the entire document making sure that the tone and language matched throughout. It was helpful for us to have several meetings in the documents on Google Drive where we could edit and chat at the same time to make sure our changes were ok with every group member.During this time we also began to think about our presentation and started to get a PowerPoint together. Similarly to the paper, we each made slides of the section we were going to talk about and then compiled them into Google Drive where we were able to edit and make sure they all went together nicely.

Lessons Learned: Going through the document section by section together was very helpful in deciding what was working and what was not. It has worked well for us to do parts of the assignment on our own and then bring them together and synthesize them to create a final document

Meeting MinutesPebble: Strategic Plan 2013-2016 Page 21

September 2, 2012; 5:00 pmFace-to-Face

Members Present: Amber Strangstalien, Amy Middleswart, Ashley Perkins, Dhyana Cabarga, Neelima Nigam

Discussion Topics

Requirements/expectations of assignment Team member roles and responsibilities Team name Process for meeting and completing assignments (team norms and contract)

Action Items

Exchange of contact info Creation of team contract Creation of several google documents to share ideas and collaborate on future

Assignments

Agenda for Next Meeting

Solidify team name and direction of project

Next Meeting to be held September 22 during class weekend

September 22, 2012; 1:45 pmFace-to-Face



Discussion Topics

Type of library to be used as a model for the strategic plan project Possible objectives and goals Various ways to achieve measurable outcomes Where/when meetings work best for everyone

Action Items

Finalized library type and direction of project Created 2 broad goals each with 2 more specific objectives


Assign portions of paper to individuals in the group Create metrics for measurements based on research of existing health clinic in

L.A.

Next meeting scheduled for September 30, online at 8:00 p.m.

September 30, 2012; 8:00 pmOnline Gmail chat



Discussion Topics

The team discussed how to divide our work for the project and the presentation We discussed our satisfaction with the team contract due on the 7th

Action Items

Team members each took ownership of different section of paper We decided to each create the talking points for the sections we would work on,

and put them together into one presentation. Added a bullet point list to the team contract in preparation for submission

Agenda for next meeting

Mission Value Community setting Guiding values

Next Meeting scheduled for October 7, 8:00 p.m.

October 7, 2012; 8:00 pmOnline Gmail chat

Members Present: Amber Strangstalien, Amy Middleswart, Ashley Perkins, Dhyana


Cabarga, Neelima Nigam

Discussion Topics

Library Setting, community Composition of Staff Current financial setting Potential fundraising opportunities Environmental and Social Context Preparation/Planning

Action Items

Established Library and Community Contexts Talked through strategic plan outline


Compare other budgets for estimated cost of our plan

Next Meeting scheduled for October 16, 7:30 p.m.


Members Present: Amber Strangstalien, Ashley Perkins, Dhyana Cabarga, Neelima Nigam


Member Absent: Amy Middleswart (work commitment that could not be rescheduled)

Discussion Topics

Services to be offered & renovations to be completed Discussed Organizational Profile - 805 document Established deadline for rough draft of 10/22/12

Action Items

Set deadline for rough draft


Come up with numbers for budget (Different expenditures we discussed are new staff, building renovation, new technology equipment, expanded men’s collection, advertising/outreach, guest speakers, special programs)

Come up with numbers for % increase in foot and web traffic we want to see Come up with dollar amount of grant our library has received

Next Meeting scheduled for October 24




Discussion Topics

Inconsistencies in rough draft Hard numbers for metrics Date of clinic/library establishment Government funding Fundraising opportunities Website capabilities Pysical presence

Action Items

Assigned responsibilities for few remaining sections of paper Came to consensus regarding metrics, dates, and physical presence Tweaked budget Due date of 10/26 established for conclusion and 10/30 for completed team

narrative (bullet points in shared document 10/29 and narrative write-ups 10/30)


Prepare in class presentation


Documents

Pebble - ashleynperkins.weebly.com · Web viewThe strategic planning committee will be comprised of the managing librarian, the technical services librarian, and the Pebble Family