What Kind of Review is Right for You?Donna Bourne-TysonUniversity Librarian, Dalhousie UniversityMartha WhiteheadUniversity Librarian, Queen’s University

Canadian Library Association Conference, May 2013

Overview

•Reasons for Reviews & Types

•Consultants or Colleagues

•Case Studies

•Recommendations

•Discussion

Reasons for Reviews & Types•Culture of Assessment

▫Accountability versus continuous improvement; false dichotomy?

▫Analysis of outcomes and performance at high level (positive and negative consequences)

▫Expectation of a response and implementation of recommendations

Reasons for Reviews & Types

•Reasons for Reviews

▫Mandated (legislation, Senate policy)

▫Desire or need for change (change in leadership or user requirements)

▫Funding constraints

▫Other?

Reasons for Reviews & Types• At least four types, some overlap:

▫ Governance – focus on high-level decision making, authority, oversight, often considering Board health

▫ Organizational – focus on organizational effectiveness, HR issues, succession planning, aligning structure with strategies, capacity

▫ Operational – more detailed focus on low-level operations, workflows, processes, aligning services and staffing

▫ External – focus varies based on terms of reference, generally not as detailed as Operational Review

Reasons for Reviews & Types•Commonalities

▫Should link to strategic plan, mission & vision

▫Timelines won’t mesh with your schedule

▫Deadlines frequently missed; budget inadequate

▫One review leads to another

▫Follow-up often insufficient

Consultants or Colleagues•Facilitator or Consultant?

▫Facilitator: in-house team contributes own expertise and experience to address the problem; facilitator encourages ideas and discussion, keeps everyone on track, captures the content

▫Do you have enough expertise and experience? enough perspectives? enough time?

▫Are you at an impasse?▫Are engagement and commitment key

objectives?

Consultants or Colleagues

•Engagement and commitment are always key objectives: form a steering group to▫Represent stakeholders▫Develop project objectives▫Identify consultants/colleagues▫Approve consultation process▫Advise on communications▫Regular check-ins, troubleshooting▫Deliver report and enable next steps

Consultants or Colleagues•Consultants

▫Professional expertise

▫Breadth of experience / customers

▫Beware the cookie cutter: it is all about you

▫Business relationship – RFP, selection, contract, deliverables

Consultants or Colleagues•Colleagues

▫Domain expertise, peer respect

▫Depth of experience

▫They’ve walked in your shoes

▫Collegial relationship – limitation on time expectations, service/reputational motivation

Case Studies – Governance

•CRKN - Why a governance review▫Ongoing commitment to good governance:

assessment▫CRKN’s 10th anniversary ▫Questions of size and composition – still ok?

•Scope▫Assess the appropriateness of the

governance structure in the context of CRKN’s mission, vision, values and strategic directions.

Case Studies – Governance

• Specific objectives1. To review the size and composition of the Board,

including all forms of representation;2. To identify specific issues or concerns with

respect to the current Board structure;3. To consider possible mechanisms for addressing

these issues;4. To achieve compliance with pending legislation

for not-for-profit corporations;5. To recommend any changes to governance

structure that would achieve organizational goals and serve members more effectively.

Case Studies – Governance

• Process▫Existing committee, selective use of consultants ▫Phases

Information gathering and analysis (included meeting with external expert re board trends, developments and best practices in not-for-profit and academic organizations)

Issue identification, interim report Member and stakeholder engagement (consultant

for survey design) Recommendations to the Board for changes Ratification of changes by voting members.

Case Studies – Governance•Success factors

▫External expert on selected topics▫Periodic concentrated in-person meetings▫Facilitative team members▫Communication with large, diverse community

•Learnings from implementation▫The topic may not be as engaging for your

stakeholders as it is for you!▫Impact of change may be more change

Case Studies – Organizational

•OCUL – Why a Review

▫Services have grown dramatically over time

▫Economic circumstances in university sector

▫New partnership opportunities

Case Studies – Organizational•What is an organizational effectiveness review*

▫Think organization (how things work) + effectiveness (how well things work)

▫Focuses on three key questions: What are we trying to do? What resources and structures do we require to

accomplish the goal/tasks? How do we know we are making progress?

*Snowdon and Associates

Case Studies – Organizational

•Goals▫To ensure that OCUL has good strategic

oversight, good resource allocation oversight, open assessment processes and that members’ engagement is aligned with the OCUL mission;

▫To ensure that all members are able to participate and potentially contribute at all levels of OCUL program management;

▫To ensure alignment with members’ needs and transparency concerning activities, priority setting and resource allocation.

Case Studies – Organizational

•Process▫Executive committee defined requirements

for a consultant and provided project oversight

▫Methodology: interviews, survey, information review

▫Analysis answered the three key questions▫Drafts to Executive▫Report and recommendations to Directors▫Actions

Case Studies – Organizational•Success factors

▫Consultant with a deep understanding of sector and a perspective external to organization

▫Time (of content experts) devoted to check-ins▫Opening doors for new conversations

•Learnings from implementation▫TBA from this one, but from others…

communicate, engage, continually evolve

Case Studies –Operational•Current Institution – Why?

▫Contradictory recommendations in previous studies

▫Systematic analysis had not been undertaken in recent memory; mergers, technological changes

▫Need to redeploy significant number of staff to develop new services

Case Studies –Operational•Scope

▫Constrained to some extent by budget

▫Model comparable to DIY renovation on HGTV

▫Time for implementation doubled for DIY

▫Opportunity to create a learning organization

Case Studies –Operational

• Specific objectives

1. To ensure alignment between strategies, services and staff

2. To identify activities that can be discontinued

3. To recommend workflow changes to achieve efficiencies

4. To then redeploy staff to emerging service initiatives

5. To develop internal capacity to redesign workflows and plan for new services collaboratively

Case Studies –Operational• Process

▫Engage consultant, design review with handoff to staff for completion and implementation

▫Methodology: interviews, survey, process mapping, meetings, information gathering from comparator institutions

▫Analysis framed around six key environmental factors; 22 recommendations

▫Drafts to Senior Management Team▫Report distributed to all staff, opportunity to respond▫ Implementation ongoing over 8 months; staff team of

nine co-leading implementation

Case Studies –Operational•Success factors

▫Consultant able to share knowledge of best practices at comparable or aspirational institutions

▫Staff willing to engage and work hard▫Shared recognition that something has to

give

•Learnings from implementation▫Communicate, engage, use review as a

touchstone

Case Studies – External

•Previous Institution – Why an External Review?

▫Mandated by Senate but institution had not enforced the schedule

▫No review had been done in over 9 years

▫Significant leadership turnover; services not keeping pace with user expectations

Case Studies – External

•Scope

▫Senate Guidelines and specific questions posed by VP Academic

▫All aspects of Library operations, relationships, capacity, performance considered fair game

Case Studies – External• Process

▫ Three person review team; two external, one internal (Chair of Senate Library Committee)

▫ Methodology: Self-Study Report, interviews, information gathering from comparator institutions / reviewer expertise

▫ Analysis framed around questions of capacity and communications; 26 recommendations

▫ Recommendations reviewed by Senate Committee; separate set of recommendations issued by Senate Committee to prioritize

Case Studies – External•Success factors

▫Reviewers respected by community and respectful of community; system constraints recognized

▫Recommendations ranged in scale and scope; some achievable as early wins

▫Internal review committee member – sustainability

•Learnings from implementation▫Easier to introduce change advocated by experts

and endorsed by Senate

Recommendations•Manage expectations (yours and others)

▫Not a replacement for leadership

▫Select your colleagues or consultants yourself

▫Build implementation phase into following year’s goals and budget, ensure accountability, shared commitment to implement recommendations

Discussion•How does your organization make “review”

and “assessment” sound normal, not scary?

•What have you learned from past reviews? ▫What worked well? ▫What would you do differently? ▫How has a consultant or facilitator been

effective?

•What issues has a review helped your organization tackle?