By Frank Hermes. Originally published as an incomplete series in 2007 (with one section appearing in 2005.)

Introduction

I recently spoke to a group of library leaders about strategic planning. To get the discussion going, I asked the audience how many of their libraries did and did not have strategic plans in place. A full two-thirds of them raised their hands to indicate that they did not have a strategic plan! I thanked them for their honesty and told them that I was quite surprised by this. Then I got on with the presentation and some lively and productive interaction.

Later, I thought about this a great deal. Certainly some of the “poll results” could be explained by why these people had decided to attend my session: not having a plan, they wanted to learn more about the process. Had they recently completed one, the last thing in the world they would probably have wanted to do was to listen to some old business guy talk about planning! But I was still surprised at the number, especially given the fact that most of these leaders represented good-size, well-funded libraries.

A couple of days later, I ran into one of the attendees, a representative of the minority having a plan in place. She suggested that some of the people in the room may have been subordinates, not directors, and thus may not have known that their library had an active strategic plan. While I accepted this as a partial explanation of the poll results, my reaction was that if managers and staff within a library don’t know of the existence of a plan, the library should not have bothered doing one in the first place!

In case you can’t tell, I feel strongly that every enterprise, especially ones that are as visible as libraries, should have an operative, relevant strategic plan. The plan should be a living, breathing document that influences the daily operations and direction of the library. It should be known to the staff, those who oversee and fund the library, and those who are served by the library. Ideally, these three audiences should have played a significant role in the process that led to the creation of the plan.

This introduction will, I hope, be of assistance to library leaders who are responsible for managing and/or playing an active role in their institution’s planning process. For all libraries, this will mean the director, those directly responsible for oversight (library boards, for example), and those who have managerial responsibility within the library. In very large libraries, it will also mean the person whose primary job is to drive the strategic planning process.

Why Bother?

Library leaders are very busy people. Like their counterparts in the business world, they get up in the morning and jump onto a treadmill they only partially control, spending their days in a non-ending barrage of staff meetings, emails, phone calls, luncheons, more meetings, more emails, and so on. The ability to remain in balance on the treadmill is indeed a great challenge to all of us. So when the suggestion of an additional activity that promises to:

• Consume significant quantities of time
• Challenge organizational skills
• Demand a great deal of communication
• Force you to shift mental gears

...comes along, our natural tendency is to look the other way and hope that the thought will pass. Add to this that the additional activity in question may be something with which one is unfamiliar and, in most cases, creates a degree of risk (of appearing clueless among other things), and it is no surprise that many of us ignore the suggestion and get back on the treadmill.

Doing a strategic plan may be unfamiliar turf for you, and you might be adverse to the challenges (enumerated above) that are part and parcel of effective planning, but the plain fact is this: library leaders cannot afford not to have a viable, actionable, “living” strategic plan. By “living” I mean a plan that:

• Lays out measurable goals
• Provides guidance for the library and its staff
• Involves customers and funders
• Is well-communicated and understood by all of the library’s constituents: staff, customers and overseers
• Is updated as required to address changes in the library’s environment

So why, indeed, bother? Why can you not afford to be without a plan? There are many answers—I am sure readers can provide more than a few—but here are some of the more obvious ones:

• The world of information and learning is changing before our eyes, and libraries are (or need to be) a very public, value-producing part of that world. Approaching the future without a plan is asking for trouble.
• In many cases we need to justify our existence; in all cases we need to justify the resources we need to grow and improve our services. A financial request without a plan attached--or one that has no tie to an existing plan—is headed for the “reject” pile.
• Planning causes us to sharpen our focus and make critical decisions concerning what we do—and what we don’t do. This latter point is sometimes lost on us, but in a world of finite resources, it is very important to put all of our activities under a microscope. “Well, we’ve always done that” doesn’t cut it anymore!
• The process of planning has some wonderful benefits: First, it is a great excuse for dialogue with the library’s customers. Secondly, it will create a shared sense of direction and ownership in the overall library organization (staff, board, funders)
• A fruitful planning effort is a great opportunity to impress important people, to show superiors and peers that you, the library leader, are a very competent manager and a forward-thinker. Allow a little vanity to creep into your life—it’s okay to toot the horns of you and your staff!

The sections that follow will deal with the planning process itself and the work that follows from it. In concluding this section, let me say that I hope you are energized about planning. The very good news about planning is that good work will have its rewards for you and the library, and you will find the process to be just as valuable as the product.

Planning for Planning

Successful strategic planning is the result of careful preparation. The planning exercise itself should be treated as a major library project—after all, it is--and managed accordingly.

the first thing the library leader responsible for the strategic planning process needs to do is think about how he or she wants to orchestrate the process. No two institutions are created equal, and the planner-in-charge will want to adopt a process that will fit the needs and idiosyncrasies of his /her library organization. This initial thinking and process outlining will prove very useful as decisions are made.

Having roughed out a broad planning process, it is now time for the library leader to deal with the nitty-gritty. While it will be possible (and often quite desirable) to make “mid-course corrections” once the planning exercise begins, the greater the effort in setting the stage, the greater the likelihood of planning success. I have listed below some of the “stage-setters” to be handled in preparation for planning. This is not intended as an exhaustive checklist—you will think of others—but rather a few of the more important pre-planning considerations and decisions that you and others will have to make. I have organized the checklist under the headings of:

• Who?
• What
• When and How?

Before reviewing the list, some words of advice: It is useful to think of the plan as a product that you are developing and marketing. In order for it to succeed, it needs to be interesting, compelling and value-creating. We’ll talk more about the value proposition later, but for now it is important to consider the process you are about to undertake and to make sure you will have the best people in the room with you, and that the views of critical stakeholders will be well-represented. The highways of commerce are littered with failed products and services that were formed in a vacuum, without the benefit of life-giving research and staff collaboration. Similarly, there are lots of strategic plans whose primary purpose is to support a plant in the corner of the director’s office. So make sure that your plan does not endure a similar fate—perhaps in the office of your successor?

Who?

At one point in my career I was in charge of developing a plan. My boss, the CEO, sent an email to all staff announcing this process—a very good thing to do. Well, one of the staff, a very thoughtful and intelligent person, suggested to me that the best approach would be for the planning to be done online, with the entire staff (1200 strong) partaking in the process in one big virtual mixing bowl. The rationale here was that because the staff would be the ultimate executors of the plan, why not make it their plan. My reaction at the time was “Eek!! This cannot work,” and I politely told the person that I would not adopt his suggestion. So I went off and assembled a strong team of creative and experienced people, and, with considerable vetting with the executive team, the Board, and the marketplace, we put together a plan that has had much success in the marketplace.

And yet, even with this external success, the plan was never fully understood by a majority of the staff. While there are a number of explanations for this, the suggestion I had received (and rejected) did indeed have some merit. Yes, the process suggested would have been a disaster, however I should have found an alternative way to involve the staff in the planning process, because it is a very good thing to have a strategic plan that is understood by your staff. And this understanding comes from a sense of ownership.

I have dragged you into my past simply to stress the importance of thinking through the question of who will be involved and how they will be involved. As with most other matters of management, there is no cookbook answer. An approach that is helpful, however, is to ask (and answer) the following questions:

• Whose contributions and creativity will be of greatest value?
• Whose judgment do I most trust?
• How do we best involve the customers? Staff?
• Who needs to “buy” the plan?
• Who can help me manage the planning process?

Once you have answered these questions it might be useful to think of the organization of the planning effort in terms of “layers of involvement.” An example of this is to have these layers:

1. A core planning team who are involved in the plan every step of the way. The core team will typically have representation from the staff, the library board (or academic equivalent), and, in many cases, the community served by the library (faculty member/student/community leader). Seek a diversity of views, but also look for people who will work well together.
2. A review team, responsible for providing oversight and feedback at various checkpoints in the planning exercise. This should typically involve representatives from the higher echelons in the chain of command such as college presidents or provosts, city managers, and board chairs. And consider representation from civic and “friends” groups, as well as key customers.
3. The overall community served by the library. It makes a great deal of sense to get up-front input from the marketplace, using a variety of research devices such as surveys, focus groups, and interviews. Be sure that you get input not only from your active users but, perhaps more importantly, the underserved groups in the community. While this large “layer” will not be actively involved in the planning work itself, getting their input at the start, and sharing the resultant plan with them, will be very critical.

The last important matter for consideration is whether to employ a facilitator or not. Facilitators can be extremely useful in making the process flow smoothly, and allowing the planning leader to focus on content. They can also play the role of devil’s advocate and mediate varying opinions on issues. The expense associated with hiring a facilitator should not be viewed as a luxury item—the planning effort will involve a huge amount of staff time and other resources, so the money spent to help assure a good process (and result!) is minor given the importance of the effort. In many cases, the facilitator will also be the person who produces plan documents. Some final words on facilitators: the planning leader and the facilitator should be on the same page at all times, and in agreement on what roles they will play. Think of them as a very closely knit team--after all, if the decision is to not hire a facilitator, the planning leader will have to play all of the roles him or herself! Also, resist the urge to use a staff member as a facilitator unless you absolutely feel that this is a person who will operate with the full comfort and trust of the planning team, and without any biases. By the way, if you have some staff members that measure up to this standard, be sure to treat them very well!

I have used the term “library leader” to denote the person responsible for the plan. While in many cases this will be the library director, it may also be a person involved in the library’s governance, a key user, or, in a very large library, a planning specialist. Whatever the case, it goes without saying that the person with overall responsibility for the management of the library should be a key person in the planning effort.

What?

At the same time as you are answering the “who” questions, the library leader will need to determine specifically what is being produced. Well, obviously, it’s a strategic plan, but some further food for thought:

• What is the planning horizon? Is this a ten-year plan? A five-year plan? What are we going to do two years from now to update it? There is no simple answer to any of this, and if the last plan was a ten-year plan, that doesn’t mean that this one should also have that horizon. Probably a smart thing to do at this point is to look backwards and ask yourself this question: “Was our last plan a relevant, living document for the whole time between when we did it and the present day?” Or, if you do not have an operative plan now, ask yourself this: “If we had done a strategic plan five (or ten) years ago, would it have remained relevant throughout the last five (or ten) years?” Once you have answered this first question, ask this one: “Looking forward, and given the changes we have seen in the last five years, how long do we think a plan we produce this year will remain relevant and useful?” My guess is that after you are satisfied with your answers to these questions, you will set a planning horizon for the new plan of somewhere between three and five years. But whatever you do, be sure at the outset to set dates when you will formally review the plan and make mid-course corrections if needed.
• What is the context of the plan? Planning in a vacuum is a useless activity. It is critical that the plan you do for your library is fully consistent with any over-arching plans, such as one for your university, or city, or school district. So be very explicit in discussing how and why what your plan says will be consistent with these “über-plans.” The other important question of context that must be resolved during the planning process, and will be discussed in subsequent parts of this series: Is this plan consistent with the library’s Mission? With its Vision? Its Values?
• What is your “headline”? By headline I mean a slogan (or rallying cry?) for the plan. Here, you want to create not only some I.D. for the plan, but perhaps a little cachet as well. Some examples: “Envisioning the Future,” or “Supporting Future Learning,” or “Our Library Rocks.” Oh well, you can see why I was never an advertising copywriter, but you get my drift, right?

When and How?

Now is the time to finalize your process and map out the schedule of activities. Some advice:

• What will our process be? One of the last (and more obvious) matters to attend to before launching the planning exercise is to finalize the process that will work best for your institution. In this series, as well as in the reams of available literature, you will read of many theories, options and alternative approaches. Now is the time to determine your process. The suggestion here is that you do a more refined version of the rough outline you started with and discuss it with the facilitator (if you use one) and the core team, and then bounce it off the review team. This is not so much to get buy-in on the process as it is to solicit any good ideas that these constituents might contribute.
• Schedule. Think of Goldilocks: make it “just right.” Make sure there will be adequate time for input, planning discussion, vetting, documentation and communication, but try no to make it too long and drawn out--you don’t want to unveil the plan at the same time you should be starting to put together the next one! My recommendation is three to six months for the entire process, with the duration governed by the type and extent of (potentially) time-consuming market research and communication programs.
• Roles and responsibilities. Members of the core planning team should have extra tasks to perform as part of their participation. Nothing burdensome, but something to keep them involved in the process. This is a good way to offload some responsibilities that would otherwise fall to the planning leader, who will have enough on his or her mind without having to worry about these functions:
• Scribe. Planning meetings will produce copious notes. Choose somebody for this task who thinks and writes clearly and will not use “editorial license.”
• Scheduler. If you have ever been this, you know how challenging it is to pick times that work for everyone, etc. So pick someone who is both organized and respected. This person should also figure out when breaks will be taken, etc.
• Creature comforts. While tasks associated with coffee, lunches and snacks can often be handled by an administrative assistant, it never hurts to have one of the team tasked with this responsibility.
• Communications. Have somebody with superior communications skills in charge of drafting plan documents and designing communication plans programs and devices.
• Meeting venues. Although the precise number and contents of meetings will be up to the leader (with some help from the facilitator), here are a few suggestions:

1. Hold to the discipline of a schedule, but don’t try to do too much in one meeting. One of the great things about planning is the creativity that springs forth, often from heretofore silent (or less creative) sources. The last thing in the world you want to do is to dampen this newfound energy, so allow extra time in the schedule, especially for the “meatier” phases like environmental analysis and strategic visioning. That said, stick to the schedule you have set and do your best to not allow pointless discussion.
2. If possible and affordable, get out of the library, free from distractions inherent in the day-to-day work routine. A different location often causes human beings to go into different, more productive modes. If you have to meet at work, do everything in your power to keep people off the phone, email and so on. This is especially important for the longer meetings requiring focus and creativity.
3. If convenient for the team, and within the budget, get out of town for two or three days. This will allow for team building and informal discussion between formal sessions—often the fount of very good ideas!
4. Speaking of budget, if you have not provided for planning activities in your operational budget (or even if you have), try to get extra funding from the provost, mayor or whomever is your normal source of funds. They should be thrilled that you are thinking about the future of the institution!

Ready, Aim...

Well, at long last, you are ready to plan. You may also be exhausted from all of the preparation. But all of the work will pay dividends in the near future--and hopefully for years to come. And remember, you don’t need to do it every year!

Analyzing the Environment

Now that the stage is set, it is time for the planning team to begin the actual strategic planning work. At this point, there is a great temptation to sit down in a room with a white board or some flip charts and begin batting around what the library’s strategy and tactics should be. This would be a great mistake! How can you determine your future directions without taking a careful look at the external and internal environment within which you operate today?

So the strong suggestion is that you methodically describe your environment by doing a fairly detailed SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. But before you begin the SWOT exercise, a brief review of your library’s Mission Statement, Vision, and Values is in order. If you don’t have all three of these--or any of them--don’t worry. The reason to make note of these now is to make sure that the resultant strategic plan is consistent with them. If it is not, you may want to consider revising them, or the plan itself.

The SWOT analysis, in combination with the mission and vision, will serve two important purposes:

1. The SWOT process is a great way of obtaining input from the team concerning their observation of the environment in which the library operates. SWOTs are actually fun to do, and will get the planning juices flowing.
2. The factors identified in the SWOT will ideally all be addressed by the plan. Thus in this phase of the process, you are creating a sort of punch list for later use. How you perform this “reconciliation” process will be discussed in Establishing Strategic Goals.

Take a SWOT At It!

To many, the mere mention of a SWOT analysis causes one’s eyes to glaze over. Normally done as part of a more exhaustive (and exhausting!) strategic planning exercise, SWOT (a look at the organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) can be a brain-numbing waste of time, especially if its primary purpose is to fill up a document whose destiny is to support a planter in the corner of your office. On the other hand, when done for the right reasons, taking a look at the library’s SWOT can be a valuable exercise, especially in today’s world of rapid change and continuous challenge. Indeed, if you haven’t done it lately, it might well be high time to do it: today, more than ever, libraries need to understand their position in the world of information exchange and, most importantly, what unique values they can bring to this world. In this article, I will offer some pointers on the who, what, why, and how of SWOT analysis.

Once you have decided to have a “SWOT session,” you will need to determine who should be there and how long you wish to spend on the exercise. With regard to the latter question, I would suggest no more than a half day for the SWOT itself, with an additional half day to discuss how the completed SWOT jibes with the current strategic directions and specific programs of the library. In terms of who (and how many) should be there, the director should make sure that different points of view will be represented, but avoid too large a crowd. While seemingly an undemocratic notion, my experience is that crowds can cause some very creative people to remain silent. Consideration should also be given to including (for public libraries) trustees and government officials, or (for academic libraries) faculty and administrators. Once you have put together the list of invitees, communicate to them the purpose and process of the meeting so that they will be prepared to contribute their views.

In my view, it would be appropriate to call this process OTSW, but the acronymically-adroit probably wouldn’t allow that, so we won’t try to change the name. You will, however, find that the process flows best when you tackle the four areas in the OTSW order. Herewith a few tips on what are, in effect, the two parts to the SWOT analysis:

Opportunities and Threats are best described as those factors that are external to the library, and not under the control of library management. Think of these as the environment surrounding the library. These factors typically include (but are usually not limited to) the following:

• Markets served (and not served) by the library
• The economy
• Competition
• Technology

Often, a single factor will be both an opportunity and a threat, especially in the area of technology (iPods, Google). Invariably, you and your SWOT team will blur the lines between the OT’s and the SW’s. Just try to remember the phrase “external and uncontrollable” when identifying the opportunities and threats. And don’t get hung up in the semantic--save your energy for the work that follows the analysis!

Strengths and Weaknesses are--you guessed it--those factors which are internal to the library and (in varying degrees) controllable by library management. Factors here might include:

• The library’s assets (collection, know-how)
• Reputation
• Staff and organization
• Funding
• Visibility

As with the OT’s, one factor can be both a strength and a weakness. For example, the library staff may be motivated and well trained people, but they might lack some of the skills needed in today’s world. Similarly, the library may be very visible to one sub-market (e.g., faculty or retirees) but less visible to another (students or young parents).

As you go through the OT and SW exercises, clearly document each of the four. Use flipcharts or a whiteboard, and be sure to leave all sections visible throughout the analysis—you will find yourselves returning to one section based on an inspiration occurring during another. For instance, when talking about reputation, you might think of an under-served market. And one last suggestion—if you get bogged down along the way, use this SWOT “formula” to help the group create the proper relationship between the variables:

“How do we leverage our Strengths and eliminate Weaknesses in order to capitalize on Opportunities and deal with Threats?”

Okay, we have a SWOT. Now what?

If the SWOT is being done independently of a strategic planning effort, make a list of the library’s current strategy and programs and, quite simply, see if--and to what extent--they adequately address the factors raised in the analysis. Two suggestions come to mind here:

1. Utilize the “formula” question, substituting the strategy/program for the word “we.” For example: “How does the e-learning initiative leverage our strengths,” or “How does our new staff training program eliminate our weaknesses and address opportunities”
2. Leave no stone unturned: put tick marks next to each of the SWOTs if your current activities address them. At the end make sure that all SWOT’s have at least one tick mark.

If the SWOT analysis is being done as part of a new planning exercise, use it as a basis for establishing your key strategies and programs and for setting specific goals. Again, use the tick marks to make sure you are addressing the SWOTs in your forward planning. Conversely, and importantly, question any current or planned activities that do not relate to the SWOTs. And don’t be surprised if you have a few of these!

The SWOT Heard 'Round the World

Well, maybe the whole world doesn’t need to hear about your now-completed SWOT, but make sure you document the analysis and its implications for your future plans for communication to a number of different audiences:

• The library staff
• Your funders
• Any and all advisory groups
• The public you serve

This important communication step will serve a number of purposes:

1. It will advise those who need to know about how the library views itself within its environment, and what it intends to do about it
2. It will elicit further constructive comment and buy-in from a variety of interested parties
3. It will demonstrate that your library has a leadership that cares enough to ask the right questions and set a course of action intended to create greater value for the community it serves

A parting thought: typical planning cycles are three years (recommended) or longer. In this day and age of rapid transformation in the information industry, it is important to do a SWOT analysis on an annual basis. If the analysis coincides with strategic planning, it can set the stage for your key strategies and action plans. If it is “off-cycle,” it is just as valuable in helping you determine if you are on the right track, and suggesting any needed mid-course corrections.

Establishing Strategic Goals

With the Environmental and Operational Analysis as backdrop, it is now time to get down to the task of determining what the library will do to attain future success. But what exactly is success? Is it being well-regarded by the community it serves? Getting its budget approved? Growing traditional measures of “traffic” (circulation, reference questions)? Certainly these are important, but are they an adequate response to the various points raised by the SWOT analysis? Do they take your library out of its comfort zone? Our suggestion is that you take a more external view of matters and think about the library and its mission from the point of view of the constituencies it serves. One such way is to think of the library’s success in the terms suggested by what we call the “Four V’s:”

• Valuable: The library’s resources (collection, staff) are of great value to the community it serves—both active and potential users. The library is increasingly viewed as a place that delivers these resources when and where they are needed.
• Visible: The community served by the library is more than acquainted with the library—it knows what is new, and how the library is reaching out to provide greater value to its current and potential customers.
• Vital: The library’s existence is an important part of the lives of the community it serves. It is seen as both relevant and alive.
• Viable: The library is able to exceed the expectations of the community because it is both financially and organizationally strong.

You will probably want to create your own version of the “Four V’s” to more adequately fit your library’s mission and/or situation. What’s important here is to have some overarching success factors that provide a litmus test for the output of the planning exercise.

In setting strategic goals and in drawing up the action plans that support these goals, it is thus important to do three things:

1. Make sure that the Environmental and Operational Analysis is addressed. The plan should seek to capitalize on the opportunities identified, while minimizing or eliminating the risks; it should leverage the strengths of the organization while correcting its weaknesses. It is important that there not be any inconsistencies between the EOA and the resultant plan. For instance, do not set a goal that cannot be attained because of an organizational weakness, unless you also have a specific plan to eliminate the weakness.
2. Make sure all goals and actions are directly related to the attainment of success as defined by your version of the “Four V’s.” Focus is important, and a library cannot afford to begin or continue activities that have no direct bearing on its success, so make sure that what you plan on doing in the future passes the “Four V” litmus test.
3. Make sure that the course you are plotting for the future of the library is consistent with the mission and goals of the community in which the library functions. For an academic library this means a plan that is not only consistent with the institution’s overall direction, but one that complements and supports the objectives of, for example, the faculty and the IT department.

The goal statements themselves should be declarations of what will be accomplished, why it is a strategic focus, and, at a fairly high level, how it will be accomplished. These goals should be specific, measurable, realistic and seen by the team as attainable (but not status quo). For instance, “Establish outreach programs to obtain new users” is not specific and not terribly measurable. Instead, “Establish and implement new programs to help local businesses prosper by finding and using relevant information” is more specific and to a greater degree measurable. “Create a richer educational experience by partnering with Academic Computing to integrate the library’s resources into campus e-learning initiatives” is a lot crisper than “Support the e-learning objectives of the institution.” One can probably find fault with our specific examples: what we are trying to convey is the importance of having strategic goals that will be viewed as creating value, and that the specific tactics/programs that support the strategies will have measurable results. While we will not here get into a discussion of “outcome” versus “output” based objectives, our clear bias is toward the former, because outcomes are much more important than outputs to the community served by the library. Yes, they are harder to measure, but their importance should outweigh the ease of measurement afforded by traditional (and less important) outputs.

Lastly, make sure that the sum of the goal statements is within the reach of the library’s resources and capabilities. A little “stretch” is recommended, but do not establish more objectives than are realistically achievable. How many strategic goals should you have? There is no pat answer to this question. Some suggest somewhere between three and five. Our view is that what is important is not the number of objectives, but that, in conjunction with the supporting tactics, they clearly create new and significant value for the community served while responding to the external and internal environment (SWOT) of the library.

Remaining Steps

This discussion is incomplete--lacking three more steps: Action planning and measurement, communicating the plan and post-planning activities and monitoring. You'll find some notes on measurement, and more on process and practice, in Strategic Planning Commentaries.