ROYAL SCHOOL PARTICIPATION IN A WORKSHOP ON STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR SOUTH AFRICAN DEPARTMENTS OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE

Niels Ole Pors, Library Link Regional Convenor - Europe

The Royal School of Library and Information Science, Denmark is a subcontractor of consultancy services to the DoE / EU Higher Education Libraries Programme in South Africa. The programme which has been established in collaboration between the European Union and the South African governmental body, the Department of Education, follows a tender placed by the British Council. The object of the programme is the development and upgrading of libraries and library schools in South African historically disadvantaged higher education institutions. The European Union is providing a grant funding of R 51 million (approx. DKK 75 million) to assist the 17 institutions with the upgrading of textbooks, materials, IT and the like. The programme will be running for a three year period.

In order to start the programme and to equip the libraries and library schools to establish strategic planning in their institutions, and to submit the necessary information to the Programme Management Unit, three workshops were held in South Africa in March 1998.

Obviously strategic planning is important in this context. Directed towards the LIS institutions, a paper produced by The Royal School of Library and Information Science formed the basis for the department's further planning process.

The paper contains nothing new in principle, but it is a rather systematic overview of a department's planning process and a similar paper has been used widely in Eastern Europe in upgrading and modernising LIS institutions there.

Strategic planning for Departments of Library and Information Science. Peter Havno in co-operation with Niels Ole Pors

Generally strategic planning should be considered as a process and a way of thinking and of making decisions more than as the creation of formal documents. Strategic planning enables an organisation to share and understand a collective vision and a collective set of values that sets up an overall direction for the organisation, including the short term decisions made by individual staff members.

The strategic planning process should involve broad participation and should be based on a systematic gathering of information concerning the state and the future development of the environment of the organisation and the organisation itself.

I: The strategic planning process

A vast number of strategic planning models have been presented over a period of time. One model can be as good as another and the literature on the subject is comprehensive. The following pages present a simplistic strategic planning process model.

1. Analysis: Collect and analyse information on current and possible future environment and organisation (department).
   
2. Development: Formulate mission and determine objectives and goals.
   
3. Implementation: Develop action plans and implement plans.
   
4. Follow-up: Monitor performance and adjust.
   

Figure 1: Simplistic strategic planning model.

1. Analysis

In a strategic planning process in a department a number of core variables should be taken into consideration, and information about these variables should be collected and analysed since they form the basis for the planning:

• Current and future state of the overall environment
  
• The state of the department and its parent institution

Current and future state of the overall environment

Information about the current and future state of the environment should be collected and analysed and the major trends should be derived. The environment consists at least of such factors as:

• The labour market for the graduates of the departments, current state and future national and international trends in the labour market, both in general and Library and Information Science-specific.
  
• The needs and demands of the current and future organisations employing graduates and purchasing services from the department.
  
• Competitive situation: Other institutions providing similar or overlapping educational and other products.
  
• Technological development, especially information technology.
  
• Plans, interests and intentions of stakeholders including central governmental bodies.

On the basis of the collected and analysed (or at least estimated) information about the current and future state of the environment, it should be possible to indicate some basic trends including some probable future developments. These trends could be formulated into scenarios which indicate what the future might look like.

The state of the department and its parent institution

The state of the department should be analysed in at least the following terms:

• Staff: Skills including IT skills and pedagogical skills, age distribution, degree of labour turnover, ability to engage new staff, attitudes including attitudes towards change and innovation.
  
• Financial position: current and conceivable future budget and financial situation.
  
• Accommodation: current and conceivable future accommodation situation.
  
• Technology: current and conceivable future technology situation.
  
• Ambitions: institutional, departmental and personal ambitions.

The analysis of the state of the department and its parent institution should also picture the strengths and weaknesses of the department and the staff as a whole (not on an individual basis).

2. Development

Based on the analysis the development phase can start. The analysis will provide scenarios or at least some predictions about the future trends in the environment, and also information about the department's possibilities. When these two parts of the analysis are matched it should be possible to picture a number of possible options for determining in which direction the department can develop.

Choice and prioritising are the key issues in this process. A choice has to be made between a number of directions since it simply will not be possible to go in all directions. It will be necessary to prioritise, and it will be necessary to exclude some directions. Priority should be given to directions where the possibilities in the environment fall in line with the departmental state. If, for instance, there is from an environmental point of view (1) a labour market for, let's say, drug information and 2) no other institutions offer education in this subject area, and if 3) from a departmental point of view staff have expertise in this area, it certainly would be worthwhile to consider this as a promising direction to take. But also directions with promising environmental possibilities where the departmental state is not satisfactory can be taken into consideration if it is considered possible to improve the departmental state. Directions where the departmental state is satisfactory but where the environmental position is regarded as declining should be given a lower priority (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Priority matrix

Priority	Environmental position	Departmental state
Highest	Strong	Strong
Higher (especially if dept. State can be changed)	Strong	Weak
Lower	Weak	Strong
Lowest	Weak	Weak

Assumptions and risks

In this phase , where directions have been prioritised, it will be obvious that the success of some choices will depend on some basic assumptions about the future development. These assumptions can be related a number of questions, for instance:

• Implementation of adopted plans in the environment
  
• Existing staff level can be maintained
  
• Budgets are not cut more than 20%

Also in this phase it will be obvious that there will be risks moving in a new direction. These risks can either be related to the potential failure of the new direction that the department takes, or to the abandonment of old directions. Such risks could be related a number of questions for instance:

• Key target organisations close down or move
  
• Degree of labour turnover increases due to external demand for expertise in the new direction subject area
  
• Parent organisation strategy is altered

The underlying assumptions and risks should all be listed, described and analysed.

Mission

Based on the analysis and the prioritising of the direction that the department has chosen to go, it will be possible to define the mission of the department. The mission statement should summarise the reasons for the existence of the department and the intended development, focusing on where the department should aim to be 3-5 years in the future. The mission statement should:

• Identify key target groups and stakeholders.
  
• Describe in which way the department serves these key target groups and stakeholders
  
• Establish a vision of where the department should aim to be 3-5 years in the future.

The mission statement should be formulated as a highly idealistic, brief and clear extract of meaning that will stand for a long period of time and give an overall guidance for the department.

Goals and objectives

The goals define the strategy that the department will pursue to fulfil its mission. The goals are a breakdown of the mission into strategy for planning and action. The goals are formulations of the directions in which to go. The goals should be limited in number with a maximum of 5, since more goals means a loosening in focus with the consequence that nothing will be achieved. Examples of goals could be:

• To develop and launch an undergraduate librarian educational programme in drug information.
  
• To integrate database design and evaluation and Internet use into the core subject areas of the education.

Objectives are a further breakdown of the mission into short-term, specific and measurable initiatives. They should relate to one or more goals and they should be realistic, achievable, and understandable. An example of an objective could be:

• To review and update the existing courses in cataloguing, classification, bibliography and reference work into four integrated subsequent courses based on intensive use of information technology such as database design and evaluation and Internet use.

3. Implementation: Develop action plans and implement plans.

The action plans are a breakdown of the objectives into detailed plans with specification of budgets, human resources involved, specification of equipment to be purchased, timetables, specific jobs to be done, critical points etc. and the implementation is of course the actual carrying out of the plan.

4. Follow-up: Monitor performance and adjust.

The crucial success factors that will determine if the initiative has worked out successfully should be defined for each objective, including the means of monitoring and measuring the success of the initiatives. The data to be used should be defined and if necessary new data or even information systems developed.

Adjustments can take place based on analysis of the monitored performance.

II. Outputs from the departments on strategic planning

The outcome of the process should be written into a document containing the following information and with the following outline:

1. Mission
   
2. Goals and objectives
   
3. Course Descriptions
   
4. Evaluation
   
5. Assumptions / Risks

1. Mission

The mission statement should explain the reason for the existence of your department. The state-ment should state the department's contribution to the society including a specification of which key target groups and stakeholders that your department is aiming at and with which general contributions. The mission statement should include a vision for where the department should be 3-5 years in the future.

2. Goals and objectives

The goals and objectives statement should give a prioritised list of goals and subsequent objectives along with a brief description on how the objectives should be implemented as plans.

1. Goals: Specify, in prioritised order, the goals that you have established for your department.
2. Objectives: Specify in prioritised order the subsequent objectives that you have established, including new courses under 3b. Give also a brief description on how you intend to implement these initiatives.

3. Course Descriptions

a: Existing
b: New

Each single existing or new course should on one single page be described in the following way: I. Learning outcomes stated in terms of:

• knowledge and levels of knowledge
• skills and what the students should be able to do after the course
• attitudes, mental orientation and transferable skills

II. The description of each course should include a specification on how the learning outcomes will be achieved:

• pedagogical method and form
• student activities
• mix of independent learning and class room learning
• amount of preparation
• student output: coursework

III. The description of each course should include a specification of the courseware essential to the course:

• reading materials: a select bibliography
• use of information technology
• use of other teaching aids such as visits, practical experiments, exercises and the like

IV. Each course description should include an outline of the most important themes and topics.

V. The course description should also include a specification of mode of examination.

4. Evaluation

1. Success Factors
   For the department in general and for each 2a goal: What do you consider as the most crucial factors that will establish if the initiative has come out as a success?
2. Measurements
   For the department in general and for each 2a goal/4a success factor: How will you measure the progress of each new initiative? Which data will you use? Are data available now and what are/is the current figure/status? Or do you have to implement new measurements which should they be and how will you obtain these?

5. Assumptions / Risks

1. Assumptions: For the department in general and for each 2a goal: Which factors needs and conditions do you see as assumptions prior to carry the department and each initiative through to success? In society, in your institution, in your department, technically etc.

2. Risks: For the department in general and for each 2a goal: What do you see as risks and threats against your department and the success of each initiative? In society, in your institution, in your department, technically etc.

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