Unit 8: Technology Planning

This week’s readings were broad and varied widely. Some of the subject matter was familiar to me having taken IRLS 674 Managing in the Digital Environment, so Don Sager’s article on Environmental Scanning looked a lot like the SWOT analysis material covered in 674. Michael Stephens’ article on Technoplans vs. Technolust seemed sensible and although technolust got equal billing, it only accounted for a small portion of the reading, which was actually good because technolust, although it is a real trap organizations with limited budgets or limited needs can fall into, is a minor problem in the big scheme of things.

The Bertot reading on federal funding for library tech upgrades was really informative and moved the agenda into real nuts and bolts as to how LSTA funds are disbursed through state libraries (whose existence was heretofore unknown to me) and local libraries submit their technology plans to United Services Administration Company and how libraries are currently dealing with the LSTA program.

In Whittaker and company’s “What Went Wrong?...” we got an analysis from a business consultant regarding technology projects that don’t make the final cut and why they failed. Her analysis seemed to ring true with my own experiences where she sees project failure happening due to poor planning, weak relevance of the change to business mission, and lack of management support. I honestly think that her assessment of 31% failure rate might be a little on the charitable side, but when technology changes go wrong, they are pretty public, but I’m sure that there are many smaller technology changes which fail but can get swept under the rug. Otherwise, a lot of what Whittaker et al say seems right on the money. The excuses of unrealistic planning seem valid including underestimating training time for new tech as well as her focus on undelivered products from third party vendors, a huge gripe in some projects I have worked on.

Gwen Gregory’s “From Construction to Technology” article was another good nuts and bolts summary about how LSTA affects libraries and how LSTA differs from the previous LSCA. It seemed helpful when I read it but doesn’t really stand out a couple days later.

Eric Chabrow’s State of the Union was focused on organizations which had done technology upgrades and had suffered for their efforts. It was an easier read than the “What went Wrong” article by Whittaker, but was in the same vein, but focused on government agencies in the “Security Sector." If your job is hunting bank robbers or tracking terrorists or making sure corporate malefactors pay their fair share of taxes, having to deal with technology issues or a rough transfer in technology can only be an additional burden to a tough job. Chabrow makes a couple of really good points about business, technology and government. In the enterprise sector, if a transition seems to be failing, a manager will pull the plug and probably do so at the first sign of trouble. In government, where results are not as accountable to “audit culture” a project that is flagging can be kept on life support indefinitely. Chabrow’s great advice is, “If you’re going to fail, fail fast” i.e. don’t prolong the agony, just pull the plug.

Chabrow also takes a good look at what projects in peril can do regarding the toll they can take on management, he points out that rough business transitions can lead to a huge out-migration of staff and management, but he also points out that a project taken up by several managers (who have to be brought up to speed after the project has begun) can be a kiss of death to projects that might have succeeded had the manager initiating them stayed on. I can tell you from experience, having a new manager come in, one who does not know the daily problems of a department will have a hard time developing credibility with his staff. Chabrow also scores in talking about issues with third party contractors in projects and the frictions that will arise from having a project run by teams with differing perspectives and differing needs. As far as articles on planning technological change and organizational change, the Chabrow reading was the best.

In Dugan’s Information Technology Plans, we get down to the nitty-gritty of actually writing a technology plan, the kinds of evaluation a library will need to do (including assessment of the environment as Sager pointed out) to get that technology plan together.  His best piece of advice: “A question that should be continuously answered is: why is information technology necessary to fulfill this need? Each response should be outcomes based.”

The OCLC reading on Environmental Scanning could have been put higher in the stack (at an earlier position) because many main points in it were already made but it was also showing its age as being created at the beginning of the Web 2.0 era, but it was right on when talking about the trends of self-service in the library, patrons being satisfied with less if they were not aware of other information options that a librarian could provide them and most of all the trend toward a seamless information environment (although in the 11 years since this scan was made, some libraries have caught on to the usefulness of social media).

The Gerding and MacKellar piece is probably one of the most practical pieces from this unit. It made the best argument for a library having a technology plan and also seemed to guide the reader through all the steps to getting a modern conduit of funding for a library to acquire the technology to reach its goals. If I knew someone from a library or cultural memory institution that was up and coming and looking for a way to get their technology plan initiated, I would probably recommend that they read this article first. Some of the great advice offered here includes organizing collaborative efforts with like-minded organizations as funders take grant proposals with partners more seriously and that having a technology plan in place provides potential funders with proof that the organization seeking technology funding is serious with concrete plans and funders will react positively to organizations which have already determined how they will use their technology. The Gerding and MacKellar article then describes the kinds of technologies that were trending wen it was written, varieties of grants available from the Institute for Museum and Library Services have made available through state libraries and summarizes with success stories of libraries and a dense distillation of tips for success.