Developing a Successful Service Plan

Citation

Rowley, J. (2000), "Developing a Successful Service Plan", Library Review, Vol. 49 No. 8, pp. 404-415. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.2000.49.8.404.10

I approached this book with some interest because I have read other books in this series from the Library Association and found them to be useful practitioner guides, usually written by practitioners and based on their own experience, and packed with plenty of practical tips. The other feature that caught my curiosity was the title. I was uncertain as to what the authors meant by the term “service plan” and wanted to find out the difference between a service plan and other types of strategic, operational and project planning processes. Accordingly, I was reassured to find that Chapter 1 aimed to offer a definition of a service plan and Chapter 2 discussed the contents of a service plan. Surely all would become clear as I progressed through the book?

The book is clearly written and easy to read. The eight chapters cover a range of issues relating to planning within the library and information service context. They are:

1. 1.

   (1) Why you need a service plan.

2. 2.

   (2) The contents of a service plan.

3. 3.

   (3) Why go it alone? Involving others in your service plan.

4. 4.

   (4) Your personal plan: personal and professional development plans.

5. 5.

   (5) Evaluating and monitoring your service plan.

6. 6.

   (6) Well, we did a service plan once!Ensuirng that your service plan stays alive!

7. 7.

   (7) Winning other people over.

8. 8.

   (8) Using your service plan to create a strategic position in your organisation.

Appendices include further reading, a service plan template and a glossary.

My experience with planning derives from the disciplines of marketing and information systems and personal experience as a manager in the public sector (higher education), and these experiences contribute to the perspectives on planning that I brought to this book. First, and most fundamentally, the theme of Chapter 8 “Using the service plan to create a strategic position in your organisation” should be considered at the beginning of the planning process and not the end. Further, I would be more comfortable with a shift in focus to “How to make a strategic contribution”. In a number of different places the book argues for the importance of planning in the justification of the contribution that the library and information services (LIS) can make to the organisation. Although the authors do point out that:

Operating a service that appears to be in a vacuum, or somehow isolated from the needs of the organisation, brings the danger of the service being sidelined or even closed [p. 19]

there are a number of points at which the tone of the book is too defensive about the role of the information service in an organisation.

Returning to the issue of strategic contribution leads to consideration of organisational mission statement, objectives, and strategic directions. One of the key challenges in any planning process is the relationship between strategy and planning, and the way in which a collection of plans within an organisation can be linked together and support the achievement of the organisational objectives. This context often poses one of the biggest difficulties in any planning process. In particular, it requires that there be an explicit planning process in the organisation that has frameworks and, most importantly, timescales. In addition, somehow (and there are often lots of difficulties in this process), strategic plans need to relate to financial plans. My experience suggests that there is no easy solution to the design of a planning process, and it is regrettable that this book does not at least touch on some of these matters.

The book emphasises the need for ownership and discussions with customers, but does not really develop the methods through which this might be achieved. Whilst it may not be the intention of the book to deal with issues such as information audit, customer charters, measuring service quality and other mechanisms for gathering feedback from users, readers would benefit from more detail on how they can collect the views of different stakeholders on a systematic basis, and integrate the individuals and their views into the planning process.

Another key issue in planning is differentiating between strategic planning, tactical planning and operational issues. Looking at the examples in this book, the book seems to be a little muddled as to the level at which the planning that it is describing is taking place. Sometimes the examples suggest project planning, such as on page 48:

(…if you are introducing a new service which is technology‐based, such as the use the use of the Internet to gain access to journals…)

and sometimes the focus is operational, as in the example of monitoring the materials budget, used on page 45; but the emphasis on information audit at the beginning of Chapter 3 suggests a more strategic perspective. It would have been useful if the authors had teased out these distinctions a little more carefully.

Another confusion arises in relation to the role of policies. For example, Chapter 2 which sets out to identify the contents of a service plan includes a section on collection development policies. Are the authors really suggesting that a collection development policy is part of a service plan, or just that it informs the plan? In fact, matching the content of Chapter 2 and the service plan template in the appendix left me a little confused about what to include in the plan, and how it might be structured.

The other facet that is not explored as explicitly as it might be (and here a diagram would be very useful) is the authors’ model of the planning process. Is planning embedded in delivery? How can plans be dynamic and accomodate the inevitable change during the planning period? Short case study inserts that illustrated the approaches to some of these issues would have been useful.

In summary, this book offers some useful pointers and good advice, but it is a pity that it does not at least point out some of the real challenges in the planning process. It needs to go a little further if LIS managers are to embrace with confidence the contribution that they and their services can offer to the organisation, and not be defensive about this contribution. In these days of change, and electronic information, they need to continually re‐shape their role and their services, and while they may have problems defining career paths and boundaries for their services, there is no doubt that in a knowledge‐based age the skills and competencies that information professionals use and develop each day of their working lives are necessary.