Communicating Changes in Digital Services

Lisa Gayhart | Anika Ervin-Ward | Jacqueline Whyte Appleby

OLA Super Conference 2014

Agenda

● What is Communications? Why do we need to do it?● What is Change Communications?

● Communicating Change: Case Studies○ OCUL Organizational Effectiveness Review○ Consortial RFPs○ Scholars Portal Journals interface changes ○ University of Toronto Libraries’ new catalogue interface

● Scaling up and down: communications at your institution● Takeaways and questions

Who is here today?

Are you from an academic/public/school/specialist library?

Are you part of the digital/systems/IT team?

Are you public service/management/other?

Are you from a large/small library?

Are you involved in your library’s/teams communications? If not, who is ?

Have you seen a communications plan before?

Have you written a communications plan?

Are communications usually part of your project plan?

What do you think ‘communications’ are?

What is ‘communications’?

• Communications is a conversation (two-way)

• Common goal not persuasion

• Reciprocal - learn from each other

Why communicate?

• We want to help!

• Make services better for everyone

• Increase in user satisfaction

• Build relationships and break down silos

• Increase transparency, especially around technology

• Increase recognition / justify resources

• Demystify library technology, development, and testing

• Non-event status

What is change communications?

• A tool AND a process (not just something that has to be done)

• Strategic & purposeful

• Part of the overall change process or project rollout

• Multi-level, multi-site

• Relationship building and strengthening

• Learning opportunity not just a ‘teaching moment’

• Engagement tool

Key Considerations

• Contexto stakeholder relationshipso organizational and industrial cultureo existing communications practiceso external influences

• Change & uncertainty

• Time, resource & information limitations

• Flexibility and responsiveness

Communicating Change: Case Studies

● OCUL Organizational Effectiveness Review

● Consortial RFPs

● Scholars Portal Journals

● University of Toronto Libraries Catalogue

• Backgroundo OCUL is a consortium of libraries from the 21 Ontario universities o 2013 review resulting in broad structural changeo Impact on entire organizationo Consultation with key stakeholders

• Communicating the why, the when, the how

Case Study OCUL Organizational Effectiveness Review

OCUL Organizational Effectiveness Review

The Plan

• Aim

• Stakeholders

• Message

• Medium

• Timeline

• Review

The Rollout

• Announcement

• In-persons

• Stage updates

• Operational comms support

• Collaborations

OCUL Organizational Effectiveness Review

What Next?

• long term project

• work in progress

• continued collaboration

• constantly assessing the plan

• responding to stakeholder needs

Case Study - OCUL RFP Process

• OCUL = 21 institutions with FTEs ranging from 1,000-80,0000

• Scholars Portal also acts as a service provider to non-OCUL institutions includingo Universities outside of Ontario o Collegeso Hospitals

• An RFP is an opportunity to scan the landscape - use it!

o What does the community want?o What is essential? vs. What is nice to have?o What tools are available?o Who wants to partner?

OCUL RFP Process

OCUL RFP Process

Stakeholders

• OCUL library staff

• Other library staff

• OCUL business office

• Current vendor

• Potential future vendors

• Users

OCUL RFP process

What does each stakeholder group want to know, and what’s the earliest date it would be useful for them to know it?

What information do we need from stakeholders and how/when can we get it?

• Purpose of the plan

• Desired outcomes

• Strategy

• Target audiences

• Key messages

• Distribution methods

• Evaluation methods

OCUL RFP process: Communication plan

ocul.on.ca/rmembers

wikispace

ocul.on.ca public info we are doing this, here’s who to contact

OCUL members w/ timelines, selection committee memberslogin credentials

Selection committee meeting minutes, criteria, everything!

OCUL RFP process: Communication plan

OCUL RFP process

Snags

• Managing logistics without actually making the decisions

• Distributed networks - who wants this information?

• Confidentiality & protocol of the procurement process

Case Study - Scholars Portal Journals re-write

● Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)

● Time for a refresh!

The Plan

• Share screenshots well in advance

• Introduce a beta tab early and actively solicit feedback

• What do users like about the old site? What will they miss?

• What are user expectations, based on other databases they use?

Case Study - Scholars Portal Journals re-write

Old platform

New platform

Case Study - UTL New Library Catalogue• Background

o New library catalogue interface development (2012-2013)o Launch (Sept 2013)

• Goal - essentially working towards a “non-event”

• Focuso Getting users involved in the process (buy-in)o managing change in serviceo responding to user needs/wants

• Our challengeo wide user base with different needso getting in touch with our users (and non-users)

Our feedback process in 2013

• Opened channels of communications with users

• Continuous cycle of feedback and response

• Occured throughout various stages: o developmento beta testingo launcho post-launch

Who was involved?

• Led by project team (development, design, communications)

• But involved department as a whole

• Support from administration

• Reached out to many groups - continual promotion, repetition of message, building buy-in and engagement

Why go to the effort?

• No surprises!

• Two-way communication - we learned from our users and they learned from us

• Working together to make a heavily used resource better for all

• And, selfishly, raising the profile of our department and putting a face to ITS

How did we gather feedback?

• Open channels of communicationo email, website, online forms, in-person events, meeting and committee

updates, training, focus groups, usability testing, informal discussiono call to action - focus on user participation rather than news updateso “why should I care?”

• Response managemento Jira implementationo standardized response times and messageso staff participation

Feedback form in the library catalogue

What did we do with the feedback?

• Respond and share with team/department

• Informed development process in many areaso e.g. redesigned icons, roll ups in search results, placement of tool set, etc.

• Snowball effect - led us to more users/non-users

• Relationship building - created good will (keep this going)

What we learned from this experience

• How to take feedback gracefully

• Managing user/team/library expectations

• Get in front of the message

• Everyone is a brand ambassador

• Timing is everything - never enough lead time….except when it’s too much

Scaling up and down:Everyone can communicate change

• Engage front-line staff

• Everyone is part of communications

• Get buy-in and heed organizational culture

• Make feedback easy: webform, Twitter, polls

• Be empathetic to user problems

• Be realistic

• Be prepared to respond to feedback (take action)

• Be consistent

• When to automate vs the personal touch

Takeaways

• Communications is about relationship building

• Iterative process

• Get early buy-in

• Be transparent

• Be flexible and focus on collaboration

Takeaways

Know your:

• Communications goals and message(s)

• Users & stakeholders

• Communications channels

• Desired outcomes

Questions?

Anika Ervin-Ward / Administration and Communications CoordinatorOntario Council of University Libraries / anika.ervin.ward@ocul.on.ca

Jacqueline Whyte Appleby / Client Services LibrarianScholars Portal / jacqueline@scholarsportal.info

Lisa Gayhart / Digital Communications Services LibrarianUniversity of Toronto Libraries / lisa.gayhart@utoronto.ca