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'Coffee, Cake and Biscuits, cultivating engagement and inspiring cultural change through innovation'
- 1. Coffee, Cake and Biscuits: cultivating engagement and inspiring cultural change through innovation.
- 7. 50 60 70 80 90 100 I feel valued by my Department I feel my Department delivers good quality to students/service users I feel able to voice my opinions If I want to put forward new ideas or suggestions for improvement I know how to do so I am personally encouraged to look for ways to improve the things we do I am confident my ideas or suggestions will be listened to I am confident I will get feedback on my ideas or suggestions 2014 2016 Review
- 8. Innovate!
- 10. Progress.
- 11. Extending into the Library
- 12. Achievements
- 15. Evolving as we go
- 17. Horizon Scanning
- 19. Summary • Improve user experience • Engage & empower staff • Challenge the status quo • Foster a culture of innovation
- 21. Contact us Liz Hartley l.hartley1@lancaster.ac.uk Callum Pownall c.pownall@lancaster.ac.uk Josh Sendall j.sendall@lancaster.ac.uk Rebekah Fleming r.fleming@lancaster.ac.uk
Editor's Notes
- Introduction: Josh, Callum and Liz (and Rebekah who unfortunately couldn’t be here today) are members of the Lancaster University Library Innovation Group. We’ll talk about how the library is embedding innovation into our culture, how the group was formed and our achievements so far. The significance of the photo will be revealed!
- Background to the formation of the group: Masud Khokhar, Head of Digital Innovation at Lancaster, presented to a Research Libraries UK forum on innovation in Lanc Uni Library. Information Systems Services in the university had already launched their Innovation Hub to encourage students to come up with technical solutions to problems. In 2015 the library ran a competition in collaboration with them called JOLT the Library (influenced by Manchester University Library’s successful Eureka! Library Innovation Challenge). This allowed students to submit their ideas for innovation in the library and these were voted on with the winning ideas being implemented earlier this year. Masud took a paper to the Library Leadership Group to prompt discussion on how innovation could be embedded in the library and how staff could be empowered and engaged with it. Essential to listen to our users.
- We identified 5 types of innovation: Reactive innovation –is borne out of necessity. Common drivers for this include external changes, shifts in policy or responding to market trends. Exploratory innovation – This is driven by horizon scanning, which we will come to later Randomised innovation - Typically driven by combining uncommon topics, themes, or teams, this allows us to embed innovation in our business as usual activities Empowered innovation - The result of combining individual ideas to support the University’s agenda, with support from senior management. Customer-driven innovation – As it sounds; ideas, attitudes and behaviours help identify creation of new services, improvements in existing services or abandonment of non-relevant services.
- All Library staff, with the exception of senior management, were invited to express an interest in joining the Innovation Group – the response was very encouraging. A group of ten was then picked from these volunteers with particular emphasis on including those in positions at lower grades especially individuals directly involved with our users or who would not normally have the opportunity to be directly involved in instigating changes within the library. Diverse group, from different areas of the library and across grades. Meetings are informal and non-hierarchical – no-one is in charge/we are all in charge and take it in turns to chair the meetings.
- At the 1st meeting, we came up with a list of problems/issues/areas that could be improved which we then ranked according to importance, coming up with a top 9 list. We then divided into 3 teams (Teams Coffee, Cake and Biscuits!), each of which looked at 3 issues and came up with the one they wanted to work on. At the heart of those that we ranked most important was a desire to improve the experience of our users. Some of the problems raised were resolved with quick fixes.
- To demystify what the group was doing, each team was invited to give a short ‘pecha kucha’ presentation at an all-staff meeting (20 slides each for 20 seconds = 6 mins 40 secs) to outline what we were doing and also to make it clear that while the group hoped to drive innovation forward it would be very much a collaborative effort with colleagues across the library and to reiterate that ideas, suggestions and participation from anyone who wanted to be involved are crucial to the success of the initiative. Already members of the group were beginning to feel engaged, involved and innovative.
- Take a snapshot of staff engagement by repeating a staff survey from 2014. The bars are an indication of what percentage of the whole library team agrees with these statements. As you can see, every measure has gone in the right direction as more members of the library feel empowered to bring new ideas for improvements for our service. Within these results, the responses from the Innovation Group were almost 100% positive.
- Review meeting held in July to consider ‘what innovation culture would ideally look like at our library, how we can help our colleagues to wash away historical and current barriers, decide on some brave and practical ways we can challenge the barriers we encounter’ – to start planning a revolution.
- Inhibitors. What gets in the way of innovation? Fear – holdover from previous regime where new ideas had been frowned upon. Time – how can we find time outside of our daily responsibilities to work on the innovation projects? Can we do a buy out? Hierarchical Structure – do we have authority to co-opt people into a project or to push forward with projects or do we have to fit in with established structures? Are these structures holding us back? Money – not enough. Communication – Hard to maintain the innovation conversation outside of the meetings. Also, how do we communicate what we do to other members of the library and the wider library community?
- How to Progress? Was there a need to carry on the Coffee, Cake and Biscuits teams now the projects have been set up? We decided not so they were dissolved. Also, it became apparent that whilst Masud was there we looked to him for direction and validation so we took the decision to not involve him in the meetings so we can decide how to move forward as a group.
- How to extend Innovation into the Library? Should we second staff into the group? Ask for volunteers? Other teams take on ideas from the Innovation Group – video streaming project. Our Library Staff Conference took inspiration from the Innovation Group in order to develop ideas for the Library’s Action Plan.
- What were our projects and what have we achieved so far? Team Coffee – Project to improve location information in OneSearch. Solution was to remove extraneous information in OneSearch and introducing an interactive map link. We’re currently waiting on ExLibris to let us know if we can change our catalogue names. A student developer has been employed to create the different map layers. Team Cake – Interactive room booking system for Group Study Rooms using touchscreens. Too expensive to buy 40 tablets so we are investigating building the units ourselves with Raspberry Pi kit or investing in some e-ink units that will be able to provide an up to date display but no booking functionality. Team Biscuits – Project was to improve physical navigation in the library. One idea was to develop a map so this was merged into Team Coffee’s project. The other aspect was to improve shelf-end signage to make it clearer which side of the shelf you need to go down. We are going to trial this in one area of the Library before hopefully rolling it out.
- The future: We remain committed to embedding an innovation culture. We will agree upon the working mechanics of the group by establishing a roadmap delineating how we progress from generating ideas, to navigating the development and implementation process; how colleagues can be authorised and released to work on our projects; resource availability and appropriation. We will ensure that one person within each task focused project group is responsible for overseeing that projects delivery in a timely fashion.
- We want to keep all of our colleagues in the innovation loop: We will develop a blog. Anyone involved in the innovation process will be able to contribute towards our blog, not just group members but those who are co-opted to work alongside us and perhaps in time the service users who benefit too. Primarily, this blog will be inward facing but in time we hope that it will be outward facing much like that published by the Innovation Group at the University of Manchester Library. All of us as innovation group members are also invited to share our stories with non-group members. By continually sharing our story we’ll begin to shift people’s mind-sets, reorienting attitudes, dissolving the historical barriers touched on in slide 9.
- Each year the group will be revivified: The group’s membership will be opened up. Colleagues who wish to take an innovation sabbatical are welcome to as new eager members take up the reins. We will remind ourselves why we are innovating i.e. to support the universities strategic goals, to enhance our users experience by unlocking the talent of our workforce.
- The libraries response to the universities strategy (the ‘2020 Vision’) contextualises the work we do and underscores its significance. In ‘The Library Towards 2020’ our Director of Services, Pete Mags captures the context within which we work. Pete says: “As a Library we take an innovative approach to information. In doing so we further the interests and ambitions of the University, contribute to the delivery of its strategy and enhance its reputation. We are committed to being user-focused, digitally driven, socially inclusive and able to demonstrate value. We take a dynamic approach to service delivery, engagement and collaboration.”
- As our group grows and evolves so too will the types of innovation we engage in. We will move from problem solving styles of innovation to ‘horizon scanning’ and blue ‘sky thinking’. Horizon scanning is a process where one seeks information which may point toward future trends. It can be a labour intensive process. Luckily, there are blogs and websites set up with frameworks that facilitate the interception and analysis of hundreds and thousands of emerging trends daily via sophisticated spotter networks Ideally we will learn to apply the emerging trends we encounter today, to innovations that will benefit the services users of tomorrow.
- Blue sky thinking permits the innovator to dream, to fantasise: We will welcome ideas with open minds; even the boldest of ideas will be considered. Blue Sky Thinking can be a structured exercise - Dream, identify the obstacles which stand in the way of that dream, think about how to overcome those obstacles, imagine a fantasy solution, distil that fantasy down into its key steps and use those key steps as a road map to success. Employed effectively Blue sky thinking is a technique which could allow us to create something before our users even know that they need it.