Strategy and change management in Delft University of Technology Library

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Strategy and change management in Delft
University of Technology Library
26th IATUL Conference Québec City, May 29-June
2, 2005
Kees Konings, Manager Collection Management
Library
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Introduction

• Description of the process of change in Delft
  University of Technology Library
• Applied method
• Reception by stakeholders and library staff
• Finalization of the process resulting in a new
• library organization

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The shift to e-services

• Increase of ICT in research and education
• STM publishers focus on the end users,
  sustainable depositories and access to
  information. Those are our traditional services!
• Decrease of budgets and funding
• Forced collaboration between the technical
  universities in the Netherlands

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Choices and consequences
Choice Consequences
100 digital products and services Digital services 247 Discontinuance of reference desks
Specialisation on 3 areas Development of a virtual front office Back office activities in cooperation with the Dutch technical universities Publishing house in cooperation with (European) universities and/or other publishing houses
Strategic relevance of the library for research and education Digital information is fully determined by the end users requirements

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(No Transcript)
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Competences in the new library organization
Search/find
VKC DelftSpecial Mediation
delivery
publishing
DocUTrans Document delivery Logistics
Publishing system Quality Selection
Digital preservation Logistics
archiving
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Consequences for the core business

• Separate business units for the respective core
  businesses
• the Virtual front office
• the Technical University Academic Repository
• the Publishing house
• The business units will operate independently

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Implementation and reception

• Strategic plans presented to
• Library staff
• Customer panels
• Board of the University
• Ministry of Education and Science
• Technical Universities in the Netherlands

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Implementation and reception

• Discussion with the stakeholders resulted in
  adaptation of the plans in terms of timing and
  cooperation
• Until 2007 the reference desks with limited
  service level stay open in combination with the
  preferred virtual reference desk
• The set up of the cooperation between the
  technical universities takes more time than
  expected, so for the next years the academic
  repository only works for the Delft University of
  Technology.
• A feasibility study to cost effectiveness of our
  publishing activities

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The process of change

• Method of change
• Blue print approach
• Adaptive change strategy

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The process of change

• Important design criteria for the new
  organization are
• Teamwork which means involvement of staff of
• different departments in one team
• Disentanglement of processes, which resulted in
• disentanglement of tasks of our employees
• Decreasing the number of management layers

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The process of change
MT
Change team
Projectteams
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The process of change pitfalls

• Do not ask people to advice on their own jobs or
  positions in the organization
• Be extremely clear about constraints and
  conditions
• Stimulate to look at situations outside the
  library organization

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Results

• The realization of cooperation between the Dutch
  technical universities took more time than
  expected that is why for the time being only a
  local content organization will be implemented
• The results of a feasibility showed that cost
  effectiveness of the publishing house was highly
  uncertain so it was decided to discontinue the
  publishing activities
• Dedicated functions for account management,
  product development and product ownership
• New organization scheme

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Scheme of the new organization
Serviceorganization
Contentorganization
Director Management team
Productdevelopment
Support
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Results

• The realization of cooperation between the Dutch
  technical universities took more time than
  expected that is why for the time being only a
  local content organization will be implemented
• The results of a feasibility showed that cost
  effectiveness of the publishing house was highly
  uncertain so it was decided to discontinue the
  publishing activities
• New organization scheme
• Management philosophy

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Management philosophy

• Decrease of management layers
• Empowerment
• Self organizing teams

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Conclusions

• Consequences for the management team
• Blueprint vs. adaptive change strategy did it
  work?
• Process of permanent change for the new
  organization

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Questions ???