The New Planning for Results: A Streamlined Approach Course

Part I: Planning to Plan

In this first part of the course, you will meet Nancy, the director of the Anytown Public Library and her board chair, Kate. You will work with them as they decide whether or not they need to hire an outside facilitator to manage the planning process. You will learn the responsibilities of the planning committee, the staff and the board in the planning process; develop a planning timeline and budget; identify community stakeholders and make a preliminary selection of planning committee members that you might use in your library s planning process.

Part II: Identifying Possibilities

In this part of the course, you learn how to decide what data about the community and the library that you will collect during the planning process. You will observe the first meeting of the Anytown Public Library planning committee and help them to develop the vision for their community, describe current conditions, and identify community needs. Finally you will revise a number of mission statements and learn what to include and what not to include in an effective library mission statement.

Part III: Inventing the Future

In this part of the course you will further explore the responsibilities of the community planning committee, the staff, and the board in the selection of the service responses that will become the library's priorities during this planning cycle. You will be able to explain why it is critical that the library service priorities be based on community needs and not on the perceptions of staff or board. You will learn how to write goals that reflect the library's service priorities and how to write measurable objectives.

Part IV: Assembling the Future

In this part of the course, you will work Nancy, the director of the Anytown Public Library, and her staff to involve library staff in the identification of activities; evaluate the identified activities; and develop a process to select the most effective and efficient activities. You will learn how to use the gap analysis process to determine the staff, collections, facilities, and technology requirements for the selected activities and you will learn how to develop an activity or program budget.

Part V: Informing the Stakeholders

In this part of the course, you will learn how to write the strategic plan and present that plan to the board for review and approval. You will learn the elements of an effective communication plan and develop preliminary communication plan that your library might use as model during the library planning process to ensure that all appropriate audiences have been identified and the methods to communicate with those audience have been determined.

Part VI: Moving Into the Future

In this final part of the course, you will work with the Anytown Public Library staff as they learn how to allocate or reallocate the resources required to implement their selected activities; how to integrate those activities into the ongoing operations of the library; and monitor the progress being made toward reaching the goals and objectives.