MLA Conference 2010: Making it Happen, FAST!

Presenters: Brent Husher & Cindy Thompson, UMKC Miller Nichols Library

This presentation is how to incorporate an idea into your library fast.

Beginnings
-How do you make the decisions
-Sometimes if you don't have the authority, you may still need to take the authority

Authority
-If you don't feel comfortable taking the authority by yourself, get others to help
-Understand the culture you work in
-Write a proposal if others initially say no

Buy In
-Politics is a part of most of our work environments
-Negotiate and try to get buy in from those that would be the most involved/interested before throwing it out to everyone
-Think about everyone who will be affected by your proposal and talk to then first
-If you are not the person in charge, make sure you have buy in from your administrator(s)
-Say "I think this is important for our library, I would love to be involved in this, what do you think." Start a discussion, don't just go straight to asking permission. A dialogue should be started which should then lead to permission in the end.

Keep the Ball Rolling
-Need to have frequent follow-up
-Do not necessarily need to have a lot of meetings, but a lot of communication
-Pull a team together thinking who needs to be on the team
-Keep your group focused
-Set deadlines and follow them
-Keep all stakeholders informed as the process is going on

Stumbling Blocks
-Missed deadlines - having a good leader to keep in top of things, and when forming a team if you know they are good at being on top of things can help keep deadlines
-If only one person has the ability to work on a specific area, yet is busy with other things can delay the project. Try to get progress reports and keep communication going with the person.

Finish Line
-With almost any project, there really isn't a finish line. There will always be something that will need to be updated, follow-up, etc.
-Try to have some sort of finish line so that there is some gratification that this process has been completed.

This was a good presentation, with lots of ideas that I can take and use.