Death of the Committee & Perfection…

Death of the committee & perfection…

Not to air our dirty laundry, but our library has attempted to redesign our website several times in the past, with no success (that was before they hired me, of course). I attribute this to two things, committees and the librarian’s obsession with perfection. Let talk about both of these a bit.

I love a good committee, where everyone sits down, rolls up their sleeves and lets the good ol’ creative juices flow. Ideals are written down action plans made, duties assigned and everyone is done by lunch and the project comes in on time and on budget. Sounds like a fairy tale? Not really, I have had this experience many times in my various careers, but for this to happen there are some conditions that must be met. These are:

1. Management must be 100% committed to the committee’s objectives and provide appropriate support.
2. Everyone should know the goals, expectations, time restrictions and expected results of the committee’s work BEFORE they ever meet.
3. Everyone involved in the committee should be knowledgeable in the subject areas the committee will be working on.
4. Everyone should walk away from the meeting with a clear understanding of their responsibilities and the timelines involved.
5. Consensus only leads to failure, realize that you just can not make everyone happy.
6. Have a leader and make everyone responsible to that leader.
7. Follow up and communicate.

Having reviewed the many pages of notes that the “web redesign” committees generated here, it was quite obvious that the above conditions where not met. So you say, “Well that all sounds fine and dandy, but what do we do if there are no knowledgeable people on staff?” Simple answer is you hire an outside firm to do the work for you. Cannot afford to do that? Then make sure that you are hiring the right skills for your organization. I know that I am oversimplifying things a bit here, but where there is a will there is a way.

If you only have one or two people who have the smallest inkling of what needs to be done, then forget trying to do a committee thing and form a team. Again most of the criteria above apply, but let the team leader select his teammates and function as the coordinator/director. In the team approach democracy is dead and the team members carry out the directives of the team leader and give input as requested. Sounds a bit doctorial, but it has a chance of actually getting things done.

Finally give up on the idea of perfection. Get over it, because you will not find it. It simply does not exist. Give yourself and your teams/committees permission to fail. This encourages your team members to take risks and will produce the best results (incredible failures are also possible, but make great water cooler and blog conversations). This lack of risk taking, in my view, is a major contributor to the state of many libraries’ websites. Too many libraries have been playing it safe, waiting until the perfect moment when the budget and skill sets are all in place. Sorry folks it just is not going to happen, so get out there and start doing it today!