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Vol. 44 No. 3 — April 2024

TECHNOLOGY & POWER

The Complexity of a Technology Project

One factor that contributes to such difficulty stems from the way a library technology project originates. Consider nontechnology projects at libraries. Usually, those projects are proposed, planned, and executed by the same group. Collection-related projects are usually proposed and run by those who work in collections. Similarly, instruction-related projects are conceived and implemented by staff members who work in library instruction and circulation-related projects are handled by circulation staff members.

Technology projects do not follow this pattern. Many technology projects are proposed by library staff who do not directly work with library technology. It is also common that more diverse groups are involved in a technology project as stakeholders compared to non-IT projects. For example, if a library considers a project to implement an electronic course-reserve system, this project is likely to originate from course reserves service staff members, but it will surely involve many other teams within circulation, collections, reference, and instruction in addition to the library’s IT staff. In a library, it is also quite common that even after the project plan is drawn up and the project work is underway, various stakeholder groups will add requests as supplementary requirements to be met. Since stakeholder groups represent distinct perspectives, needs, and desires, it is important that their input is incorporated into various aspects of a technology project.

However, in general, the more stakeholders there are for a technology project and the more requirements that are given, the more challenging the project becomes. Distinct sets of different needs from many stakeholders, put forward at various stages of a technology project, can slow progress down because those needs then have to be reviewed against others and prioritized in order to keep the project manageable. And such balancing and prioritization often require tough decisions. For these reasons, it is important to consider who or which party will be given the responsibility and authority to prioritize and harmonize the many different needs put forward by various groups.

Balancing User and Staff Needs with IT Needs

Most needs that a technology project is required to meet fall under three categories: patron needs, staff needs, and IT needs that are related to a specific technology used and its ongoing support and maintenance. For a service team, one of the most important considerations in a library technology project is accurately capturing patron needs and finding the technology option that best meets them. A service team is also keenly interested in making their service workflows and tasks more efficient and easier to perform with a technology solution. So, a service team tends to prefer the highest level of customization that can be made so as to maximize the benefit of a technology solution for both users and service staff members.

One challenge is how to accommodate such a preference based upon patron and staff needs while harmonizing them with many other needs. For example, an IT team pays close attention to ongoing maintenance, support, and related sustainability issues in a technology project. When a service team asks for various complex customizations to be pur into a system, an IT team may point out that those customizations not only make the system much more brittle but also require an additional amount of IT staff time and efforts for configuration, implementation, and ongoing support. If each team insists on its own considerations being given a higher priority over the others, the project may come to a halt. And when such a disagreement happens, which team should be given the power to make the final decision?

Obviously, there is no one clear and straightforward answer to this question that fits every type of technology project scenario. However, in principle, we can say that the service team and the IT team should make decisions jointly as equal partners after carefully weighing available options. Joint deliberation and decision making by a service team and an IT team are critical components to the success of any library technology project. If one team starts making project-related decisions that favor its own needs and preferences, a technology project is likely to suffer and may fail to deliver the technology solution that is balanced in meeting the needs of all three categories: users, staff, and technology.

The Importance of Partnership

While it is easy to say that what is most preferable is the service team and the IT team making decisions together in full and equal partnership, achieving this can be challenging. Consider cases in which a service team and an IT team have different priorities and have to decide which needs will be prioritized in order to still deliver the project outcome that, as much is possible, is satisfactory to both parties within a reasonable timeframe. It is a plus that these projects have started with an IT team and a service team already in place.

Sometimes, however, technology projects are launched without a service team. This can happen when a library overlooks the important role that user-side and staff-side needs play in planning such a project. In order for the project to succeed, both sets of needs must be fully understood by the technology team. If the project team has no representative from the service side and has only IT staff members, the project is likely to run into problems. An IT team that is asked to simply implement a new technology solution cannot determine the best way to represent and support relevant user-side and staff-side needs. It needs a service team to work in tandem as a partner.

Some may think that an IT team can set up a testing environment for a new system as the first step and that the full details of a service that utilizes that system can be hashed out later. But setting up a proper testing environment in and of itself requires information about how a service is envisioned to run. Therefore, in the early stages of technology project planning, the questions of which staff members will be delivering the service, through what specific steps the service will be provided by staff and delivered to users, and what the most important and necessary service outcome is for users compared to optional but desirable additional features should be addressed. And the answers to these questions should provide guidance for the IT team to set up the initial environment optimized for the service team to test the most important and specific service-related tasks.

Of course, the design of a new service and various staff workflows cannot be fully predetermined before testing. But the major outline of the tasks and the general steps must be laid out in advance. By identifying necessary and optional system requirements from the service point of view in the planning stage of a technology project, a service team can become sufficiently ready to partner with the IT team at subsequent stages of development. As part of the project team, the service team members should also respect the IT team’s perspectives and refrain from dictating what customizations or specific features need to be implemented.

A better approach is for the service team to inquire what may be the best way to achieve specific service tasks, leaving the specifics of implementation to be determined by the IT team members, who have a deeper understanding of the technical details. When the service team and the IT team thoughtfully factor in technology-related needs, such as the required level of ongoing maintenance and support, long-term sustainability, and security, they can tackle the challenging task of prioritizing various needs as one project team unit and deliver a technology solution that meets all critical patron, staff, and IT needs.

The Role of Library Leadership

By designating an IT team and a service team to closely work together at the beginning of a technology project, library leadership can help the project proceed smoothly and deliver its outcome successfully with fewer difficulties. Although the need for having these two teams established will appear almost obvious to anyone who has worked on a technology project at a library, many technology projects continue to begin without service and IT being equally represented in a team composition. This means sufficient clarity in the roles and responsibilities of these two teams and the additional stakeholder groups involved is lacking. Making prioritization decisions to resolve disagreements is one of the most challenging tasks for a project team. A shared understanding of the roles and responsibilities of various teams and stakeholder groups involved in a technology project can help the project team make those tough decisions more effectively and speedily.