 | LIANZA's recent professional development workshops held in Wellington by Dr Matt Finch and Brendan Fitzgerald: GLAM Futures and Foresight – Better Strategic Thinking for Cultural Institutions and The "So What?" of Libraries – Developing Next-Generation Measures, Metrics, Impact, and Evaluation, were attended by over 100 participants combined over the day. Matt and Brendan shared practical tools for strategic planning using potential scenarios and reflective thinking. One participant said: |
 | The tools from the strategic session were the most immediately useful to me – I liked how they broke a large process down into smaller steps from which concrete directions came organically and iteratively. I also liked the argument that while evidence-based research is good, there is no evidence from the future, and the stress on the fact that there is more than one possible future. It was good to have people from outside your immediate context test your assumption, and to do the same for others... I made a coffee date with someone who is already a second-degree connection in my network who I have been meaning to connect more closely with (bonus: they're from a different GLAM field to me, so that was a plus for LIANZA making it open to multiple sectors). |
 | Matt is a skilled facilitator who knows when to push the room on and when to let the participants spend extra time on an exercise that is clearly beneficial. He knows how to read the room and respond, he’s flexible. Brendan is the quiet, behind the scenes, Alfred to Matt’s Batman. The team generously shared their toolkit of reflective exercises and explained their workings so participants could make the most of them. There were plenty of opportunities for collaboration and peer learning. Lots of great ideas and Aha! moments were shared along with frustrations and challenges. A noticeable buzz filled the room with eye-opening insights abounding and participants left with plenty of ideas to implement in their workplaces, many vowed to keep in contact with new connections made over the day. Matt reminded the room that discussions are the only way to really gather useful data. “Make your measurements work for you – own them,” says Matt. “If you don’t play a part in deciding on the metric someone else will do it for you and they might not be useful at all.” |
Matt has given us tools to deflect harebrained ideas for unusable metrics and urged us to try and get involved with council planning as early as possible. "Planning and measurement inform each other – what gets measured gets managed," says Matt.
Further reading:
Strategic Reframing: The Oxford Scenario Planning Approach by Rafael Ramírez and Angela Wilkinson
The value of everything: making and taking in the global economy by Mariana Mazzucato
Public Value: How can it be measured, managed and grown? Nesta (PDF)
The Mission of the Librarian by José Ortega y Gasset, James Lewis and Ray Carpenter
Scenario planning in public libraries: a discussion by Matt Finch and Rafael Ramirez
Strategic Reframing: The Oxford Scenario Planning Approach by Rafael Ramírez and Angela Wilkinson
The value of everything: making and taking in the global economy by Mariana Mazzucato
Public Value: How can it be measured, managed and grown? Nesta (PDF)
The Mission of the Librarian by José Ortega y Gasset, James Lewis and Ray Carpenter
Scenario planning in public libraries: a discussion by Matt Finch and Rafael Ramirez
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