Actually, planned abandonment is not a new concept, but applying it in a library organization certainly is, considering that librarians are stereotyped as overly cautious about weeding their collections. Planned abandonment is the antithesis of some core librarianship behaviors.
So, what is it? It is one of the plums of the highly fruitful, world renown management expert Peter F. Drucker.
Knowledge@SMU wrote an article reviewing Robert Swaim’s book “The Strategic Drucker“. “The book weaves the many lessons [Swain] had learnt as Drucker’s former student, colleague and friend, distilling them into one neat package for the readers.” The article also summarizes some of Drucker’s ideas.
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[Swaim] expands on Drucker’s concept of ‘planned abandonment’. Drucker had often stressed that the first step in strategic thinking and planning is to “get rid of yesterday”. This means that companies should make systematic analyses of their present businesses and products. Those that no longer fit the purpose and mission of the business – those that no longer make a “superior contribution” – should be abandoned. A key question that Drucker often liked to ask management was: “If we did not do this already, would we go into it now?”
Keeping declining products or services, according to Drucker, would stunt the growth of companies. “The resources being used to keep it alive should be allocated to tomorrow’s opportunities and new products”, Drucker used to say.
What brought this idea of planned abandonment to my attention was running across an article at ALA online – When Interdependence Becomes Codependence: Knowing When and How to Let Go of Legacy Services (PDF) by Katherine Furlong and Mary Evangeliste. Both academic librarians from undergraduate liberal arts colleges in Pennsylvania gave a presentation at ACRL 2011 in Philadelphia, March 30 to April 2.
Planned Abandonment in Libraries
A review of the library literature conducted by the authors returned very few results concerning abandoning services. Hardly any libraries and librarians have openly embraced the idea of planned abandonment and the ones that have, have tended to focus on applying these ideas to internal operations such as reorganizing staff structure, developing needed skill sets, competencies and external communication strategies for the future, or an analysis of drivers of change and vision for successful future. And although there are mentions as far back as 1994 of the late Peter Drucker’s ideas and their possible application to libraries to date there have been no actual case studies presented on the abandonment of a legacy service.There are many reasons why librarians do not adopt planned abandonment and most of them are based on assumptions, emotional responses and a general discomfort with change.
The authors go on to analyze the behavior of librarians stating that more study on whether the profession is generally conflict averse or just nostalgic for the past is necessary.
[W]hen we do pause to review Peter Drucker’s work, the relevance of his writings to libraries is clear. Drucker has been called the “The Father of Management” and was one of the greatest management thinkers in the twentieth century. In a 2003 interview, Drucker stressed that innovation isn’t “something one can add to a static organization.” He went on to state that the “first requirement” of being an innovative organization is to embrace “organized systematic abandonment.”
Let me repeat that. The first requirement of being an innovative organization is to embrace organized systematic abandonment. Which means “open innovation” and “planned abandonment” go hand-in-hand! A library can not have one without the other. In order to survive and succeed in the 21st Century, a library needs to adopt these new 21st Century skills – crowdsourcing, open innovation, digital discovery and planned abandonment (and whatever else will be added to this list).
BTW: Peter Drucker was also the originator of the idea that the Customer Is The Purpose.
A company’s primary responsibility is to serve its customers, to provide the goods or services which the company exists to produce. Profit is not the primary goal but rather an essential condition for the company’s continued existence. Other responsibilities, e.g., to employees and society, exist to support the company’s continued ability to carry out its primary purpose. marketing crossing
Here are three specific library examples from Sally Pewhairangi’s, a librarian in New Zealand, Blog 3 Things to Add to Your Library’s “Stop Doing” List. Thanks!
Hi Steve,
Excellent post. I’m a huge fan of Peter Drucker’s clarity of thought and getting to the nub of the matter in practical terms. I also firmly believe that libraries need to be more rigorous in their planned abandonment and wrote a blog post about it earlier in the year. My post suggests libraries create a “stop doing” list rather than a “to do” list and provides some everyday examples of how this can be done based on Drucker’s systematic abandonment principles. You can read more here if you’re interested http://findingheroes.co.nz/2011/02/01/3-things-to-add-to-your-librarys-%E2%80%9Cstop-doing%E2%80%9D-list/
Thanks! Specific examples are always welcome, so I’ve added your Blog Post link to this Post.
I’m always impressed by how global this librarian profession is, as well as the common issues, practices and examples.
I too am grateful that the issues and practices of the profession are global. It opens opportunities for collaboration, innovation and better services for our customers regardless of where we live. Thanks for adding me into your post
Hello!
Katherine and I are collecting proposals for a forthcoming ALA book on planned abandonment in libraries. DUE DEC 15th.
Have you a planned to abandon or change a legacy service, resource or space? Did you use strategies or methods that other librarians can learn from?
Here is the formal call:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
CALL FOR CASE STUDIES
* *
ALA EDITIONS BOOK: CALL FOR CASE STUDIES/PROPOSALS
* *
Abandon all Fear: assessing, evaluating and letting go of legacy
services (forthcoming 2013)
* *
We invite proposals for case studies to be published in a forthcoming
ALA Editions book Abandon all Fear: assessing, evaluating and letting
go of legacy services, an edited collection of case studies examining
how librarians in all types of organizations are responding and
adapting to cataclysmic budgetary and programming changes.
* *
The book will be edited by Mary Evangeliste, owner of the consulting
collaborative Fearless Future and Katherine
Furlong, Director for Access and Technical Services for the libraries
of Lafayette College
* *
Have you had to change, adapt, even abandon services, spaces or
programs in light of the recent economic conditions? We’re looking
for case studies focusing on how libraries of all types are changing
and adapting service models to let go of obsolete or less useful
programs. Given the current economic climate, libraries can no longer
afford to maintain the status quo. But instead of reacting in a
panicked fashion to budgetary and staffing challenges, librarians can
choose a measured, proactive response. If you think you’ve found a
new means of being relevant to your users, please share your story.
We welcome proposals from librarians, library administrators,
trustees, faculty or other partners both individually and as teams.
The proposal should consist of an abstract of 500 words together with
all author contact information. Please include in proposal the issue
faced, the strategies and assessments used to examine the issue and
the result. Case studies should run at least ten double-spaced pages