Conducting a needs assessment - 7
Barbie E. Keiser
University of Vilnius
May 2007
1
Designing information products that
will meet the needs of your
organization in the 21st century
• Consider alternative product development
processes that will work in your library
• How can library staff be encouraged to
define and develop comprehensive
information product lines?
2
Information needs assessment
looks outward
• A top-down approach to assessing the
information requirements of your
university and user community
• Broaden the base of products and services
offered by the library
3
Key questions
• How effective is the library in targeting
current user needs? Predicting future
needs?
• What information needs are not being
satisfied?
• Is the library targeting existing products to
potential users?
• Are new products necessary?
4
Framework for user-driven
information systems
• Understand the contexts from which the
need for information arise
• Various groups which generate, store,
analyze, publish, transmit, and market data,
information and knowledge within the
university
• How people and organizations choose to
use and distribute information
5
Know thy market
• Your market has many constituencies, each
with distinct information needs
• An ongoing, systematic process to
identification of information needs
• The librarian is no longer the only
gatekeeper
– Do you know your competition?
– How do you effectively deal with them?
6
Assessing the environment
• What’s happening in the world which may
change the way the organization performs?
• Are there shifts in focus or emphasis which
you should/must be aware?
– Be prepared for change
– Be flexible
7
The information products you
develop should...
• Support the goals and objectives of the
operating environment
• Be targeted to the segments most critical to its
success
• Be compatible with the culture of the
organization
• Employ appropriate technologies
8
Develop useful information
products that…
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Advance the organization strategically
Enhances recipient’s ability to act
Facilitate the decision-making process
Maximize the availability of accurate
information (QA)
• Minimize information costs, organizationwide
9
Develop useful information
products that…
(con’t)
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•
•
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Increase productivity
Help individuals function efficiently
Help user groups function effectively
Avoid duplication of effort
Reduce the time it takes to gather and
analyze information
10
This will...
• Increase your value to the organization/
your clients
11
Understand your customers...
• Who they are
• Their goals/objectives (and
strategies used to achieve
them)
• What are their driving
forces? Critical success
factors?
• How do they relate to one
another? Fit into the overall
structure?
• Why they need
information
– What purpose does it
serve?
– How do they use it?
• What type of
information do they
require?
– Technical
– Tactical
– Strategic
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…and their information needs
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What the “group” does
How well it performs
Where information plays a role
What type of information
Which sources and tools
How it obtains and uses information
Problem areas/opportunities
Personal preferences
Where the library fits in
13
Know your competition
• Internal and external
• Create alliances with your competition
14
The needs assessment process
• Identify where information is used
• Identify areas which could most benefit by an
improvement
• Identify sources of information and
destination through the organization
• Identify logical clusters of functions and
information groups
• Generate ideas for specific improvement
projects
15
The needs assessment process
• Meet with a few strategically important
groups
• Interview individuals
• Review interview results with your staff and
identify opportunities
• Reconvene focus group to review potential
project opportunities and ideas. As a group,
set priorities (to create stakeholders)
• Begin planning for new products identified
during needs assessment and prototype each16
What this says about your
organization
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Flexibility
Agility
Willingness to listen
Cooperative nature
17
Pose questions designed to elicit an
understanding of each group’s
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Objectives
Priorities
Problems
Functional business model
Information usage model
– To determine flows/stores/outside agents
– To determine statistics (e.g., frequency, critical
timing, store size)
18
Questions for your focus groups
• Describe what the group does and how well it
performs
– What is its role within the organization?
– What products/services does it provide? To whom?
– What resources does it manage? Budget?
• How does the group obtain and use information?
– What information does the group use? How
frequently?
– Where does it get that information?
– What information does this group produce?
– To whom is that information sent?
19
Why conduct a needs assessment?
• Determine how individual groups within the
organization relate to each other
• Track information flowing into the organization,
identifying the sources, and through it, identifying all
users
• Note all pockets of information (information
stores/warehouses)
• Analyze whether there is any duplication of effort.
Could complementary information be exchanged?
Could technology be shared?
• Suggest methods to improve management’s control
20
over expenditures for information
Needs assessment checklist
• Have you identified the information needs
of your organization as a whole, as well as
individual groups within the organization?
• Do you have a clear picture of how
information is obtained, managed and used
throughout the organization?
• Can you identify any problem areas? Do
these present an opportunity for the
library?
21
Use the results of your information
needs assessment to help user groups
• Manage their information more effectively
• Eliminate duplication of effort
• Facilitate communication among groups
22
The opportunity
• Information can eliminate the confusion
caused by a rapidly changing environment
• Find out what kinds of information people
need and want, and then deliver it
• Turn your competitors into allies
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The challenge
• Find a need and satisfy it
24