Benchmarking Workshops in Korea, Singapore and Taiwan
By Annette Gohlke, Library Benchmarking International
September 2001 was an exciting month
for Library Benchmarking International, a small consulting, training
and publishing firm located in Universal City, Texas, USA. Our
company was invited by several iGroup companies to give workshops in
Seoul, Korea; Taipei, Taiwan and Singapore. While we have presented
a variety of workshops at professional library conferences all over
the United States and Canada, this was our first experience in
presenting workshops to professional librarians in other countries.
Needless to say, we embarked on this new experience with both
excitement at being offered a new professional opportunity and a
chance to visit new countries, and some measure of trepidation and
concern about potential communication problems with our
audiences.
Fortunately
we had two and a half months to work with our hosts in each
country to customize our workshop presentations and handout
materials to meet the needs of each audience. We were assigned
a primary contact person in each location who was responsible
for making arrangements for the workshop, inviting
participants and coordinating our requirements. These three
people - Hyonjoo Yang from Shinwon Datanet Inc., Korea, Iris
Hsu from Chin Shan Information Services Company, Ltd. in
Taiwan and Susan Pey from Info Access & Distribution Pte
Ltd in Singapore - became our "lifelines" across the Pacific
Ocean. Using their in-depth knowledge of their customers'
needs, they were able to select the workshop content that they
believed would be most beneficial to their customer groups at
this time. The speed and convenience of electronic mail kept
us focused and flexible and able to make
content changes as needed.
Identifying customer
needs
Both Korea and
Taiwan wanted to host 2-day workshops that would offer two
courses -one on the benchmarking process in libraries (a
6-hour course) and one on identifying customer needs (a 4-hour
course). Since "identifying customer needs" is the first step
in the 5-step benchmarking model we use, it was decided to
combine the two courses into one by expanding step one in the
benchmarking course to include information from the needs
assessment course. We also eliminated some duplicate
information and removed any colloquial expressions that would
be familiar to US audiences but not to audiences in other
countries.
The final
course, Benchmarking for Strategic Performance Improvement,
was about 9 teaching hours long. This fit perfectly into the
10.5 hours available in Taiwan and allowed for a somewhat
slower delivery pace for the audience which all spoke English,
but as a second language. It was, however, a little tight in
Korea. While we had 12 teaching hours available, we
accelerated the English delivery to allow for all of the
material to be translated from English into Korean. It is a
tribute to the talents of Dr. Soyeon Lee, translator, that we
were able to stay within our time limits.
Developing process measures or
metrics
The 2-day
benchmarking course included 12 teaching units. The units
covered workshop objectives, benchmarking basics, a strategy
for success and the 5-step library benchmarking model. In
addition, it included the needs assessment process, needs
assessment tools, determining what to benchmark, understanding
library processes, developing process measures or metrics,
identifying partners, collecting and analyzing data,
presenting results to management and pitfalls and how to avoid
them. A comprehensive handout (105 pages) was given to each
participant. The handout included a copy of each slide with
room to make notes, sample surveys of information needs,
sample process flowcharts and measurements, reprints of
appropriate benchmarking articles and a comprehensive list of
references.
About 45
librarians attended the workshop in Korea, most from academic
institutions. In Taiwan, about 120 librarians attended from
academic, corporate, government and public libraries. Each
participant was asked to complete an evaluation form that is
used by the instructor to modify and improve future workshops.
Overall, feedback was very positive. The audiences felt that
the topic had very practical applications to their libraries.
They felt that the instructor established a comfortable
learning environment, delivered a strong presentation, used
concrete examples that were easy to understand and provided
comprehensive teaching materials in the handout. The
participants felt that the language and expressions used by
the instructor were suitable to the audience and easy to
understand.
Better understandin of local
management conditions
Some of the participants provided
excellent suggestions for future workshops. A few people
commented that the workshop was valuable enough to present in
more than one location in a country in order to reach more
librarians. Some people suggested that it would be helpful to
break into small groups to do some exercises and discuss
practical applications. A few people felt that the instructor
needed a better understanding of local management conditions
and major problem areas. They suggested that a survey could be
conducted before the workshop to establish management problems
and concerns. This could easily be done with enough lead time
before a workshop is presented.
According to
Dr. Misook Lee, president of Shinwon Datanet Inc. of Korea and
Mr. Lawrence Lai, president of Chin Shan Information Services
Company Ltd. of Taiwan, this was the first workshop of this
type to be sponsored by them. Both Dr. Lee and Mr. Lai were
very pleased with the turnout and general comments from
participants.
Singapore
wanted to host a 1-day workshop on benchmarking, so we
presented an introductory course, Benchmarking Basics for
Librarians, to about 65 attendees from all types of libraries.
This 6-hour course included seven units that describe what
benchmarking is, the forces that drive benchmarking in
libraries and the benefits of benchmarking. It also covered
the various types of benchmarking, the benchmarking process
and criteria and an overview of the 5-step library
benchmarking model. It also discusses the pitfalls of
benchmarking with suggestions on how to avoid them. This was
an easier class to teach and there was more time for
discussion because the class size was smaller and English was
a primary language of the participants. Mr. Kelvin Poh,
president of Info Access & Distribution Pte Ltd in
Singapore, was also pleased with the turnout and comments.
Librarians are friendly and intellectually
curious
We were able to
make several important observations during the workshops and
in visiting with participating librarians. We noticed that
librarians are friendly, respect their colleagues and are
intellectually curious - regardless of where they live or
which type of library they work in! We found that wherever we
went, librarians have far more in common than they have
differences. We listened to librarians and heard that they are
driven by similar customer needs, motivations and problems. We
heard the common customer concern - the need for more
information delivered quickly, conveniently and economically -
reiterated over and over. However, the variances in culture
and language did not overshadow the commonality of collegial
concerns. The purpose and need for librarians is as strong as
it has ever been and is basically the same - to meet the
knowledge needs of their customers and clients.
We want to
thank Mr. Pote Lee of iGroup and its member companies for the
wonderful opportunity to share our knowledge with other
librarians and, in turn, to learn from them. We also enjoyed
the opportunity to see new countries and enjoy other cultures!
This was truly an experience that can be savored over and
over!
Identifying customer
needs
