Idea Map #69 - Identifying Gaps & Action Plans

Larisa Brigevich is the Director of the Global Research Library for Franklin Templeton. We met 3 years ago when I did an abbreviated workshop for their organization. We re-connected in December of 2007 when she attended the full 2-day Idea Mapping Workshop. A week after the class, she sent me this idea map. I'll let her describe it in her own words. Thanks Larisa!

"A few months ago, we established a standard process for assessing and capturing clients' information needs. This includes conducting interviews with individual clients to determine their information seeking behavior, sources they use, information gaps, how the library can help, etc. We capture this information in Client Profiles, the two standardized templates that we use for initial interviews and when developing a specific service (hence two templates). We store them in the database and update them when new information is available.

We have a project leader, a librarian in Mumbai, who oversees this process and makes sure that all parts of the process work smoothly and that librarians follow the guidelines. He is relatively new to the process. We also just hired a manager for the team in Mumbai. I believe that teaching is the best way to learn and internalize new knowledge; therefore, I asked the project leader to train the manager. I was an observer and a back-up person in case the project leader missed something. I wanted to evaluate a project leader's understanding of the process and identify and point out any gaps in his knowledge and in the process itself.

Idea Mapping allowed me to quickly identify gaps. We immediately talked about it and determined the action plan for improving the process as well as a training plan for future trainings."

For the pdf version of this map go to my website. If you click on any column it will sort alphabetically and you can then search by author or map title, etc.