Presented by David Kay, Strategic Development Director at Sero Consulting at

1. Fish
or
Fowl?
Vendor
or
DIY
or …
?
Image - http://www.bobcrowe.com/Stories/fish%20nor%20fowl%20-%20web.htm

2. Mission
Over the next 11.5 minutes we will consider
• Schizophrenia in library solutions procurement
• The hopelessness of hegemony
• The transcendence of LMS Change
Simples 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meerkat

3. Mission
Over the next 11 minutes we will consider
• Schizophrenia in library solutions procurement
• The hopelessness of hegemony
• The transcendence of LMS Change
Alternatively stated as … We will consider …
• Challenges and opportunities beyond the
standard ‘tick list’ of requirements
• Resources recently published by the Jisc funded
LMS Change project

4. Problem 1 - Schizophrenia
Library systems procurement is conflicted
• We want to replace a system v.
We want a bigger solution
• We know what we do now v.
Who knows what we might de doing in “the future”
• We want shrink wrapped serviced software (COTS) v.
We want a helping hand
• We want a one stop solution v.
Some suppliers want to bring their friends
• We want a vendor to beat upv.
Some options don’t have vendors
• (etc)

5. Problem 2 - Hegemony
Web
Scale
Activity
Social
Media
Publishing
Platforms
Search
Engines
Linked
Data
Bring
Your Own
Environment
Community
Shared
Services
Analytics
Proprietary
Shared
Services
Learning
& Teaching
Assets
Text Book
Evolution
Enterprise
Applications
Institutional
Library
Services
Open
Publishing
Vertical
Domain
Integration
Online
Courses
Cloud
Storage
Analytics Identity
Mgmt
Enterprise
Infrastructure Analytics
Trading
Research
Assets
http://lmsguidance.jiscinvolve.org/wp/policy-direction/
Horizontal
Enterprise
Integration

6. LMS Change ecosystem
considerations in 2013
extend significantly
beyond the service
boundaries and actors set
out in the 2009 HEFCE
study, thus reinforcing its
recommendations

7. Shared
Services
in
the UK
Image – Shared Services & The Local Library Platform – October 2012 - Innovative Interfaces

8. Digital Darwinism for Dummies
• Fact? (My assertion) – It’s a mixed economy, an evolving ecosystem
• Fact? (King of the jungle) – I have you covered
• Observations (Darwin, MIT90s, Kelly)
– Ecosystems are not always nice
– Only change is certain … and the cycles keep getting shorter
– Agility is the key to survival
• Possible Responses
– Pretend this is not the case
– Roll with the fittest survivor
– Promote those that play well together
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/15/colleges-prepare-major-software-upgrades-kuali-tries-woo-them-corporate-vendors

9. Identifying the fittest
• Tick all the operational boxes
• Can and will do everything themselves
• Play well in the local ecosystem
– “Do not preclude the library from taking part in [enterprise] conversations” - Winkler
• Play well in the community / global ecosystem
• Understand the other LSP players
• With appetite and resources to address the challenges you bring
• Live up to this in your procurement by
– Engaging in creative dialogue
– Demonstrating the working parts (e.g. Open interfaces, open data)
– Agreeing mechanisms to make this happen on an ongoing basis
Spot the
deliberate
error?

10. HELP!?!?
http://lmsguidance.jiscinvolve.org/wp/

11. LMS Change Methods - for working though
options internally and with potential suppliers
http://lmsguidance.jiscinvolve.org/wp/methods-toolbox/

12. It’s your fault not theirs
Steady on!
I’ve never
done this
before
How about …
• Don’t procure ‘a system’
• Don’t construct the business case around ‘a system’
• Think out of the box about risk
• Disconnect ‘the system’ from ‘the contractor’
• Procure against more than a tick list
• Devise scoring that reflects the balance between
functionality, integration and ‘commitment’
• Capture ‘commitments’ and services explicitly in the
contract
And procurement
won’t understand