An idea that I used at my first job out of library school was to divide employees into teams to strategize around our libraries' functional areas. The original breakdown I used was: collection development, programming, outreach, and marketing.
In my current job, I transferred the idea with a few changes dictated by context. We're now working with five functional area teams: collection development and maintenance, programming, outreach, public services, and information technology.
The idea behind these groups is to take critical library functions and assign people from all levels of the library to teams which then analyze, evaluate, and propose changes related to a particular function. This keeps those areas under constant "surveillance," allowing for quick adjustments to policies or procedures.
Another key component of these groups is that they're intentionally small. I suggest a maximum of five people per team. This enables the team to make decisions quickly and have an intense focus when necessary.
What are the functional areas in your library? Do you use a similar model for decision making?
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