My name is Jennifer peterson and I'm excited to welcome you to today's session and welcome our presenter.
Welcome, Christa Werle, she comes to us from the Sno-Isle Library system here in Washington.
We're really excited to hear about the excellent work she's done motivating her country and team around idea management >> Christa Werle:  Thank you, Jennifer.
Hello, everyone.
I'm excited to be with you here today, talking about something I really find value in.
I've been in my position as Public Services Project Manager for almost two and a half years.
It was a new position for Sno-Isle but we had managers.
Idea management was my first big project and I hope you leave today sharing some of the passion I feel about it.
I'm also hoping you'll have a better understanding of what idea management is and we'll let you score your library strength and I hope you'll leave with idea management.
Just so you know where I'm coming from, here's a little bit about Sno-Isle Libraries.
I have to tell you, even here in Washington state, people ask, where is that?
It's two county regional system.
We have a fair amount of residents who are spread out over 200,000 square miles.
21 physical locations and an outreach service on wheels.
Our budget is 98% property tax and Timber tax and we have a wide mix of service areas.
You can see the islands there.
We have tribal lands in our service area.
We are in the greater Seattle metropolitan area, so suburban and rural.
Where I live is by the 10-acre parcels.
You can see the geographic diversity that's a challenge for us.
Technology access is really not.
We do watch metrics on this.
We have only one major industry and employer, Boeing.
Some argue we have the navy.
Small businesses are a big part of out community and something we focus on.
Before I launch into content, I want to get you thinking with me.
I want you to think about what service or workflow idea you've been wanting to see tested or implemented in your library.
If you downloaded the learner guide, there is extra space in it.
If not, you can use scratch paper.
You can go ahead and type into chat, if you want to share with the group today using all participants.
Again, what service or workflow idea have you been wanting to see tested or implemented in your library?
Online payment.
I see that.
Pop-up libraries.
Great.
Keep those ideas coming.
You can keep entering them into chat and hold on to these ideas because we're going to come back to them.
But before we do, let's get on the same page about what innovation really is.
I think it's a buzz word.
I mean, we can't go to any regional meeting or conference without hearing, library innovator or die.
Sometimes we are going to those meetings and conferences and, you know, what happens in that moment?
You think about that.
We're really inspired.
We're like,  yay, we have to in ovate or die.
We get really inspired.
And then we think about how we're going to do that.
Does it get a little scary?
We feel fear.
Sometimes we're scared and then overwhelmed and then we leave the meeting, fly home from the conference.
We get back into our job and our routine and get on with our business and that inspiration escapes us.
We are still holding it, but it doesn't have a path.
We don't move forward often.
So, why -- why idea management is important starts with defining what it means to be innovative.
I want to start off talking about that.
We all agree that at the 21st century rate of change, we're experiencing to survive and prosper, we need to modify our products and services.
Because of my experience in management, I say it is the means by which innovations are effective.
I see a lot of you have good ideas for what to try out.
How do we harness that insight rather than implement the strategic plan from a top-down way.
I would argue we do that by being organizations that value innovation.
So, what does that take?
It takes capsuring that inspiration.
Not just leaving the conference inspired and then overwhelm and then into routine.
Capturing it, accepting that fear about how to do it because the dictionary definition of innovation is new and new ways or new methods or new thinking often mean change and change can be really scary.
We want to provide paths for feeling overwhelmed and not get back into the routine of our jobs but make new ideas routine.
It's continuely asking why.
You are all people who don't just do what you're told, right?
Anyone give me some smiley faces if you agree.
You need to understand why you're doing the work you're doing.
You need to find value in that work, right?
That's leadership.
So, Heather Braum, she's another library leader like you, she has more about creating a culture of innovation by asking why.
There is a link.
She did a webinar with WebJunction, there is a link in the resources.
If you're interested in knowing more about creating a culture.
I'll talk more about my perspective about what's in that culture.
I think we start with trust.
Trust creates oxytocin, this is a diagram.
It is tied to empathy.
With empathy comes valuing of vulnerability and people being willing to put forth vital information.
I would argue that new ideas are that vital information.
Everyone gets along with a shared mission and goals without polarization when you have trust.
You can also have accountability and learning from failure without blame.
So, workplace where it's safe to say, I messed up.
This isn't working.
Let's fix it.
Let's fix it together.
When you have this trust, you can capture innovation and accept the fear.
We also want to encourage innovation by having strength-based support system instead of progressive discipline.
So this goes back to asking why.
Instead of that department, that team, that crew, that person is a mess, it's harder, but more important to ask, why is that department a mess?
Why is that team, that crew, that person a mess?
And then help them identify it for themselves and help them work through the solutions.
So, we need to break that -- 
that kind of habit of going, oh, man, we're a mess.
Also, if rules and policies are stopping great stuff, get rid of them.
Let me say that again.
If rules and policies are barriers, get rid of them.
We're in the process, right now, of changing a couple policies that we had to change to implement a new idea.
It's not easy.
you have to go through steps and get the board approval but it's worth it to remove barriers that no longer made sense to our customers.
It encourages drive and drive is another characteristic of innovative people and organizations.
so, it also takes acknowledge through gratitude and celebration.
These guys know all about celebration, right?
It's not asking the why questions, but celebrating why we do what we do.
This kind of grace, it helps increase choice at appropriate levels throughout the organization and we're pushing and rewarding critical thinking down and out, rather than dictating what should be done.
I have a thing for minions, by the way.
[LAUGHTER] 
Just to prove I'm not making this stuff up, this is just one of the many infographics that have been published on innovation out there.
We're talking about the culture and that's what we're in the middle of talking about.
We talked about leaders.
willingness to challenge norms and take risks, that's about breaking those rules and policies that aren't working.
The ability to capture ideas through the organization, that's the process of idea management.
That capacity and capability for creativity, CEOs say this is necessary for innovation and what the most innovative companies do to stay on top is allow all employees to be creative and come up with their own ideas.
If there's one thing you can do to move idea management forward, start with this.
Add creative time to your schedule, your agendas.
Recognize there is value and time for thought and sharing.
I just built in a couple minutes to check in.
Are there any questions, from chat, that I can address now?
Use all participants, please.
>> Thanks, Christa, I haven't seen any specific questions come through yet.
Yes, please post questions, as they come to you.
There was a question about the learner guide and I'll remind folks that the guide is available on what will become the full archive of today's session.
But it is available on event page and I'll post that link there.
I guess I posted part of the link.
[LAUGHTER] 
Yeah, are there any other questions that folks have for Christa, at this point?
Here, we go.
Here's a good one.
Paul says he likes the idea of managing from the middle.
Are there -- how are new ideas evaluated?
>> Christa Werle:  So, I'll talk some more about that later on in the webinar, Paul.
We start with a peer review team, a peer review process and I'll outline that.
The rule that we're getting rid of, Karen, we are removing the requirement for a parent signature to get a card for children.
>> Wow, that's kind of a big one >> Christa Werle:  Yeah, it's a big deal.
We have 12,000 kids with blocked cards because at some point, someone had used their card or they lost it.
We want to change that so any kid can come in to a library and walk away with at least one print book and we're hoping that get kids reading.
>> interesting.
That is a great idea.
One more technical reminder, if folks aren't seeing the chat panel yet, click on the chat bubble on the right corner of the view.
We have folks posting to chat and we'll be collecting some more questions, there, as well.
So, don't hesitate to post.
If you have answers to each other's questions, also don't be afraid to post responses.
>> Christa Werle:  Okay.
Great.
By the way, we don't have signs.
So, I'll move on.
[LAUGHTER] 
So, give me another  another smiley face if you have an idea in a flip chart somewhere.
You've been to that brainstorming session.
You're really engaged.
The facilitation was great.
Maybe you even got to use the great smelling smelly orange pen or dot stickers.
Is your idea still in that flip chart?
That That idea didn't have a chance to flourish.
Maybe you never understand why it didn't go anywhere or three years later, that idea was implemented and you never got to add value to make that happen and you probably didn't get credit for having that idea.
Three other people had that idea and spent time thinking about it and discussing it.
It happens to our frontline staff, the staff that interact most, that have the most direct contact with our customers.
The ones who experience what our customers experience.
It happens more to them than our managers because our managers have different avenues.
It's not about having a culture of innovation.
It's about having an innovation process, a path for those ideas.
So, those are the Google image search results for innovation process.
Where do you start?
There's so many different ways to look at it.
Which one?
[LAUGHTER]
well, let's start with a definition of idea management, it is the structured process of generating, capturing, improving valuable insight or alternative thinking that otherwise would not have emerged your normal processes.
Phew, that's a mouthful.
Basically what this is saying is that the innovation process is too important to leave to chance.
Those paper napkin scribbles, the side conversations, the notebooks and flip charts.
Having structure is how we take the fear and overwhelming feelings out of innovation and make it doable.
So, to answer the question I posed, where do I start with all those crazy things?
I would say we start with the generation and selection.
This is really the true focus of idea management and it's where any of those innovation processes -- actually, any of our decision making processes, for that matter, that's where they begin.
So, the idea management structure has qualities very similar to an innovative organization.
I've already talked about some of those.
Are you ready?
We're going to do a little exercise to learn more from you.
>> Thank you so much.
So, for those of you have not ever been in our sessions where we give you power or the annotation tools, I'll ask you to go to the top left corner of your screen and click on that marker.
Then, go half-way down the annotation menu and click on that little square shape and it'll give you a pop-up to get to a checkmark.
Once you've got that open, let me see your checkmarks on the screen so we can have you practice your checkmarking.
Excellent.
Looks like many of you are finding it.
And for those of you that are Macs, those annotation tools, I believe, show up elsewhere.
I'm quite sure at the bottom of the screen.
Feel free to look around and find those options elsewhere.
We do like the smaller checkmarks because our activity on the next screen will have some smaller boxes to pick from.
All right.
So, find the -- that little box and find the checkmark under your options for the checkmarks.
All right.
And now, we're going to ask you to pause your checking because Christa's going to move us along and introduce you to the next slide.
So, let's all pause our practicing and Christa, I'll let you decide when you're ready to move on.
>> Christa Werle:  Okay.
I think everyone paused.
Here we are.
Scorecard time.
Go ahead and put a checkmark in the squares that describe your libraries culture.
And there might be more than one.
I think I mentioned some of these attributes already and what makes an organization innovative.
Transparency was a really high value to Sno-Isle when we did our needs assessment and we found that embracing transparency contributes to that building of trust and understand and accountability, which fits into other pieces of the process of structure we need.
A lot of people are checking in scope.
That's about what our focus is, or what our strategic plan is.
We don't just want a suggestion box, right, when we think about taking in ideas.
We might want ideas about specific campaigns or specific departments might want feedback.
So, when you think about setting scope or you have scope, start with your strategic plan there.
There's a couple things I would add to this, when I thought about it some more.
You want to be able to, in your idea management structure, introduce veto power early.
You don't want to waste time and resources on ideas that don't have a chance from the beginning.
I think scope helps with that.
You also want to be able to assign champions, owners with a stake in the outcome of that idea.
Those were other things we found of value.
Look at that.
This is great.
This has a lot of fantastic things about libraries.
Let's see some of the areas that we have less checks on.
The valuing of vulnerability.
That's really hard, isn't it.
It's hard to say, I really messed that up.
I'm going to fix that, can you help me?
Transparency, it's a little bit harder for us, too.
By room to breathe, I mean that the structure's not fixed.
That it can bend and be flexible.
That it has a solid path but it's not always set in stone.
So, it's adjustable.
In management terms, we might call this continuous process improvement.
We're willing to say, oh, man, the first time we did that, it didn't work.
We need to revisit and stretch it and make it work differently.
I'll answer a couple questions because we have time.
It is hard to be vulnerable and fail when you may end up wasting taxpayers money.
I would argue that if you're learning from that failure, you're not wasting resources but I'd love to hear more about that.
Scope doesn't mean that there's a structure for aligning and organizing ideas.
Scope means there parameters around those ideas.
We often create a scope statement when we start a project and that's just saying, these are the parameters.
I'll talk about what the scope of our idea management platform is.
It is usually within our strategic plan, the purpose or main services of our organization.
Does that help you answer the question about scope, Paul?
Okay.
Great.
All right.
So, look how well you got your checkmarks in the boxes?
[LAUGHTER]
that's awesome.
Okay.
So what does Sno-Isle libraries do?
Jennifer, we're done there.
How on earth -- how on earth did this concept of idea management -- which, by the way, is warmly embraced in the pro-profit world.
You can read what Google would do.
How did we get focused on innovation and user center designdesign?
It was pretty natural.
In 2013, our leadership team were thinking about how to affect culture change toward innovation at the same time that innovation team examples began to be presented.
In fact, Seattle public library memebers joined us and did a session and did a session on faces of innovation.
Kendra Trachta presented prototyping.
She asked to take one idea out of the flip forward and carry it forward.
So out came the markers and the flip chart pages were flipping and a lot of good ideas were coming out.
And I still remember when a staff member, from one of our smallest and definitely, our most rural library spoke up with the idea that we should capture and share all this thinking beyond this one session.
And that was the idea that chose and that became my job to implement.
So, we started thinking and reresearching and discovered that this wasn't new.
I set up the idea management process.
Sno-Isle libraries is using idea management internally.
There are examples of opening this up to the public and we are on track to do that.
Whether via the same platform or not, we are starting to look at how to open it up externally and use it in our planning process and to our customers.
Again, I want to revisit that idea management is not about having a suggestion box or a feedback think.
It is about aligning our thinking to the purpose of libraries.
libraries.
So, these are the questions we ask when an employee submits an idea.
This is the process for submitting ideas.
It's important to a larger culture change that's in effect because they're asked for consideration of outcomes, outputs and impact at a level that is appropriate for anyone in the organization to participate.
A peer review team helps to vet the answers to these questions and they help develop ideas that move forward for management consideration.
If answers don't meet criteria developed by the peer review team, they don't move forward to management.
So, let me reiterate.
Management did not create these questions or the criteria.
Nor, do they have a role in enforcing them at this decision point in the process.
That's all up to a peer review team.
And, 96% of our employees, including pages, are participating in some way on this platform.
So, thinking about those questions.
What's the demands for this idea?
How do you know this is really something people need?
How does that tie to our strategic plan?
 What outcome?
What change in the customer can we be measuring and where will we see the impact?
Who or what inspired the idea?
Why have you talked to about it?
Have you been sharing and discussing how much development does this have?
Has the manager or person responsible for that area of outcomes in our organization been talked to?
So, it's time to write again.
Get your idea back out.
Pull it from your short-term memory if you didn't have a chance to write that down.
Take that idea you started with at the beginning and add information about the demands for this idea.
How does it add value the organizational outcomes your library's wanting to achieve?
What is the level of impact in your library service area?
How is your idea inspired and who have you talked to about it?
When you can answer these questions about your idea, that's when I would say it has strategic readiness and it's the value added making it ready to share.
You have added value to just an idea.
So, let's see.
You have some questions.
While you're jotting down ideas, I'll try to answer them.
What if there are no demands but you want to try it anyway?
Carolyn, in Sno-Isle Libraries, I would say you may have to take a leap of faith in establishing demands sometimes, but you've got to start with something.
You have to know there's a need and that's based on our communities needs.
It could be.
It could be part of the idea to build demand.
[LAUGHTER] 
I imagine the 4% that aren't participating probably don't get to sit at a computer very much and don't have access to a workstation.
I haven't narrowed down who that 4% is and asked them specifically.
>> Christa, there was a question when you were talking about the in-service day.
Everyone gets excited when you say in-service.
There was a question about if you can share the agenda for the in-service day.
I'm not sure if you can send that to me and I can post it to the page?
>> Christa Werle:  Yeah, I could probably dig that up.
[LAUGHTER]
>> it probably feels like it was awhile ago.
>> Christa Werle:  Yeah, it was.
I know people in human resources that probably have it so I will get that to Jennifer.
I'm going to move on.
So, thank you for taking some time to develop those ideas a little bit more.
And now I'll tell you kind of some more details of what we did.
Please remember, this is what we did.
It's just one example and I don't think there's any right way to do idea management or any one way.
It's got to be based on what works for your organization.
so, more on what we did.
We had a representative group of front-line staff, doers, people with technology, the idea originator, stakeholders.
This might be a small team or work group.
We took common themes from brainstorming that gained traction from our stakeholders and that became what the solution would do for us.
Rural, small, medium, large, if you're intent on building a process for your library, you can't know what that process will be until you define what you need so start with that.
Start with a needs assessment.
Think about what's going to build up those innovative qualities in your organization.
You heard me say, stakeholders, I'm talking about the people who have a stake in making this successful or not.
It could be managers of resources or decision makers, it could be your customers, advocates or opponentss.
It could be vendors sometimes.
Those are our stakeholder groups.
When I mention sponsor, for Sno-Isle, that means the person on the executive leadership team and is willing to go to bat to prioritize it, et cetera.
We had -- and in a few places --
still have fear about this process.
We were scared that we'd have to say no.
And that if we did that too much, it would hurt morale.
We were scared that putting these ideas out there would undermine the decision making of our managers, that maybe it would open too many cans of worms or take too much time, take too much staff time.
Each of these things is less of a concern the longer we manage the process.
We found that none of them really actualized.
Idea management is how we take this fear and being overwhelmed out of innovation, so having the process dealt with some of those concerns.
And, the decision making's really important.
I think that the fear is being dealt with and disappearing because our process includes commun communicaing the why of our decision making.
The why takes away the fear and once that is articulated, we can't really undermine the decision making process.
So, we did a market evaluation.
At that time, we had emerging had emergeg technology group.
We were able to create and go off the shelf and go off the shelf.
There were 10 times as many software ideas out there.
This time last year, there were four times as many so you see a trend, right?
You may not need third-party software.
You may not have money for third-party software.
Our I.T. software manager likes to tease me.
This can be done with index cards, push pens, sticky notes and bulletin boards, depending on what you need.
We needed it to be online because of our geographic distribution.
If you're one building or one location, online might be a very low priority, even if it would be nice to have, it isn't worth the resources.
We found what products met those needs.
I want you to keep in mind that customization can be very expensive.
These vendors are smart and they offer them in modules that allow further customization that they can charge more for.
Did that happen to us?
Yes, it did.
To be honest, the cloud-based platform is a nominal expense to us compared to the salary of hosting and maintaining this in-house on our cms RR would be.
We spend about $7,000 annually for our license.
Going back to that idea of scope.
We use our strategic plan to develop criteria for the peer review process.
This group, this become the idea review team.
So having criteria a focus on our peer reviewers and our customer service team and the core services of the public or in our strategic focus to create Literate, economically sound communities.
Having this strategic plan at hand is extremely valuable as we progressed.
if you are interested in knowing more about a one-page strategic plan and if it would work for your library, our deputy director, Kendra Trachta is doing a plan session.
Only a subset of ideas is moving forward, right.
That's subset has a very strong connection to your strategy.
And, this is something else that any size library can do, live and breathe your goals.
know where you're headed together.
If you don't have strategic plans or goals, lead from within and demand to know it.
Demand to know where you are going.
There are resources available to insure that every library is moving forward with intent and purpose.
This idea of having a strategy is what keeps us from getting distracted by bright, shinny, cool ideas that thin our resources and weaken impact.
The platform we selected -- you didn't miss it, it was idea scale.
That's the one we are using right now.
So, here's kind of a timeline of what we went through.
We started discussing a draft of the process and opened an application for the team.
We included half-time and full-time.
They had to be 20-plus-hour employees.
We appointed a team of seven and they have 12 to 24 months.
They have to commit to 12 months and they can cycle off.
We've only had one person cycle off early because they had accepted another position.
Our people stick around and do the full two years.
It was in the third phase, the month two to 3 when we were piloted implemented that we realized though we had built the process, we hadn't articulated that scope to the idea management community.
We were getting ideas about treadmill desks and staff benefits and events but we weren't equipped to handle that.
It was staffed with our public services people.
We added scope to our communication plan.
For a team to communicate with a community, it's very helpful to have standard copy and paste boiler plate language so we're sending the same messages consistently.
Our internet host all this dockumeation, including scripts, criteria, they're available to any employee.
That transparency was a requirement so we've held that to be of high value.
Because we did prototyping, we went want into continued process and improvement in that first year.
Now that the project is complete and we have a structured process for capturing, generating, improving, that's on our idea scale platform.
We are working on the best way for us to evaluate those outcomes impacts and improval points and prioritize, meaning how to assign or leverage resources and alternatives, along with strategic direction.
So, we're seeing ideas progress from the individual transactional level to broader community impact.
There, in year three, it says we need to revisit our needs.
So the cost of our subscription's going up and we want to make sure it is still what we need and we're still being good stewards.
So,let's take a couple of minutes to check in.
Jennifer, I see a few things piling up.
I'm not sure if they're questions or statements.
>> There are a few questions that came through.
I saw someone -- someone asked in terms of identifying the need, could it be a need people don't know they need and how would you get to understanding that unknown need?
>> Christa Werle:  Other people, feel free to add to the chat and answer that question.
I think that this is about having community conversations.
So, I think that, you know, we are really good at letting people know what library resources are going to meet their needs and telling people about all the things available to them, that we provide.
I think we all can work and do better at listening to our communities and having them tell us what they need and let them drive the services and programs that we offer.
That's what I mean by the demand.
It's really what our communities are telling us, in community conversations, what we know about our economies, what we know about the people who live in our communities, they are the best ones to identify the demand, I think.
That's my opinion.
Push back.
>> That is a good one.
I'll share, too, we did a web nar with some folks who have used community-led librarys, it takes idea management into more engagement with community decision making.
That may be a place to go.
There was a question about -- 
well, first, I know you've touched on who's on the peer review team.
But can you talk more about how those folks are selected and how do you insure that you're representing folks across different roles and different sized libraries?
>> Christa Werle:  Sure.
So, we do an application process, just like we would for any position.
So, we have a job description that outlines the commitments and requirements and then we ask -- we have an application that they complete, which asks four questions and those four questions are really about the outcome that we expect people to get from participating on the team.
And, then, a supervisor has to sign off on their application and all that.
And we have a public services management team that meeting regularly, so I am responsible for the idea management process.
I take in those applications.
I have a matrix, a scoring matrix that I use that includes the answers to those four questions, as well as their professional development goals and their position in the organiztion and how it aligns with who's already on the team.
So, we do consider, do we have paraprofessional staff?
Do we have librarians?
Do we have someone representing supervision or management?
That is all part of the scoring card.
Does that answer your question?
>> yes, that's helpful.
Have you found yourself in situation -- has the team found themselves in situations where there's a little bit more give or take between departments or people's priorities?
>> Christa Werle:  The team has not.
So, the team are the first decision gates.
So, they -- their job is to take those ideas as they come in and determine whether or not they meet a basic set of criteria.
Managers don't get to say -- 
they don't get to influence that.
>> Have there been situations where people have been still not been pleased with how the peer review team has addressed their idea?
>> Christa Werle:  No.
>> Okay.
>> Christa Werle:  Honestly, it's really worked pretty well.
We have lesson learned, though.
Let me share those with you.
We'll have more time at the end to get to the rest of your questions.
Here's the dirty laundry or brutal honestly.
It is an acceptance of failure, so I'm going to do this.
This may get what -- touch on what you're getting at all.
We learned that having our norms or organizational standards of behavior and a statement about the commun communication standards made our lives easier.
So when it occurred and it wasn't the norm, we could handle them with a performance management feedback session and it turned into that individual thing.
So that's another thing any library can do, set clear expectations for contributing to the process that you come up with.
Go into this with the awareness and understand for the need to communicate that a professional platform is different than a social platform and that our language and behavior may and probably should be different.
I believe it's a skill to communicate effectively so this is something that our idea review team really hones in on.
We also collaborate almost exclusively online.
So we have digital meetings monthly.
All the interaction that takes place around ideas is done through the platform, which is online.
Someone asked about this, the exception we have one in-person team building retreat each year and that's a three-hour meeting in the afternoon.
That's where we kind of get in together and do team building exercises.
We set our charter or our goals for the year that we're going to accomplish together and we do that in person.
Everything else is online.
It's extremely cost-effective.
We really couldn't meet in person because of our geographics.
As part of this practice of idea management, we're building these 21st century skills throughout our organization so there's professional development there, too.
You can't just go out and buy some software and have idea management.
So, this map is not about our software, but it is the process that meets our needs.
So any platform we have rests on this process.
If the software fails tomorrow or our budget fails, the process doesn't have to stop.
I know you can't read or see the details of these flows, I'd be happy to share it with you, if you're interested.
I just want to point out that what we have learned is having this visual flowchart on the process and can rather than subjective issues.
If there was a problem, a manager said, I don't understand why this idea got to me.
I could pull out this map and show them how it got there and focus on how it is working and not working rather than getting involved in a subjective discussion about whether there was value in this or not.
Having this allowed me to disengage from debate and facilitate conversation.
You know, we started knowing that we needing management buy-in because the process map end up with managers, we outlined expectations and created tools for them.
The process created this glut of workload and that had potential to negatively bias manager's acceptance of the whole process.
They were not always calm about this.
Despite all efforts, not all managers understood the value.
That was a communication problem.
I would have been more aggressive about our communications plan with management and figured out how to avoid that glut of workload.
Workload has normalized now.
It gained strength throughout the organization and I do relationship management through reaching check-ins as part of our communication plan so I know it's still working with our managers.
So, four of our peer review members have been promoted into supervisory or management position.
Let me tell you where we are today.
We have one idea today -- no, I guess this was last week.
We have two ideas today that are in review by that peer review team.
Operational manager review is where there is one manager who makes a decision in that area.
And so we have about 30 ideas that are sitting with our managers to determine whether we should move them forward or not.
Strategic review is that cross-departmental, requires resources and time and we have a process for that, that happens after idea management.
The not selected, those are things that we decided we either couldn't or shouldn't do.
We have the 35 ideas that are in process or waiting for vendor developments and we've implemented 70 ideas.
So, that not selected is scary,right?
We said no all those times.
But I see that as a success.
Because all of those ideas, they have answers from the right decision makers and those are articuled to everyone so we're no longer spending time on ideas that aren't going to happen.
Also with what's in progress or implemented just sitting out there for building and department managers, we have examples for them to grab.
They can look at this and talk about what we're doing to help them out.
And here's some examples of recent ideas.
So, these are things that -- 
well, you can see their statuss.
A lot of you talked about online payments.
We can't do it, we're a polaris library, too.
I love changing tables in mens restrooms.
Who would have thought about that but those who see dads bringing their babies and toddlers and getting frustrated because they don't have a comfortable place to take them and change them.
That was right from our front-line staff.
There's an example of what's something that came to strategic review, a business incubator.
Big resources, right.
We want to take a different approach to that one and that kind of goes into what comes next.
I'm going to skip examples because we're kind of out of time and I see some more questions coming in.
This slide is in -- in the presentation slides.
If you want to know more about some other libraries doing innovation or how they're doing it, I could follow-up with you or you could follow-up with me.
One thing I want to say about this, though, is that there are examples of libraries that have had innovation teams that are not still in existence.
I think what we've done at Sno-Isle is become operational and become sustainable for two reasons.
It's become part of one person's job.
I'm accountable for its continued function and success.
And two, all of us.
All employees are getting something out of it.
They're being heard.
Their decisions are being respected and we're seeing things happen that improve the customer experience.
Even if those examples aren't grand and flashy, but small tweaks that frontline staff saw necessary for years, they had no power to implement it.
Being heard, they created that power for themselves.
What comes next, I talked about strategy and system and processes for proposing projects and then we also have adopted management process.
So, more process.
We're finding that it works.
And it's breatheable.
We're not locked in to it.
So, we'll take some more questions.
We have a couple more minutes.
My intent is to be a resource for you, not just do this webinar and go hide.
If you call me, I will call you back.
If you email me, I will email you back.
So, any final questions in our last minute?
>> thank you so much, Christa.
There were a couple questions that were great in terms of an appeals process or if rejected ideas get submitted again and get tweaked?
>> Christa Werle:  We have a set of criteria for resubmitting ideas.
You can go back and see the original ideas or similar ideas.
The idea review team will ask, what changed?
What has changed in the environment or in the development of technology or customer needs?
Something would have had to have changed for the idea to be reconsidered.
>> People were very excited about your process map.
So, I actually am able to pull it from your powerpoint so I'll make sure to add that so people can see that.
There were -- have you found that there's -- I wondered if there's sort of like an easy five criteria step that your staff -- I mean, have people taken on ownership through ideas individualally?
Do they have a list of criterias or is it something that happens more deliberately?
>> Christa Werle:  The transparency's important.
the criteria are up on the internet.
The criteria are the answers to the same questions I asked you about your second round of thinking about your ideas.
Those are basically our criteria.
Can a change be measured from the customer's perspective?
Is there demand?
How does it align with our strategy or strategic plan?
>> excellent.
I think it's really telling your mention of staff that have been involved in the process, being promoted.
What a wonderful sort of result of the process, to build more engagement across your teams.
So, you're doing an excellent team.
It's obvious in hearing your story.
>> Christa Werle:  Well, great.
Thanks.
If I can help you do more of the same, let me know.
>> Excellent.
Thank you so much for offering your great services.
People, I'm sure, will contact you.
I know there were a couple comments in there.
They're already ready to send you something right away.
Thank you so much to everyone who was here.
Thank you, Christa, for your great presentation and that valuable learner guide.
There are questions in there that will take you further through this process.
Thank you, again, for all your time and all the work you do for your library and your community.
>> Christa Werle:  Thank you, Jennifer.
>> All right.
I will contact everyone once this is archived.
We'll be sharing the feedback with Christa.
Everyone, have a fantastic day.