March 2012R esearch Library Issues: A Quarterly Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARCarc RLI 278 19 The ARL Balanced Scorecard Initiative Meets the ARL 2030 Scenarios McMaster: Using Scenarios to Test Current Strategic Plan At McMaster University Library, a scenario exercise was used in summer 2011 as part of a mid-course refresh of the strategic plan, which is managed using the balanced scorecard.10 The exercise was presented as a one-day retreat for all staff in the Organizational Development division of the library. Participating staff were from Accounts, Administrative Support, Development, Human Resources, and Marketing, and represented all staff categories, i.e., librarians, management, and support staff. The scenario exercise was led by the Associate University Librarian for Organizational Development (now the Acting University Librarian) and the Director of Assessment and Accountability, who had both attended the ARL workshop on planning with scenarios in March 2011. The goal of the exercise was two-fold: to test the library’s current strategic plan against the scenarios and to gather feedback on the use of scenarios as a strategic planning tool within our own organization. The daylong exercise was presented as a compressed version of the two-day workshop developed by ARL to test an existing strategic plan or agenda.11 Staff received the four scenarios in advance and were encouraged to review them prior to the retreat. As recommended by ARL, the workshop took place “off site,” at the DeGroote School of Business, on the Burlington campus. The agenda for the day was ambitious and is outlined in Figure 2. Figure 1: Strategic Planning through Scenarios and Balanced Scorecard (Learning Cycle) Source: Susan Stickley, “Planning with the ARL 2030 Scenarios,” slides presented at ARL Scenarios Workshop, Atlanta, 2011