Jinfo for optimising your research service
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

Abstract

Are you applying service reengineering techniques to optimise your research team? Jinfo's director of research, Robin Neidorf, explains how it can help.

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For the past several years, Jinfo has hosted "State of the industry" Community sessions at the start of the year, highlighting what our research tells us will be the most important topics and themes for the coming year. For "State of the industry 2018", one of our core themes is service reengineering.

Anyone responsible for optimisation of a research team take note: getting further faster doesn't mean superhuman efforts, doubling your headcount or cutting off a significant segment of your customer base. It means applying the principles of service reengineering to ensure you are:

1. Using your team to full capacity
2. Spending your most important resource - your time - on the activities that are most important to the business.

Make no mistake: this is not easy work. It requires us to take a hard look at how we get things done, be willing to pull them apart, and embrace change. However, I have seen first-hand the transformation that takes place when a research team applies these principles even to one portion of their work. 

Some examples include:

• One team reengineered their current awareness service provision and saves the equivalent of 16 hours of work each week.
  
  
• Two teams are currently being merged into one; as they make the transition, they are applying the principles of reengineering to avoid bringing bad habits into a fresh new workflow.
  
  
• A stressed-out manager who stopped trying to handle projects entirely on her own. Through reengineering, her next-in-commands are now taking on the early stages of projects and passing them to her when they are ready for her finishing touches. Not only is the manager less stressed, but her direct reports are getting valuable experience for succession planning.

Jinfo's broad base of industry research enables us to take the best experiences, analyse them to understand what makes them successful, and turn them into practical models and resources you can use in your own environment. Use the resources listed below to incorporate service reengineering into your 2018 plans. Or contact us about Jinfo Consulting, for a more personal approach.

Recent Subscription content of particular interest to our customers involved with optimising teams of researchers:

Articles:

• Using gamification design to improve engagement
• Q&A with InfoNgen - news aggregation & personalisation engine
• The data analytics challenge, is your team ready?
• Why information teams need change management skills
• Is service reengineering part of your 2018 strategy?
• How to improve your newsletters (part 2)
• How to improve your newsletters (part 1)
• DLA Piper - using Kira in a legal firm project

Reports:

• Product review of Aurora FirstLight
• Research Focus Insights and Actions "Stake your claim in the success of data analytics"
• Jinfo model for improving upwards communication
• Overview - Usecasehub from Evalueserve
• Market landscape - training for AI and data analytics

Webinars - recordings available to view for anyone with a Jinfo Subscription

• Current awareness in 2020
• Future-proof your service by refocusing on higher-value work

Upcoming

We're piloting online workshops in 2018, and they are off to a solid start. We still have a few seats available in the next one, which focuses on optimisation of information and research teams:

• Improving information team workflow and operations (April - June)

This is a three-session workshop, offered through Jinfo Community. If you have Community on your Jinfo Subscription, you can register for these workshops today.

But you do not need a subscription to participate. Join the workshop with a registration fee of £450. Learn more and register here, or send an enquiry to support@jinfo.com for more information. Only a few seats remain.

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