Reading Public Library: Scenarios to inform resilient strategy

“The flexibility of the plan in part helps us to present our goals and efforts, because those goals and efforts can reshape as real world events interfere with business as usual…It really leaves room for creativity and the flexibility to adjust to the real world.”

Melissa Adams, executive director of Pennsylvania’s Reading Public Library, interviewed by Nancy K. Herther of the University of Minnesota, explains how a COVID-era scenario planning process informs robust and resilient strategy for her organisation and community.

“Another advantage was experienced during the transition between executive directors. The plan was decidedly not the prior executive director’s plan, it was the organization as a whole body’s plan. This made it easier for me, as the incoming executive director, to keep the plan moving forward…the article we co-authored has helped me really take ownership of this strategic plan.”