Proposed Process for Vetting CARLI Products & Services

Executive Committee Recommendation
March 16, 2006

This process requires the formation of a new board committee called the Products & Services Vetting Committee (PSVC). It will be made up of 3 board members and 3 non-board members.  The AVP/ED will serve as the staff liaison to the Committee, calling on other staff expertise as necessary.

1.  Whether ideas came by phone, email or conversation, we will ask the person/group to fill in a web form answering some questions (below).  This will help them think about whether it was really an appropriate CARLI P&S and it will make sure that all of the people involved in the later steps had heard the same information.

What is the P&S; what does it do?
What problem does it solve?
Is it the only P&S that that does that?
Will this require integration with existing P&S?
What is the advantage of doing this consortially?

2. The PSVC will meet regularly (monthly) by conference call to screen the ideas received through this process. The PSVC decides which ideas are worthy of staff work and analysis. (This is an important step because the analysis on some P&S could take weeks of staff time.)

3A. For those ideas that make it past the first stage, staff does a substantial ‘work-up” and goes back to the PSVC (quarterly) with information, such as

What are the preliminary costs?
Would this have to be bid?
How much time would be required to implement this?
How long before it would realistically be available?
What are the on-going costs/
Will additional staff be necessary?

Using this information, the PSVC will weigh the pros and cons and set some priorities of what they think is most important, doable and why. 

3B. For those ideas that are not chosen for “work-up”, the chair of the PSVC will respond explaining why we are not following up at this time.

4.  Finally the PSVC makes recommendations to the Board on new P&S.  The Board has the responsibility for deciding yea or nay and considering what other things CARLI may need to stop doing in order to make the new things happen.

This process will be reevaluated in May 2007.