0012 body

Case: 0012

Sector: Legal (and other professional services)

When skimming the surface won't do

Should the information professional limit the depth of enquiry in helping to solve a user’s problem when time is limited?

Summary: In a very busy information unit of an investment bank the information professionals, being only two in number, often found the workload heavy. Prioritisation of enquiries sometimes meant that a decision was made to refuse to carry out a task for a user, or a task was only partially carried out, in order that more tasks could be completed within the time available, or that priority could be given to completing tasks deemed to be more important. The information professionals felt uneasy at having to refuse to carry out enquiry work, fearing that it would lead to criticism against them.

NOTE: This Case Study is fictitious. It is informed by experience in the information world, but it does not claim to represent a scenario of actual events or relate to individual people or organisations.

Case Study: The information professionals’ conscience weighed heavy, not only because they feared being criticised for having to deprioritise tasks, but because they also realised that it was too convenient always to blame a lack of time for an inability to carry out all their required work.

A fairly simple solution to this dilemma was introduced initially. Incoming enquiries were prioritised wherever possible, as one would expect. The enquirer and the information professional would agree on the nature of the information required and deadlines. The information professional also questioned the user’s actual requirements - in his experience users generally made nebulous enquiries, requesting more information than was necessary. The information professional, knowing something of the user’s work, offered to carry out the investigation using one named source (e.g. Factiva), yielding only a limited amount of information which would hopefully resolve the user’s immediate problem.

The combination of prioritising enquiry work and limiting information searches to single resources helped to manage the workload. In the majority of cases the user was happy with this expectation. Moreover, the user had seen in the information professional the degree of authority of a well-rounded professional.

Additional practical suggestions can be made to help to manage the workload, such as aggregating enquiries so that several can be carried out at one database session. The information professionals may also consider introducing standard ‘packages’ of information for common or routine enquiries, offering them on a menu basis (which also has the benefit of reducing cost).

Such practical solutions carry ethical obligations in their own right, of which perhaps the greatest is the need for the information professionals to ensure that the information resources they use are the most appropriate for the task at hand and not simply the quickest or easiest to use. {B7}

In any event, resolving the workload problem is important from an ethical perspective. Firstly, the information professional has a responsibility to ensure that he has sufficient resources (which may include time) to deliver an appropriate service. Secondly, he has a responsibility to inform his customers of the scope – and any limitation – of his service, which would include a warning that resources may be limited due to a heavy workload. {B1}

In this particular case we note that the information professionals are concerned about the possibility of criticism for not being able to carry out a certain number of tasks in a limited time. Whereas this feeling may not be based on fact or may not have been tested, the information professionals should not overlook their obligation to raise their concerns with appropriate managers, or at the least with users of their service. It could be speculated that by presenting a robust argument for their dilemma, perhaps by citing their ethical obligation to deliver the best possible service within available resources {4}, they will gain managers’ respect and understanding.

However, the information professionals still face dilemmas when genuinely there is limited time to carry out users’ investigations. Moreover, in certain commercial organisations there may well be pressure on employees of all kinds not to be seen to acquiesce to the convenient excuse of shortage of resources.

The information professional himself, though, ought not to view his inability to deliver an optimal service as a personal failing. A literal interpretation of CILIP’s Ethical Principle 4 (Provision of the best possible service within available resources) and section B1 of the Code (Ensure that information users are aware of the scope and remit of the service being provided) both support the information professional in such situations.

	Primary	Secondary
Principles	4	6
Code	B5	B1 - B7
Related cases	0011 - a case in which trainee actuaries' tasks are supported by the Information Manager; the extent to which he should enable them to learn from their mistakes is considered.

References:

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