MEEP (Member-Exclusive Enhancement Process)

Katie LeBlanc & Alex Vancina · Los Angeles Room · General Track · Tuesday, April 14

The Life Cycle of an Idea

1. Idea Exchange

Tips for effective submissions:

• Be detailed about what you want, but broad enough that it doesn't cater only to your library
• Comments are as crucial as the idea itself — different use cases help product managers understand scope and see broad appeal
• Product managers actively monitor Idea Exchange; even ideas that never go through MEEP may get picked up independently
• When typing a new idea, the system shows similar existing ideas — if yours is close, comment on the existing one instead of creating a duplicate
• Similar ideas may be bundled by working groups or product managers during review

Idea lifecycle in the portal:

• Ideas are archived after 3 years if not selected
• Working groups get one final look before archival
• Archived ideas can be recreated by the steering committee without losing comments/votes (no longer starting from scratch)
• Product managers mark items as "planned" or "under consideration" — those are removed from MEEP consideration so working groups don't waste points on something already coming
• Product roadmap statuses have been cleaned up to "remove false hope" — only confirmed items with known release targets are shown

2. MEEP Working Groups

Working groups exist for five products:

Product	Annual Points	Elections/Year
Sierra	1,000 (2 × 500)	2
Polaris	1,000 (2 × 500)	2
Vega Discover	1,000	1
Vega Promote	500	1
LX Starter	100	1

Each working group:

• Has 6-12 members, rotated 50% annually for continuity + fresh perspectives
• Representation across consortiums, large/small libraries, and geography
• Can select up to 20 ideas per year from Idea Exchange for sizing
• Works directly with product managers to scope ideas and assign development points
• Time commitment: roughly a couple hours every six months — a month-long burst of activity, then quiet
• Each group is independent in how they approach review and prioritization
• After implementation, product managers demo the feature to the working group to verify it meets agreed-upon requirements

3. Point Sizing

Product managers work with their teams to estimate development effort in points:

• Working groups can request up to 20 ideas be sized per cycle
• Some ideas come back much larger than expected — working groups may ask PMs to break them into smaller pieces
• PMs may offer two options: full implementation at 400 points vs. partial at 100 points
• 1,000-point ideas have been put on ballots — winning one would consume the full year's points and skip the next election cycle

4. Election

• Site managers for each IUG member library receive a ballot
• Ranked-choice voting using the Hare algorithm — lowest-ranked ideas are eliminated in successive rounds, with votes redistributed to next preferences
• Elections run for at least 3 weeks
• Ideas are selected by going down the ranked results until the point budget is filled
• You don't have to rank every idea — only rank what you care about
• Ties go back to the working group to break
• Working groups can "borrow" from the next election's points for larger ideas, committing to skip the following cycle

5. Delivery

• Guaranteed implementation within 12 months of election — contractual agreement between IUG and Innovative/Clarivate
• All MEEP winners to date have been delivered on time
• Contract up for renewal at end of 2026 — both sides agree it's working
• Vega products release on a monthly cycle; Sierra and Polaris have two releases per year

Before MEEP: Why This Matters

Practical Tips from the Q&A

Know your site contact

• The site contact receives the election ballot
• Check at innovativeusers.org — Members — View profile
• If you don't see a primary contact listed, you are probably the site contact
• The site contact may default to whoever handles billing — this can now be separated so the right person gets the ballot
• Contact the steering committee if the role needs reassignment

Build internal support

• Encourage librarians, circ managers, and other staff to create Idea Exchange accounts and comment/vote directly
• You don't have to funnel everything through one person — staff who feel the pain points can describe them most effectively
• When a staff request comes in that Sierra/Polaris can't do, check if it's already in Idea Exchange — if so, add your use case as a comment

Use your networks

• IUG forums and the Discord community are good places to find allies for your ideas
• Lobby peer libraries to vote and comment — substantive comments carry more weight than just a thumbs-up
• Product managers (Sierra, Polaris) were in the room and emphasized: they read the comments, and ideas with strong community engagement get noticed even outside the MEEP process

Vote strategically

• Your #1 ranking keeps an idea alive through elimination rounds — make it count
• Don't rank ideas you're indifferent about; it could inadvertently boost something you don't need
• You can vote on products you don't use — if you're considering Vega but aren't on it yet, you can still vote for the features that would make you switch

Bugs vs. enhancements

• Product managers flag Idea Exchange submissions that are actually bugs and redirect them
• If you have a support ticket for a bug, link it to the related idea so PMs can connect the dots
• With the Jira integration, bug tracking should improve going forward

Working Group Recruitment

• Call for new working group members coming after the conference
• 50% rotation annually — experienced members stay for continuity
• Anyone in your organization can serve, not just site contacts
• You can serve on multiple working groups across products
• Vega Promote specifically needs more members — small working groups mean a few people are making choices for a large community
• Even non-users of a product can join its working group to help shape it toward adoption

Personnel Changes

• Katie LeBlanc was elected IUG Vice Chair/Chair Elect in January 2026 and is transitioning into that role after Thursday
• Lauren Arnsman (Troy Public Library) will take over Katie's Polaris MEEP responsibilities
• Going forward: Alex Vancina and Lauren Arnsman will co-coordinate the MEEP process
• Alex will present a similar session at the Boston conference

Winning Ideas Since IUG 2025

Some items partially obscured from slide photo.

Polaris 8.0

• Better Handling of "Display" Items
• Enables Notices
• Fix the Label Bibliographic Print Tool Report to use ...

Polaris 8.1

• Labels: Print Tool windows and New table from Find Tool & Lists
• Directed Sorting
• Add ability to enter a reason when canceling a Hold
• Return to where you were when search finishes

Polaris 8.2

• Ability to place holds on all items in a record set
• Create Multiple Items in LEAP
• Create a new status of Lost and Paid

Sierra 6.6

• View history of item and volume records
• Separate permissions to create/edit/delete notice jobs and prepare/run notices

Sierra 6.7

• Automatic SSL Certificate Renewal
• REST API endpoint to update patron "last circ activity date"
• Allow use of spine label print templates in Create Lists

Vega Discover

• (partially obscured)
• Sort Basket Results by Relevance or Record Count / Library
• (partially obscured)
• Enable New Return Material Notification Text

Polaris Libraries

• (partially obscured — 2 items)

Vega LX Starter

• Add message to account when marked as spam

Key Themes

Further Reading