Excerpts from The Accessibility Operations Guidebook

From the Introduction

This book has three parts, titled Theory, Operations, and Burnout.

Part 1: Theory is a crash course in theories and frameworks I've found to be useful in doing this work. These come from information and library science, change management, organization theory and psychology, and activism. They are divided into three themes: Literacy, Community, and Organizations. I also include resources to learn more about these theories and frameworks.

Part 2: Operations is the bulk of the book. It talks about communicating with people in different roles, providing services as an accessibility specialist within an organization, and managing an accessibility program. This section will (hopefully) help you consider the types of tactical and strategic activities you can do based on your needs, resources, goals, and the ways you want to grow in the field.

Part 3: Burnout is about, well, burnout. This section talks about why burnout is a very real danger in this field, warning signs to look for in yourself, and ways to avoid it. It also discusses the realities of working in this field along intersections of oppression, including disability, neurodiversity, race, gender, class, and so on.

I recommend that you think of this book as a sandwich.

• Theory (bread)
• Operations (filling)
• Burnout (bread)

For example, you could just read Part 2, and I think you will still come away with valuable information. After all, the filling is the main focus of the sandwich, and can often be eaten on its own. You might already know all the stuff I talk about in Part 1 and Part 3, in which case, don't waste your time!

For another example, you could make this a toast situation, and read Part 1 and Part 2 to give the filling something crunchy to rest upon as you consume it.

Or, you can read the whole thing front to back, as is tradition. There is nothing wrong with that, and it's probably the most satisfying experience overall.

From Chapter 2: Community

The community readiness model

The community readiness model is a tool for helping communities identify whether they are ready for an initiative, and then, if they are, a tool for helping that initiative flourish. It combines information gathering from stakeholders to understand a community and a matrix of activities that are appropriate for that readiness level. It was originally developed for use in public health, and it's mostly used in non-profits, healthcare, and education.

One of the most important things about this model is that it considers both leaders of a community and "regular" members of the community to be stakeholders. Information is gathered from both groups to assess the community's attitudes and knowledge about an issue, as well as to identify any current efforts to address the issues, and resources that are available. This is a great way to find and document where the beliefs of leaders and community members (or workers) may differ or converge, since they both have an impact on readiness.

I think you can condense or relabel some of these, depending on the situation, but here are the 9 proposed stages of community readiness from the Community Readiness Manual:

1. No awareness
2. Denial/resistance
3. Vague awareness
4. Preplanning
5. Preparation
6. Initiation
7. Stabilization
8. Confirmation/expansion
9. High level of community ownership

If you're familiar with the Accessibility Maturity Model, which I'll write about in the next chapter, you'll see some similarity in the steps. However, the thing I find really valuable about the community readiness model is how it captures the "pre-work" part of building a program or initiative. Often, models that measure where a community or organization is on an issue start with the beginning of the program. The community readiness model is extremely realistic in that it starts with the question, "Is this community/organization even ready to deal with this issue?" and accepts that the answer might be, "No."

From Chapter 3: Organizations

Culture and climate

Organizational culture and climate are different ways of framing the values and meanings held by an organization. While organizational culture is formal and systemic, organizational climate is informal, a kind of "shared perception" (Conte 551).

Culture, in this context, is created and fostered by leadership and communicated to members of the organization through management. Culture goes beyond behavior; it's the official stance of the organization, perhaps because of or in opposition to the broader culture of a society. A mission statement represents an organization's culture, for example. Culture in organizations is perpetuated in the same way it is in the larger culture, with ceremonies and rituals (meetings, events) and institutional myths (stories) driven by leadership.

In "The Concept of Organizational Culture: Why Bother?" Edgar H. Schein writes:

Culture and leadership are two sides of the same coin, in that leaders first create cultures when they create groups and organizations. Once cultures exist, they determine the criteria for leadership and thus determine who will or will not be a leader.

Climate, in comparison to culture, is less official. It's a vibe. It's the feel of the organization, how structured or loosey goosey it is. It's how autonomous workers can actually be, and how much actual support there is from leadership to try new things. It's whether you're "actually" allowed to schedule a meeting on "No Meeting Wednesday" (or not). Organizations might have lots of different climates too, depending on the department or team.

Culture and climate impact each other. It might be obvious that culture can push "down" on climate, but climate can also push "up" on culture. An example of culture impacting climate is an organization requiring workers to return to offices with the "end" of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite public opinion and scientific data supporting working from home. An example of climate impacting culture is the wave of DEI efforts that happened because of Black workers' need to hold space for acknowledgment of ongoing and escalating police brutality.

From Chapter 4: Communication

Audiences

Before you reach out to someone, get a sense of who they are and what they do. This includes having a good sense of what people in their role do in general at your organization, as well as what this person does in particular. If your organization has an internal wiki or directory, you can usually find a profile of the person, as well as information about their team or teams. You might also be able to find out about specific projects they work on, and so on.

Here are a few questions that can help you guide your search.

• What is this person's role in the organization?
• What power does this person have in the organization?
• What do you need or want from this person for your work to be successful?
• What might this person need from you to get that done?

What you need from the other person and what the other person might need from you will vary widely based on their role.

Here are some examples of things you might need from them:

• Resources, such as budget, headcount, tools, or buy-in to help push the message to leadership
• Expertise in something that is outside your wheelhouse
• Sponsorship for specific projects or initiatives
• Collaboration to continue to grow your coalition

And here are some examples of things they might need from you:

• Data on disabled users
• Information on laws and regulations
• Training about accessibility and disability
• Mentorship to grow in the accessibility space
• Support on a project or initiative

For our purposes, I'm dividing up people by roles and levels of responsibility commonly found in organizations. You will need to adapt this based on how your own organization is structured.

Image caption: The higher up the pyramid you go, the further you are from grassroots efforts but the more authority you have to make real lasting change.