This article was co-written with Belinda Thompson of BDO Kendalls. At the time of writing, Belinda was Senior Consultant in Intellectual Capital with BDO Kendalls in Brisbane, Australia. The article was published on CEO Online. Belinda’s passion is in the implementation of corporate intranets that achieve business value from the knowledge management initiatives intranets offer.
Belinda is now BDO’s National Knowledge and Information Manager.
This article presents six strategies for successful intranets.
Building an intranet that delivers
Six strategies for successful intranets
Introduction
In recent years, corporate intranets have moved from “nice to have” to “must have” status in virtually all industries. In many cases, they have evolved into information and knowledge sharing platforms that companies rely on to survive in a knowledge-driven economy. Designing, developing, and deploying an intranet that is highly valued by the organisation can be a challenge. Nevertheless, certain strategies, when carefully executed, can simplify this process.
Strategy #1: Content Structure
Employ information architecture standards when structuring content
Logical information architecture helps users find the information they are looking for, while exposing them to additional information, and assists them in making decisions.
Undertake a ‘content needs assessment’ using a card sorting exercise, where users group topic cards to determine key intranet pages, and structuring your intranet according to the core tasks undertaken by staff rather than by the organisational structure (which can frequently change).
Strategy #2: Knowledge Management
Create a dynamic environment using knowledge sharing activities.
While many intranets are still languishing as a dumping ground for business documents, there is the potential to make intranets a valuable tool to support knowledge management initiatives – such as communities of practice, staff directories, collaborative environments and knowledge repositories.
The corporate staff directory is the most-used aspect of the intranet in many organisations. There are a number of alternative approaches to the basic telephone list that may interest you:
- Organisational chart, role description and additional roles (e.g. WH&S Officer, Interpreter); and
- Education, skills and expertise – e.g. listing the expertise of your staff enables identification of knowledge sources across the organisation, encouraging knowledge sharing across ‘silos’.
Strategy #3: Supporting Employees
Ensure content supports core business – not just administrative tasks
While it is important to allow staff to undertake administrative tasks efficiently, the intranet will provide better value to the organisation if it allows staff to do their day-to-day business more efficiently.
Some ideas for ensuring that core business is well represented on the intranet include:
- Incorporating a number of business related entries in the intranet’s primary navigation;
- Mapping the workflow for key processes on the intranet; and
- Ensuring news articles about business issues are included.
Strategy #4 – Open Publishing Process
Consider adopting a democratic publishing process
Publishing processes can make or break the success of your intranet. For the intranet to become a knowledge management platform, some organisations believe that every intranet user should know how to publish content and provide feedback on content already published.
This of course depends on the size of the organisation and its available resources. For an interesting example of this approach, visit www.wikipedia.org
Strategy #5 – Promotion
Promote your intranet – an ‘official launch’ is not the only approach
From the day it is launched, an intranet must be constantly advertised to staff. Without this, many staff will remain unaware that the intranet even exists, while others will not recognise its full value.
An automatically loading home page, ‘What’s new’ emails, and staff profiles are great ways to create interest around your intranet.
Strategy # 6 – Evaluation
Evaluate the cost-benefit – it’s not that hard
Demonstrating real business value is a key issue for owners and managers. In calculating the start up and ongoing costs of your intranet remember that even relatively intangible costs and benefits can be measured if you are prepared to approximate.
A great benefit measurement is to calculate the time saved by intranet usage (i.e. 5 minutes per day).
Concluding remarks
Designing and managing an intranet is not easy. By creating measurable solutions that assist staff with their core business and facilitate knowledge sharing, you will build the foundations of an intranet that delivers real business value.