Intranet strategy
What does the intranet do to help the organziation achieve its objectives? To do what? Does your intranet have an intranet strategy document that you can take away and share?
If you cannot answer these questions, you don't have an intranet strategy.
Intranet strategy supports the decisions employees make – enabling them to make better decisions that will make your organzation flourish.
Case study example: U.K. Government
Last year, the British government lost the details and files of 25 million people (1/3 of the population). There was in fact a policy on how to handle citizen's personal information on the government intranet called the “DPA Policy.” But no one could find it, so no one knew what to do. The lack of a defined strategy failed the government because while the content existed, it couldn't be found or used.
“Every manager wants to reduce the risk of their business,” says Martin White. Develop a list of the risks at your organization and find ways the “intranet can help reduce organizational risks” (and create opportunities).
Case study: Hospital
A European hospital intranet had 8,000 different guiideline documents (e.g. relating to medical procedures, etc.) – with no search engine. Traditionally, users (doctors and other professionals) had to navigate a folder structure. A discussion with the hospital's risk manager revealed that the hospital spent $5 million in insurance. But, if they could put in a search engine to help doctors find medical guidelines within 30 seconds, they could reduce their insurance substantially. The hospital spent $100,000 on the search engine, and received full pay-back within 3 months, and saved $1 million in insurance as a result.
User centric design
There are two classes of users:
End users
Contributors (aka editors, publishers, admins.)
Target user dsired outcomes – the end-state content or tool.
Phase 1 – Research (interviews, notes)
Phase 2 – Analysis (factoids, spreadsheet, sort data, identifiy patters, cluster analysis)
Phase 3 – Represent/Communicate (dept. findings, specific personas, etc.0
Phase 4 – Take Action
“If it can't be found, it's not helpful,” says Howard McQueen.
Howard advocates the transformation of information into “assets” by keeping it “trustworthy and up-to-date.” Howard's information 'asset' model states that information...
requires a steward;
must be owned;
must be compliant;
be the best available – balanced by the need;
must be trustworthy; and
must be readily discoverable.
On the Johnson Controls intranet (10,000 employees) if content is not reviewed it is expired from the search engine catalogue (variable time limit depending on the content type).