Troubled intranets often share many of the same characteristic problems:
- No defined ownership
- No content standards and policies
- Site proliferation and ‘sprawl’
- Poor usability and navigability (“I can’t find anything!”)
- Low use and employee up-take
This was the case with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL, makers of CANDU nuclear reactors) when I started to work with them two years ago. This case study was presented to today to the 2006 Information Highways conference in
A little more than two years ago when AECL started down the road to implementing a new intranet portal, the Canadian crown corporation was saddled with a number of challenges:
- Ongoing news and information not communicated in a timely and consistent fashion
- Business objectives and priorities not clearly communicated
- Absence of a Communication plan
- Too much reliance on email bulletins for communications
- Senior management not taking responsibility for communication
- Employee Intranet not effective:
- No governance or control
- No consistent look and feel
- Information not current or useful
- Publishing requires technical skills
- Difficult to find information
The old AECL intranet:
To address these challenges AECL hired Prescient Digital Media to develop an integrated communications strategy that addressed email communications, people and manager communications, and the intranet. Specifically, the process included the creation of a new intranet plan with a number of key priorities:
- Develop and formalize a governance model
- Develop an intranet editorial policy
- Hire an Editor-In-Chief
- Develop Standardization policy that enforces intranet standards and limits individual intranet development
- Develop an email “Acceptable Use” policy
- Eliminate all stand-alone sites by consolidating them under a single intranet portal with a single navigation schema.
- Design a new “look & feel” that supports the AECL brand and communication needs.
- Deploy a full database content management platform and full employee self-service and online form submission
The process moved from planning to the technology selection (driven by an aggressive RFP that had a number of vendors work for the business) and an implementation of about 2.5 months of a new content management system/portal product (IronPoint).
New intranet portal: myAECL
Though launching a new intranet portal is all well and dandy, the work does not stop there. AECL still had a number of key issues to address in the months following the launch:
- Hiring and orienting a new Editor-in-Chief
- Developing daily news articles
- Setting up efficient content processes
- Migrating old environment to new
- Changing Behaviors
- Training content providers to use new tool
- Evolving Formatting standards and guidelines
Andre Robillard shared some of the key lessons learned in redesigning an intranet and implementing a new portal with new processes and standards. He has a number of recommendations for any organization attempting the same:
- Clearly define the communication problems in your organization
- Assess where you are today by polling staff
- Create a new communication plan based on best practices, employee feedback, and company needs
- Get executive approval of new internal communication plan
- Create a new Intranet design that provides staff with any easy to use tool, plus satisfies the communication plan
- Issue an RFP
- Implement using the 80/20 rule
- Use a vendor that does this for a living
By the way, have you noticed that the CIO keeps focusing on and talking about “communications” and not the technology?
CIO Robillard understands the driver is communications and customer service, and that the intranet portal is more than just a technology solution; it’s a business system to support the business. As CIO he’s just one of several owners on a governance council that also includes representatives from Communications, HR and Customer Service. I’d like to see more IT organizations like Robillard’s that are less concerned with ownership and more concerned with business results.
If you have a question about this case study – whether its related to process, content, technology, people, planning, etc. – feel free to post your question or comment below and I’ll get back to you shortly thereafter.
© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media
