Technorati Profile

According to Jane McConnell's annual Global Intranet Trends 2009 report, c-level executives now participate on the intranet steering committees of half of the respondent companies that have a steering committee (about 1/3 of the respondent companies have a steering committee; roughly 1/6th of the total respondents therefore have a senior executive actively involved). While it is true that most of the remaining organizations don't have a senior executive actively engaged, this finding represents a marked increase over 2007. In 2007, only one-third of the intranet steering committees have the privilege of a c-level executive on the intranet steering committee.

While there is hope that more executives will come to realize  -- or be convinced -- of the intranet's value to an organization, there is still pause for concern. The study finds that only 14% of the respondent intranets consider the intranet as "business critical." This is unfortunate because in many instances the intranet is business critical; others may not have the chance to become business critical because senior management aren't convinced they should invest in the intranet or a redesign.

The truth of the matter is that an intranet manger or consultant's number one job is sales – selling the value of the intranet. Most c-level executives don't have a clue what the intranet can do for the organization, and they sure as hell don't use it themselves. Consider the findings from last year's Global Intranet Trends Report finds:

• 40% of respondents say the lack of senior management ownership (stewardship or championing) of the intranet is a serious obstacle

• 44% of respondents say the intranet is not seen as a priority and is a “serious obstacle”

In nearly half the organizations, senior management is a “serious obstacle.” However, the blame is not always the fault of senior management, who often don't understand the intranet because they have bigger concerns. To wit: “Even when the intranet strategy is documented, which is the case in over 60% of respondents the precentages drop rapidly regarding senior managemetn signoffs,” states the report. 

Most organizations, even the above average organizations that participate in the annual intranet study, don't have a documented strategy! No wonder your senior management doesn't support the intranet! Executives can be excused for not supporting the intranet in those organizations where the intranet doesn't have a stragegy or even a simple business case in the form of a needs-benefits analysis. In those cases, senior management is not the obstacle, its the intranet team!! 

Not surprising then that the Global Intranet Trends study has uncovered that 80% of “stage 3” intranets (the most advanced, valued intranets on Jane's 3-point scale) do have a strategy. The link between intranet value and strategy is becoming clear. Having said that, a strategy unto itself is not a strategy; the best intranets have strategies and senior management support. “When documented strategies and steering groups do exist, they often do not have sufficient involvement from business related people nor decision-makers in out-lying parts of their organizations,” concludes Jane. “This is part of the reason that senior managers are not always sufficiently aware of the intranet.”

The single-edged sword is not enough: a great intranet requires both a strategy and senior management support. Without senior management support, you need to find or buy a sales hat. Learn to sell the intranet – or hire an outside intranet consultant who can (see How to hire an intranet consultant). Putting on your sales hat, requires:

• Case studies - showcase to executives what a winning intranet looks like

• Active commitment – use case studies and needs analsysis to secure an executive champion (or 2)

• Business case – work with your executive champion to determine the requirements for an effective business case

• Sales presentation – with all of the above, hit the road and sell every executive that will listen

• Proposal – now you're ready to send your proposal to funding committee or executive that will ultimately determine your budget

Unfortunately the executive suite and senior management have proven that most companies care little for the intranet, and still in fact view it as a cost center. Unless intranet managers can find their sales hats then little will change the minds of executives who, by and large, will limit the investment in the intranet or enterprise portal.

The above findings and insight from this year's Global Intranet Trends 2009 report are just a fraction of a percentage of the insight and findings you need to know. Do yourself a favor and order the Global Intranet Trends 2009 report – it's worth it.

To read more about combating complacent executives read Building sustainable leadership support.

Additionally, you can see both Jane and I present our insights and findings from our respective studies (mine being the big study on Intranet 2.0) at this year's IntraTeam Event on March 3-5, 2009 in Copenhagen. This will be the top intranet event in Europe this year. Readers of IntranetBlog.com also get a discount of 15%. Just use price code: "Prescient15" when you reserve on the IntraTeam website.

ADDITIONAL READING:

Intranet business case

Leading an intranet redesign

Finding Intranet ROI

Read more how intranet experts Prescient Digital Media approach intranet redesigns:

The Intranet Plan Intranet Blueprint © 2008
The Intranet Portal Blueprint © 2008
Intranet Evaluation
Value and Return on Investment
CMS Blueprint © 2008

 Digg this   

Del.icio.us 

Facebook 

“Man looks in the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss,” Lou Manheim (Hal Holbrook), Wall Street.

It’s a telling and provoking quote that is an expansion on the famous quote from Friedrich Nietzche: “When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”

While I’m tempted to debate the various interpretations, positions and philosophical arguments and positions for both, you’re likely reading this not to read Toby Ward the philosopher, but to understand the connection to the intranet. And where the hell is the woman while man is lazing about at the abyss?!? No doubt, she’s too busy running the world.

The essence of the philosophy is the nature of the mind’s eye, and our subjective interpretation of one’s self, and the world in which we operate (and shape, in part).

I’ll cut to the chase on the relation to the intranet: the intranet is a reflection of the organization, and the direct and in-direct team, including the man and/or woman who runs it. More importantly, the success in its current and future form is subject to the person looking at it (or into the abyss).

Another way to frame this picture or paradigm is to say that as great as IBM or Cisco’s intranet (or any other impressive intranet), they are not great in the eyes and minds of other organizations, and other employees. In fact, I test intranet designs, layouts and information architectures all the time, and frequently I’ll test the IBM design or Cisco design versus smaller, less complex intranet designs and the results are nearly unanimous every time: IBM sucks (it’s far too busy, with far too many links, and its far too complex). And yet, the IBM intranet is arguably the best intranet on the planet.

This is to say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder – or the mind’s eye. The IBM design is fantastic for IBM, but it doesn’t work for too many other organizations. But it doesn’t have to; the IBM intranet design needs to work for only IBM’s structure, culture and employees only. Every organization is different, has different needs, different structures, different cultures and different employees with different backgrounds, needs, expectations and tolerances. Therefore, while it is valuable to know what other intranets are doing, to adhere to best practices and to cherry pick winning ideas from those trailblazers that have preceded you, you cannot do so in the absence of input from both management and employees.

More to the point, here’s the crux of the mind’s eye: every organization is an ensemble of different cultures, structures, values and motivations, with different subjective interpretations of the world, the organization, and the intranet. Of course, even more granularly, every single person has their own culture, values and motivations. So it’s important to understand their mind’s eye and their subjective needs for design, navigation, content quality, etc.

Understand the benefits and best practices of IBM and others, while taking the time to understand the needs and motivations of both management and employees, and you can’t help but be successful with your intranet (taking into account all of the above, not the least of which is governance).

Woman looks into the abyss and sees nothing staring back at her. At that moment she knows man is completely over-rated and that she should be the rightful owner of the world (and the intranet). What’s in your abyss?

Redesigning an intranet does not mean you are fixing it; a broken intranet requires a lot of work and design is one of the smallest components.

While important, even technology is not the most important ingredient. Far more important to the success of any intranet is people and process.

There’s a process that should be followed for redesigning any intranet – a process that is focused on people, and grounded in the needs of the business.  The process or methodology applied to a redesign is best summarized in the following flow-chart from Prescient Digital Media:

Intranet Project Methodology - Prescient Digital Media

Forget the look-and-feel. Put it out of your mind. The look-and-feel or design of your intranet or portal is window dressing – a distraction from what employees need.

I mention this as we (Prescient Digital Media) talk with so many clients and prospective clients that want to see ‘screenshots’ as fast as possible. Screenshots are important and serve a purpose, and I completely understand having run an enterprise intranet before; everyone wants to see what others are doing.

Fidelity Investments intranet home page

However, don’t ask me to produce a design concept in response to your RFP when I, and all other vendors, know virtually nothing about your intranet other than the very select information provided in the RFP itself. If I whip up a design concept it will be entirely flawed, pointless, and completely counterproductive because it’s based entirely on guesswork because I don’t know:

• The cultural preferences and needs of employee users to different design treatments
• The mandatory or necessary requirements of business owners and senior managers
• The subtle nuances of a preferred an optimized information architecture
• The optimal page layout (whether 2, 3, 4 or more columns) with the right ration of text to white space (which varies for every organization depending on their culture and level of web savviness of users)
• The necessity nor capacity for individual personalization and customization
• Political consideration for the use of the home page
• Strategic initiatives of the organization that must be hooked into the intranet
• The type, quality and quantity of content on the intranet
• Etc., etc.

If I know little or none of the above, to what end or what purpose is served by developing a design concept based on guess work? To qualify our design capabilities? If you’re choosing an intranet consultant based on their ‘design’ abilities then you have no business running an intranet (see How to hire an intranet consultant).

That’s not to say that design (look-and-feel) doesn’t play a roll and isn’t important to users. Design is important, but it doesn’t crack the top 6 or 7 priorities. On average, based on my experience working with dozens of intranet clients, design is equivalent to between 8 – 12% of the total intranet’s value. What is really important is content (20-30%), search (15-20%), information architecture (20-30%), and governance and planning (20-30%).

Unlike YouTube or an entertainment website, users don’t really care about design nor video, flash, and bells and whistles that distract and entertain. Employee intranet users want one thing: to complete a task or to find the content or tool they need to do their job, and to do it or find it as fast as possible. In short, employees want speed. On our roads, speed kills; on our intranets, speed wins.

The following represents our updated model (based on many years of experience), the Nexus of Intranet Success, which visually depicts the critical components of a successful intranet.

Note the importance of people, particularly executives (executive support) and end users (motivated employees). Design helps facilitate the process, but never should be the focus or centerpiece. Argue with me or debate me if you like, but you will lose (see the original feature, Nexus of Intranet Success).

Just as the intranet is evolving and in need of constant refinement, I’m still refining this model as technology, employee needs, and companies change and evolve. More to come in October...

  Digg this         Post to del.icio.us       Post to Slashdot   
 

  Add to Technorati Faves

It’s a little late for New Year’s resolutions, but we’re still early in the budget year for most (or near the end for others). Nonetheless, the intranet is usually in a state of improvement.

Here are 6 timely resolutions for improving the intranet, regardless of the calendar month, by Prescient’s Cathy McKnight:

Resolution #1 - Taxonomy. Develop and execute a robust intranet taxonomy so the site’s content will not be “invisible" to its users.

Resolution #2 - Metrics. Look at the metrics collected on site usage, and use that information to plan the site’s growth and evolution so that it meets the needs of the employees. 

Resolution #3 – Prioritize. “I cannot be all things to all people.” 

Resolution #4 – Redesign. Speaking of revamping the site’s design, this is the year that we ditch the orange and green banner, and update the President’s page so that it does not include a photo of her with a beehive hairdo.

Resolution #5 – Engagement. Get in touch with stakeholders and target audiences. 

Resolution #6 – Marketing. Let everyone know just how great the intranet site is (especially now that you have successfully kept to all your resolutions). 

The top intranet complaint at any organization is “I can’t find anything.” This is why the taxonomy is so important. Learn more by reading What is the New Year without (intranet) resolutions?

  Digg this         Post to del.icio.us       Post to Slashdot