Great
intranets are rarely done solely in-house. There’s too much at stake
and the intranet is far too political to not take advantage of a
non-partisan intranet consultant with relevant expertise.
There are advantages to doing it yourself:
- Costs less cash out of pocket
- Internal stakeholders are forced to learn the ropes
- Internal jobs are reinforced
The disadvantages of doing it yourself are obvious:
- Lack of skill and experience
- Lack of people to execute
- Internal politics on what and how to do it
- Time away from day-to-day work
Politics
The
greatest barrier to an intranet’s potential is politics. Technology and
budget are secondary barriers. The intranet is a political football.
Why?
Most intranets don’t grab the attention of executives. The intranet is
left to middle managers in communications and IT with limited budget
and power. Conflict ensues and the intranet stalls – often for years.
Resolving
conflict and breaking the subsequent limbo requires senior management
support and participation. Where politics runs thick, a collaborative
governance model is strongly urged.
Tearing
down the political barrier often requires a third-party consultant with
lots of expertise and no political axe to grind, but an arsenal full of
best practices. If communications tries to lead the process, the other
stakeholders will be suspicious. Ditto for IT and HR. If budget allows,
everyone respects an experienced and capable mediator.
People
Building
or redesigning an intranet requires a lot of work. It can take months
or years. If you decide to build or rebuild the intranet, who will be
minding the store?
An intranet requires:
- Employee input (research)
- Best practices intelligence (benchmarking)
- Business requirements analysis and documentation
- Strategic planning (mission, objective, goals, CSIs)
- Functional planning (structure, content, etc.)
- Governance model
- Policies and guidelines
- Business case and ROI
- Content management & migration
- Information architecture
- Layout
- Design
- Tools
- Staffing
- Technology implementation
- Network and database administration
- Integration
- Writing
- Etc.
Hiring
an intranet consultant will free-up the necessary time to stay on top
of the day-to-day job you were hired for – the daily news, benefits
enrollment, new application rollouts, etc.
Finally,
does your team have the skills? Have they ever developed a governance
model, an editorial policy. or an LDAP integration plan?
How to hire an intranet consultant
If you have a budget and a work culture that recognizes the value of an outside intranet expert then proceed with caution.
Caution: an
Internet consultant is not an intranet consultant. A web design firm
has deep creative skills, but rarely has any business acumen and
intranet expertise. A big-five consulting firm has very smart people
but is very expensive.
|
What to look for in an intranet expert:
· Intranet client case studies
· Detailed biographies with demonstrated project experience
· Experienced individuals that will be assigned to your project
· Client references with names and numbers (not just unnamed anonymous testimonials)
· Detailed pricing
· Corporate strength and documented financial viability
· Proven and detailed project methodologies |
Be cautious if a consultant only has:
· Screenshots and mock-ups
· One or two paragraph bios that focus on favorite movies and hobbies with a cute or too-cool-for-school photo
· People on a list in some far flung office that won’t actually be working on your project
· Unnamed and anonymous testimonials
· Vague pricing ‘guess-timates’
· Tiny shops with no documented financials (P&L)
· Assurance that “they’re happy to work according to your project plan” |
Identifying the right intranet consultant
Prepare
a thorough and detailed RFP (request for proposal). Invite companies
that have proven experience and case studies. If you don’t know one
(though you should know several if you read this news blog) then look
for a recommendation:
- Ask a leading company or partner
- Sniff around your local trade associations like IABC or PRS
- Phone your IT analyst at Garner or Forrester
- Google
the phrase “intranet consultant” or “intranet consulting” with or
without geographic locations (if that’s important to you)
- Post a comment here and I or another reader will help steer you
The RFP responses from any intranet consulting firm should contain the following:
- Line by line details of every process and deliverable
- Intranet consulting history and overview
- Detailed client case studies
- Solution functional specifications
- Consulting, licensing (if applicable) AND implementation costs
- Project team resumes, skills overview & experience
- Client references and contact information
- Detailed timeline and schedules
- Ongoing service & support commitment
- Solution technical specifications (if applicable)
- Product demonstration (if applicable)
A final word:
Google before you hire a particular intranet consultant or intranet
consulting firm. I’m a little bias because I write a lot, have the top
blog dedicated to intranets and speak at a lot of conferences, but I
like to see for myself the ‘thought leadership’ credentials of the
consultant. A great intranet consultant is not only experienced, but a
leader with published credentials to support it.
Top intranet consulting firms:
Note:
obviously there are far more consultants than this… but actually
surprisingly few that focus namely on just intranets. So yes I’ve left
a few out, but this is not intended to be a consultant directory but an
article (also note that the author hasn’t used his own name).
For more intranet news visit www.IntranetReport.com
© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media
