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

The intranet project methodology, developed by Toby Ward at Prescient Digital Media, outlines the necessary steps and processes in designing or redesigning an intranet.

The project methodology was developed in 2001, but has been updated and refined several times (most recently in November 2007).

Intranet Project Methodology - Prescient Digital Media

Read more on the process and requisites for building a successful intranet: Intranet Planning: An Intranet Model for Success.

Success has many measures, and largely depends on subjective opinions, but regardless of the metric, I rarely see true intranet success.

I’ve worked with award winners (including companies that have won big intranet awards such as the Nielsen Norman 10 best intranets of the year), and I’ve worked with a lot of organizations and Fortune 500s that have better than average intranets. True intranet success is not often achieved (or held for long), and most intranet managers and champions at those companies often rate their own intranet as satisfactory at best – less than truly successful – and requiring a lot of work.

The commitment, rigor and resources required to build and maintain a successful intranet or portal are significant. And while a successful intranet does not necessarily require a lot of money per se, there are many, many facets – from governance and design, to content and processes – that require successful planning and execution.

I refer to the collective intranet facets or requirements as the Nexus of Intranet Success. Nexus [‘nEksIs] comes from a Greek word meaning ‘meeting place’ (a fitting label given the intranet’s importance as the only true, universal meeting ground or ‘water cooler’ in the average organization).

Nexus of Intranet Success - © Prescient Digital Media

Read my full article: Intranet Planning: An Intranet Model for Success

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UPCOMING INTRANET PLANNING WORKSHOP:

If you’d like to learn how to plan an intranet and you’re in the Southeast Asia (or you can get there easily) then you should definitely attend my half-day workshop on Planning as part of a three-day workshop in the 2008 Deploying First-Class Web Content Management For World-Class Websites (Ad Astra) in Hanoi, Vietnam from April 23 – 25.

I’ll be repeating the workshop April 28 – 30 in Jakarta. These workshops will be three full-days and promise a lot of learning, examples and hands-on work. To register for either please phone (65) 6334-9828 or email sales@adastra.com.sg

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"Companies seem to be taking news much more seriously," says Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen-Norman Group in an interview with Richmond.com (Communication at Work).

I have a lot of respect for Dr. Nielsen – he is a guru of usability. However, I’ll respectively disagree with him – companies have little respect or care for their intranet. Unfortunately, looking at the world of intranets through the rose color glasses of the Nielsen Norman Group Intranet Design Annual (a.k.a the “best intranets of the year”, which largely judges paper submissions of an intranet written and prepared by the intranet manager who of course is trying to look as good as possible) it is easy to make the assumption that intranets are improving. It’s wishful thinking, and correct with respect to a few that fill out an award submission, but not reality.

I’ve worked with dozens of intranets and my company, intranet consultants Prescient Digital Media, works with a few dozen every year (including past winners of the “best intranets of the year” that often don’t in fact have spectacular intranets). We spend hours surfing and evaluating all (most) aspects of these intranets and do not rely on any paper award submission that focus on what’s best or most attractive about an intranet. We look at and examine the good, the bad and the ugly (including the areas of planning and resources, governance, staffing, content processes, etc.). According to our evaluation scoring methodology, the average intranet receives a score of between 5 or 6 out of 10. And many of these companies have thousands, tens-of-thousands of employees, or more.

Why are most intranets so poor? Because senior management don’t give a damn.

“It amazes me that after 20 years of working in corporate communications, I still run across business people – usually leaders or middle managers – who believe employee communication is a luxury and not a fundamental piece of company infrastructure,” muses Robert J. Holland, who wrote Communication at Work. “These people believe there is no need to ensure workers have any more information than what is minimally required for them to do their jobs.”

Holland’s view, from Richmond, Virginia, is bang-on. A lot of executives pay ‘lip service’ to corporate communications, and its primary delivery vehicle (the intranet), but in truth do very little to live up to their empty promises. This assumption is starkly evident in Jane McConnel’s Global Intranet Trends Report that finds:

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

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

Bingo. The intranet is not a priority in most organizations – and senior management is a serious obstacle.

Of course I sound like a broken record and know I’m preaching to the converted and the thousands of you that read this blog, but it’s worth stressing one more time: intranet managers have to become better sales people. Learn to sell the intranet – or hire an outside intranet consultant who can help you:

Ü      Showcase to executives what a winning intranet looks like

Ü      Secure an executive champion – or three

Ü      Build an effective business case for investing in the intranet

Ü      Sell, sell, sell

Dr. Nielsen deserves, and has earned, a lot of respect and accolades for all his work with respect to Internet, and the corporate intranet. Unfortunately the executive suite and senior management have proven that most companies care little for 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 not further invest in the corporate intranet or enterprise portal.

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

RELATED REATING:

Building sustainable leadership support

Intranet change management

Too many executives are screwing your employees

Infant intranets need executive loving

Leading an intranet redesign

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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...

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Every intranet should have a business case; a justification for being, including metrics that prove its worth. Along with user satisfaction, traffic metrics, and ROI, benchmarking information (what others are doing) is also important to know.

For the best possible data, the 2007 Global Intranets Survey (hosted and conducted by Jane McConnell) needs your participation. If you are an intranet manager or consultant then it’s in your best interest to spend 30 - 60 minutes completing this survey.  Every respondent will receive a complete report of the findings – which is very good intelligence for your intranet business case.

To participate in this year’s2007 Global Intranets Survey pleaseContact Jane McConnell.

The 2006 Survey revealed a number of key trends:

• 13% said their senior management perceived the intranet as "business critical
• 55% said their employees would be disturbed in their work if the intranet "went down" for 1 to 2 hours
• 60% say the main obstacle preventing the intranet from achieving its potential is that it is "too communication" and lacks integrated applications
• 70% say that a "lack of awareness of the potential role of the intranet" slows down strategic decision making
• 47% expect their intranet budgets to increase over the next 2 years
• Only 26% are required to measure ROI to justify new or current investments.
• Only 28% have implemented internal blogs and/or external blogs and/or wikis

Take the 2007 Global Intranets Survey by contacting Jane McConnell.

From the best intranet firm of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere is a new methodology on enhancing an existing intranet. The 6x2 methodology from Step Two Designs is a highly, pragmatic, activity focused process for improving the intranet in 6-month chunks. Simple to digest and understand, this methodology is a particularly solid do-it-yourself approach for small and medium-size organizations.

“Detailed project planning is used to ensure that the selected items are

actually achievable, as well as giving a clear sequence of activities,” says James Robertson, author of the methodology and Managing Director, Step Two Designs. “This methodology provides a simple and pragmatic approach that can be used by intranet teams of any size (from one person to a dozen or more).”

A sneak preview of this methodology highlighted in a 104-page report:

You can preview or order the 6x2 methodology online from Step Two.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE: A great day indeed when my one-year-old daughter, who’s been sick for most of the past two months, suddenly perked-up today. Unusually smiley and active, and clearly feeling better, she walked for the first time!! Very exciting stuff!! There’s almost nothing more exciting for a parent than those first steps J A great day! (She fell sick again tonight, but we’re hopeful a good day might lead to more…!!).

A very exciting trade deadline day in the NHL. Outrageous are the prices paid for ‘rental’ players particularly Tkachuk, Forsberg and Guerin. Shocking that the Oilers end-up trading Smyth… but quite possibly a very good deal for Edmonton. San Jose I think are the big winners and I’d put them up their with Detroit as cup favorites. Don’t however rule out Anaheim and Vancouver. Oh and for the record: Bryan Smolinski’s best season was 61 points – 12 years ago (and playing with Cam Neely and Adam Oates).

Anyone see the Carling Cup finale?!? Wild stuff for football. I can’t say I was impressed by Chelsea, nor Wayne Bridge’s theatrics or Drogba’s… nice to see the Blues play all their best players while Arsenal fields no starting players and only their young substitutes. See YouTube.com > “Carling Cup.”

What a joke the Oscars are… I like Al Gore and appreciate his efforts… but that was way over-the-top. Especially for a grossly exaggerated documentary (by the way I’m a big carbon neutral proponent). Great to see Marty win the two big ones… I like Helen Mirren (looked great too) and Forrest Whittaker winning. I don’t however understand Alan Arkin… he played himself, the same way he plays all roles (which I actually like), had about 10 lines of dialogue, and wins an Oscar?! Finally, I’m a proud Canadian, but Celine needs a break… or we need a break from Celine.

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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?

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The world’s biggest intranet, the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI, with a total price tag of about $10-billion) serves more than 500,000 users – mostly marines and sailors in the field.

The end users are happy with the intranet – whether its dependability, support, or the ability to find information – user satisfaction is about 70%. Mission accomplished. Or is it…

NMCI is viewed as a failing project. A report by the Government Accountability Office (see GAO-07-51) is critical of NMCI for never implementing a plan developed in 2000 to measure and report project progress. GAO says that NMCI intranet has met a paltry three of 20 performance targets set for the intranet.