How do you know your intranet or portal is good? Or god awful? Yes, your intuition is probably a good clue; better yet is formal feedback from stakeholders and users.
Formally evaluating your intranet against a set of best practice criteria is strongly recommended. A formal evaluation in fact is necessary because there is so much that is required in developing and managing a successful intranet that you cannot possibly remember all that is required from day-to-day. In fact, Prescient Digital Media has developed an evaluation methodology that evaluates and scores more than 300 assets and heuristics in six broad categories.
Measuring the strengths and weaknesses of your intranet is a must – and it should be an honest and candid measurement. Hiring an outside, non-biased consultant is recommended. You wouldn’t want the contestants of American Idol to be there own judges would you? Without a non-biased view the evaluation may not be accurate and you may be doing yourself a disservice.
However, not everyone has budget to hire a consultant nor should they every time you need help. Step Two, the Australian-based consultancy headed by James Robertson, has developed a resource that any manager can use to take a solid, snapshot measurement of the current intranet or portal. The Intranet review toolkitis a guide that managers can use to measure dozens of site strengths and weaknesses. It contains a set of heuristics (guidelines or criteria) for conducting an intranet review focused on functionality and design.
“The Toolkit has been published as a Word document, designed to be filled in by the intranet reviewer,” says James, managing director of Step Two. “Space is provided for comments against each of the heuristics, and a total score is calculated for each of the sections.”
Very handy indeed! And if you’re down-under and need a strong strategic consultant to help you through stormy seas, James is the guy you want to hire. Step Two has worked with dozens of companies and government organizations in