Most intranet discussion forums fail. Some succeed, but not as a rule.

In When intranet discussion forums work James Robertson writes that effective forums work when there exists a clear purpose and an existing and motivated community:

"The first critical success factor is that there must be clear purpose or reason for staff to use the discussion group.

Staff must be able to see that their posts will have a direct impact on a particular issue, or will provide some tangible benefit (for the organisation, or for other staff).

All too often, online forums are put up to 'discuss an issue', or to provide a 'forum for feedback'. Without a clear statement of what will be done with the input gained, the forum may be viewed as even less relevant than the many surveys that are sent out within most organisations.

Staff are also busy, with a responsibility to focus on their day-to-day job. This makes it hard to justify contributing to a discussion forum that does not have a clear purpose.

In practice, the greatest participation is gained when the use of the discussion forum directly benefits an individual's job or situation (the 'what's in it for me' factor)."

Perhaps the most successful intranet discussion forums project was the 2003 ValuesJam at IBM. ValuesJam was a 3-day, “global interactive brainstorm session” held on the IBM intranet discussion boards. The online discussion centered around four topics related to corporate values. The response was huge:

• 22,000 participants
• 9,337 original posts
• 1.25 million+ views of ValuesJam and related content

Senior management at IBM “believed that the only meaningful way to shape values for a global on demand enterprise like IBM — with its population of independent, 21st-century knowledge workers — was to trust that population to shape those values itself.”

A host of suggestions were made for improving IBM operations, workforce policies and relationships. As a result, the best 35 ideas — as rated by IBM employees — are being implemented.