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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Communications folks see the world a tad differently from IT. And if men are from Mars and Women from Venus, then IT is from Pluto and Human Resources from Mercury. All very, very different individuals with greatly differing jobs. Yet all are expected to work together on the intranet and do so with effectiveness. Yeah right...

I know a lot of communicators and IT read this column, but probably a few more communicators than techies. And if you communicators want to redesign the intranet or build a better tool or get things done faster, then you need to learn how to talk the talk.

So in the spirit of cooperation and team building here are some of Catherine Elder’s recommendations for working with and talking with IT:

• Put yourself in their shoes
• Set project goals and communicate them
• Involve IT in your project
• Respect. Ask. Listen
• Be prepared and do your homework
• Become friends, or at least friendly, with your IT staff
• Build a business case
• Adjust expectations
• Keep informed and share what you know
• Appreciate

Good advice.

Read Catherine’s full article How to talk to IT staff.

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”Ease of Communications” – On Demand EIM Solutions, a white paper from WebEx, estimates the cost of implementing an enterprise instant messaging as being quite astronomical:

"An analysis of the licensing rate structures of prominent EIM vendors as well as interviews with leading users of EIM solutions has been used to develop the TCO model and determine the average upfront and annual operating costs on a per user basis. Given the need to amortize On-Premise solutions with all their hardware and software costs, per user EIM costs are very high if the number of users is below 1,000, but they begin stabilize beyond 5,000 users. For smaller systems, upfront costs can be as high as $250 per user, while annual operating costs can be as high as $50 to 75 per user."

Call me an old-fashioned new-age Internet guy, but why would you spend that kind of money on instant messaging? Did e-mail, the phone, face-to-face communications become passé and ineffective?

Notwithstanding the tried-and-true traditional channels is instant messaging filling a void not filled by the new social media, Web 2.0 and such?  

• Discussion forums?
• Blogs?
• Wikis?
• Podcasts?
• Webcasts?
• Text messaging (cell)?
• Water cooler talk?
• Cafeteria gossip?

What is the void not filled by all of the above? Can someone please set me straight and present a reasonable case argument why a business or not-for-profit organization can measurably benefit from instant messaging because all of the above are not sufficient?

Would now be the time to point out that bulk of our organizational champions and executive wizzes balk at spending $50 or $100 per employee on an intranet…?!! And they’re gonna spend that kind of money on IM?!?

IMO u d’t need IM

Not to worry though, I think the Telex is poised to make a massive comeback. Come to think of it I miss that birthday telegram I used to get from Grandma…

PS - I had an executive tell me the other day that from his perspecitve "... the Internet is nothing but a fantasy world." I like the guy actually, but the world is changing... and by the way, Happy Days was cancelled... and Chaci has an exciting future ahead. *yawn* is that coffee I smell?

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Getting the necessary support and funding for an intranet redesign is usually a struggle at most organizations, particularly when most view the intranet as a cost center – a necessary evil. To change this mindset, intranet managers need to show them the money.

Senior management are much more likely to invest in an intranet if they can see it delivering measurable returns, such as increased business efficiency, reduced overheads and enhanced customer satisfaction. Increasingly the intranet manager will need to put in place viable processes for recording and reporting intranet value, in short demonstrating a return on investment (ROI) and employee productivity.

Presented by Prescient Digital Media and Summers Direct Selling A New Intranet to Senior Management is a webinar to arm you with invaluable ideas and steps for building a business case for redeveloping or redesigning your existing intranet.

Date: February 27, 2007 & Time: 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. (EST)

Specifically, we’ll teach you:

• Priorities for building a business case
• How to measure return on investment
• How to identify very specific measurable benefits
• Best practices & case studies that measure ROI

To register phone 1-866-869-7969 or e-mail register@summersdirect.com

NOTICE: The British Airways intranet webinar has been rescheduled to March 15, 2007. See Intranet Insider World Tour: British Airways.

RELATED READING:

Selling the intranet to senior management

Infant intranets need executive loving

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“8 of 10 hires are hired for their knowledge and technical skills,” says Edgar Papke, CEO of Living Change. “9 out of 10 fires are for poor teamwork and interpersonal skills.”

As I’ve said time and time again in the column, the biggest challenge facing intranet managers and consultants is not technical, but political. Specifically, the politics of what I call ‘competing priorities.’ IT, communications, and HR all have differing priorities and focuses, yet have to work together to build and manage an effective intranet.

Technical knowledge and skills are nice to have, management skills are a necessity for an intranet manager or intranet consultant.

When interviewing a perspective hire, here are five very telling and important questions that Papke recommends:

1. Tell me when you were part of a high performing team. How did the leader lead?
2. What was your contribution to the team?
3. Tell me when you were part of a team that didn’t /wasn’t a high-performing team?
4. What was your contribution to that team?
5. How will you contribute here?

In particular, question three is a critical one, says Papke: “If someone answers ‘no’ to question three then say ‘goodbye.” For two reasons: either they’re lying or they haven’t any experience with conflict. In short, you want to hire someone that knows how to manage conflict.

See How to hire an intranet manager

Another hiring tool to use is Ed Ryan’s MPR Competency Model. In short, the MPR model focuses on ranking three key traits required for a typical job:

T = Talent (skills to do the job)

E = Experience (job related experience)

C = Chemistry (cultural fit & personality)

The most important trait is talent, followed by chemistry. A strong trait is exemplified by a capital letter (T); a weak trait symbolized with a small case letter (t). The ideal candidate is a strong T-E-C, but a close runner up is a T-e-C (someone with talent and is a good cultural fit, but has limited experience).

The best combinations (in descending order of preference) are:

·         TEC

·         TeC

·         Tec

·         Tec

·         tEC

All of these tips and learnings are equally applicable for hiring an intranet consultant. If you’re hiring in an intranet consultant, then you’re likely benefiting from their ability to cut through some of the organization’s red tape and politics. If this is true, then having a skilled diplomat (C) is perhaps one of the most valuable traits a consultant can bring to the table.

Despite the advances in technology and the potentially massive benefits and impressive ROI accrued from converting paper-based forms to online submission, many intranets still host a majority of their forms in MS-Word and PDF.

James Robertson writes in Automating three types of forms that “the ‘rule of thirds’ can be used to categorise the different types of forms within organisations:

• One third are very simple forms, with no logic or complex rules.
• The second third have some underlying rules, such as simple workflow or basic form logic.
• The final third are best considered as applications, such as employee self service (ESS).”

The first two types, in Robertson’s estimation represent about two-thirds of all forms to be found on the intranet, are either very simple or somewhat simple to implement. The third tend to be more complex applications that often get the bulk of attention.

HP’s intranet features 1,850 “e-services” and application. Just about any form you can imagine is an online service. Despite having a remote workforce that is mostly traveling, British Airways employees complete most of their forms online… many in the form of applications:

·         100% of internal (and external) recruitment is done online

·         100% of employee travel is booked online

·         75% of pensioner (retiree) self-service is done online (wow!)

·         80% of employees update their own contact information online (from 10% in 2003)

The number one application is e-Pay where employees access their paystub – delivering savings of $180,000 per year. These forms and applications are the primary drivers of $80 million in savings in the past year for British Airways.

Online forms make sense for a lot of reasons including making better the lives and jobs of employees. And they deliver a lot of savings and ROI.

Read James Robertson’s full article Automating three types of forms.

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A new poll from a vendor shows that nearly 50% of UK organisations could be leaving themselves open to litigation through managing their corporate policies primarily on the intranet (see Businesses warned over use of intranet).

I could not find the actual poll results and the company that conducted the poll, NETconsent, does not make it readily available on its website. This sounds like another marketing exercise masquerading as scientific research... but regardless the information is worthwhile.

The marketing states that the “poll reveals that many organisations have a passive and potentially dangerous attitude towards managing their policies. Intranet implementations that grow organically can prove challenging to manage and might no longer meet the increasing compliance requirements for such processes.”

NETconsent highlights the following “dangers of managing policies over the Intranet”:

• No proof – Simply making a policy available for reading on the intranet is not sufficient. In the instance of a legal challenge companies need to demonstrate that an employee has agreed to the policy in question, if not also read and understood it.

• Out of date / inaccurate – Policies need updating on a regular basis. If policies are not kept up to date with company and legislative changes, employees may be reading and agreeing to inaccurate information, leaving the company open to risk.

• Understanding – Without measures to ensure that policies are read and understood, organisations do not know whether their policies are viable and effective.

• Relevance – Many policies will only be relevant to a set group of people. Managing policies through the intranet may make it confusing for employees to identify which policies are relevant to them. Ideally policies should only be targeted at the relevant employees.

• Access – In many organisations not all employees have access to the intranet or use it on a daily basis. This may result in employees being unaware of policy changes or unable to access policy documents.

I believe the use of “danger” to be rather strong here, but I’ll let each reader judge for themselves vis a vis the present intranet environment and culture at their respective organization.

“The research indicates just how many businesses rely on the Intranet to communicate policies,” says Dominic Saunders, NETconsent’s Operations Director. “While it is encouraging that companies are using policies to educate their employees and protect themselves, managing them over the intranet might not be enough.”

“Without evidence of the signed document, employers are leaving themselves open to risk. In the event of a breach of policy, organisations need to be able to demonstrate not only that they have a policy in place but that the employee concerned has seen and agreed to the document.”

How can you tell both lawyers and marketers are involved in this announcement? Fear and legalease can together form a very powerful marketing punch.

I’ve not heard of a company that was sued because each and every employee did not sign-off on an intranet policy. If it’s stated and available through a link on every single page (via CSS template) then that should suffice. I’m not saying that such a lawsuit is not possible, it obviously is possible, but I’ve not seen or heard of one as of yet.  

NETconsent is of course raising the possibility of potential lawsuits under some circumstances in order to sell companies their product – which by no coincidence helps “mitigate risks” by maintaining “full and accurate records of written policies.” Fair enough.

NETconsent Ltd. “is the world-leading vendor of effective policy management software solutions and corporate communications.”

NETconsent’s “Tips for better Policy Management” include:

• Ease of use – The more policies that are managed through the intranet the more updates and changes will be required. To minimise the time spent on managing policies by staff it should be easy to create, update, distribute and monitor responses of new and revised policies.

• Updates – Keep all policies updated and current in line with corporate culture, working practices, legal precedents and legislation changes.

• Record agreements – Maintain records of employee agreement to relevant active policies, whilst retaining a full archive of agreements to previous policy versions.

• Access for all – Ensure that all employees, including those that work from home or remotely, have access to central policy repository.

• Control – Make sure that access of ‘author rights’ to policies is tightly controlled and only nominated persons can make changes to policies and policy records.

• Understanding – Randomly test employees’ understanding of policies to determine whether further education or policy reviews may be required.

• Check – Carry out checks to ensure that any required policy agreements can be accessed for evidence at short notice.

About the poll

“The results were taken from a telephone poll of 100 UK HR and IT managers, working in a range of sectors including technology, government and professional services, across a variety of company sizes.

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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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Scandinavian cell phone maker Nokia recently reported record-breaking fourth quarter results. The company is making money hand over fist (approaching $6 billion in 2006). Senior management is predictably getting big bonuses this year. However, employees are not getting the same bonuses and Nokia is not paying out a special “Connecting People” bonus despite the good results.

The Helsinki Sanomat reports “…a further cause of annoyance is the fact that the missed targets also translate to cuts in the bonus systems paid by individual business groups. Such bonuses are based on the net sales, business profit, and cash flow, among others. Nearly all of Nokia's 68,000 workers belong to the scope of bonus systems as well other than the Connecting People plan.” (See Nokia personnel fume over bonus cuts).

"Nokia workers have expressed their disappointment in regard to what they feel is an unjust situation on the company's intranet chat groups, where the company directors have also answered some of the questions.

Nokia President and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo explained the bonus criteria in a Friday video speech, which has since been available on the Nokia intranet.

 

The personnel representatives have already held talks with the management over the development of the Connecting People, bonus system, which is the most controversial. Nokia has promised to continue to discuss the development of the system world wide."