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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The folks at Ragan.com asking me about the future of intranets and trends to watch out for.

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).

Some inventive and enterprising organizations like Alaska Airlines and the U.S. Army used to maintain their intranet home page on the public Internet (though they’ve both since closed off the home pages to the public).

Others organizations, in attempt to find scales of economy, use a single web platform or tool (often a CMS or a portal solution) that serves all audiences, and serves up content based solely on the audience. So whereas there is a single home page for customers, employees, vendors, etc., content is additionally served-up based on the identity of the individual (often requiring the person to login to see that customized or ‘personalized’ view). The Internet, intranet and extranet sites are merely one-in-the-same but the content is different for each audience.

SYNNEX Canada CEO Jim Estill started his own blog on the public Internet nearly 3 years ago. Estill’s blog, CEO Blog - Time Leadership, though has a multi-audience focus. Though his blog is external, his employees are one of his primary targets, and comprise some 25% of his total readership.

Read the entire case study: Blogging case study: SYNNEX Canada

Estill presents this case study at the upcoming 2008 Social Media Summit Canada Conference in Toronto, ON from March 31 - April 2, 2008).

Do any of your executives maintain an external blog that is also aimed at employees? Do you have multi-audience web platform that serves as both intranet and Internet (and possibly extranet) sites? Drop me a line at toby at prescientdigial (dotcom) and I may feature it in an upcoming feature.

RELATED READING:

Converging the intranet, extranet and Internet

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Building a successful intranet requires an enormous amount of work, and very skilled and capable individuals. To be truly innovative, as is the case of Perkins Eastman, winner of the first Intranet Innovation Awards - Gold Award for communication & collaboration an intranet team has to truly understand the employee audience and deliver superlative content and tools that meet their expectations.

Perkins Eastman won the first Gold Award (see Intranet case study: Perkins Eastman), on the strength of creating an innovative series of online Practice Area Communities (PAC). The PACs are designed to enable knowledge sharing between individuals; across project teams, studios, offices, and practice areas; and the entire international organization.

Each PAC contains key information on a key subject such as “Senior Living” (illustrated above) and features information such as:

• Design practices
• Insights and Lessons Learned
• Project Lists
• Presentations
• Glossary
• Strategic Analysis
• Planning
• Etc.

If you have some truly innovative tools or features on your intranet then I would encourage to apply to this year’s Intranet Innovation Awards – now open for submissions, which must be received by May a6, 2008. Full details on the awards (including the entry form) are at: http://www.steptwo.com.au/iia/  

The Intranet Innovation Awards are global awards that celebrate new ideas and innovative approaches to the design and delivery of intranets. Created by Step Two Designs of Australia The Intranet Innovation Awards are truly global awards, supported by a network of intranet-savvy organisations from the US to the UK, Europe and beyond.

All intranet teams are encouraged to enter their innovative approaches to the design or delivery intranets. This may be may be an entirely new piece of intranet functionality, or a good idea implemented particularly well. The awards recognise individual intranet improvements, and not intranets as a whole.

Submissions are received and judged based on four categories:

• core intranet functionality
• communication and collaboration
• frontline delivery
• business solutions

Winners will be showcased in the Intranet Innovations report, as well as in articles, YouTube interviews, online presentations, international conferences and major industry journals.

See last years winners:

   http://www.steptwo.com.au/products/iia2007/index.html

Find out how to win an award presentation:

   http://www.slideshare.net/jamesr/how-to-win-an-intranet-innovation-award/

Watch video interviews with last year's winners:

   http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=JamesRobertsonAu