Robertson's (President of Step Two Designs (Sydney, Australia) key ingredient for success: there needs to be a real reason for people to talk together.
Tip: make sure you have top-level senior support. “It (collaboration and social media tools) will rattle a few cages... so make sure you have the support,” says James. “Also, make sure you're consistent. The system will 'mushroom' and take-off. So the way you act in the first few weeks is very important.”
Employee collaboration challenges:
Fear (from upper management)
Compliance
Email anarcbhy
Fear of being wrong
Lack of understanding (What? Why?)
Exploding content
Confidentiality issues
Search
Viral spread
Case study: Crew Community Forums (British Airways)
BA implemented online discussion forums for 17,500 flight staff (with a focus on customer service). The challenge for these employees to communicate is that they're located all around the world, and not normally working all totegher, but they come together for a single flight (on occasion). “Its a challenge to communicate for a large workforce,” says Allen Huish, head of the intranet for British Airways.
One example of change that resulted from the use of the discussion forums related to the quality of plastic cups used for drinks on flights. The issue: plastic cups are cracking when being handed-out. Having seen the discussion by flight staff, but previously unaware of the problem, the GM responsible for catering took up the cause to improve the quality of the cups.
Allen says the forums have been quite successful due to the partipation of staff, and thanks to the great support from the senior leadership team. And the executives participate themselves, doing their own typing and writing (without a ghost writer), and also participate in live chat sessions.
The forums have delivered many benefits not the least of which are improvement ideas: “well over 100 continuous improvement ideas have been submitted, discussed and progressed via the forums between crew and the teams that support them from across the airline.”
See the video of Allen Huish discussing this award-winning solution for Britsh Airways (2008 Intranet Innovation Awards).
Wikis
James suggests there are two overarching purposes for rolling out wikis on the corporate intranet:
1- Wiki as an intranet platform – as a publishing tool
2- Wiki as a collaboration tool
“Wikis suck as a piece of tehnology,” says James (although he admits not all wikis suck, and despite the technology, can be a good business tool. But don't get him started on wik mark-up... James does point to the Janssen-Cilag wiki case study, and the Scottrade competitive wikis as great wiki examples.
Adds James: “(But) if we roll out collaboration tools and tell people to go use them (withouth the necessary best practices and policy)... only 10% will be successful.”
Collaboration benefits
“Two important benefits: horizontal communications amongst employees (which is nice, but more importantly...), and the ability to solve problems that were otherwise impossible to solve,” says James.
Problem: Collaboration tools replicate the same problems we overcame in Lotus Notes; great for local deployment, not appropriate for enteprise deployment.
Collaboration recommendations:
Have an owner for collaboration, beyond just the technology (e.g. policies, training, communications)
Build up best practices, and provide mentoring support for teams using collaboration
Establish good governance and management
Identify key opportunities to deliver value to the organization
Not an enterprise search problem, consider not searching collaboration spaces
Team Sites Case study: Transfield Services
A leading global provider of operations, maintenance, and asset and project management services, Transfield Services has more than 29,000 employees (8,000+ are knowledge workers). Requireing SharePoint’s team collaboration tools across a global services business, Transfield Services developed a ‘Team Site in a Box’ solution.
TeamSite in a Box outlines the how-to and rules for setting-up a team site including:
“When to use a Team Site”
Team Site checklist
Training materials
frequently asked questions
video training and more
A clear governance model established ensures that Transfield avoids the “all-to-common ‘sprawl” that Team Sites can propogate. Instead of thousands of sprawled Team Sites, there are only 200+ meaningful sites. Transfield state the benefits ensure “staff across the enterprise now have opportunities to become easily connected, better informed and better supported in their work.”
Learn more about the Intranet Innovation Award winners lilke Transfield, Janssen-Cilag, Scottrade and many more case studies and screenshots at: www.steptwo.com.au/products/iia2008