Increasing The Impact Of Your Intranet: Have A Clear Vision And Do Your Planning

Every Intranet project starts somewhere and the best ones never end

Tim Horgan, CIO Magazine webmaster and vice president of technology

Start by clarifying your objectives. Your objectives should focus on creating value: selling more, saving costs, developing new products/services, attracting and retaining employees, etc. You may need to carry out some research or conduct focus groups to understand the value that different departments hope to derive from an improved Intranet.

Next, put together your team. Having an effective, company-wide cross-functional team is really important. It is a good idea to get a balance between representatives from IT, Comms and HR.

Consult with your Intranet team and key stakeholders to define why you are establishing or revamping your Intranet. Ensure your objectives and strategies align with the business goals.

Use a template for your planning and write down your plan. This will help you clarify your thoughts. It will also ensure you include all relevant information and it will keep you and your team on track.

Break the project up into smaller ‘mini projects’, then, for each one:

• Discuss what needs to be done
• Identify problems and possible improvements
• Drum up interest and buy-in across the business

This post was kindly supplied by the fine folk at SnapComms

Try these Snap tools
Snap tools can directly assist you in planning your Intranet update or development.

Snap Poll can deliver company wide surveys to assess what’s working and what’s not with the existing Intranet. It can also gather important information regarding the tools and resources people would like to see included on the revamped Intranet. Snap Poll is very quick to set up and simple to deliver company wide. It pops up on employee computer screens so does not add to email overload. Built in reminders help drive participation which ensures that all views are represented in the research…including the important but often ‘silent majority’ who perhaps do not have extreme views or agendas and are less motivated to participate.

Snap Poll can also be targeted to specific groups of employees, for example, managers and heads of departments. Such individuals can be asked questions such as “what specific business value does / could your department derive from an effective Intranet?”, “How might this be quantified?” For example, a sales manager may say it is the number of accurate proposals that sales people are able to produce. This research will provide an important perspective to help you make the Intranet effective and also help you quantify the value of the revamped Intranet at a later stage.

In addition to quantitative research, Snap Forum is a good way of enabling staff to engage in online discussions. It allows you to tap in to the likes and dislikes of staff with regard to the Intranet as well as to capture innovative thinking and possible solutions.

Snap Forum is an easy administer, easy to use, cost effective way to set up a secure Intranet project team discussion group. This is especially useful if timetabling meetings is problematic because key team members have busy schedules. Snap Forum allows stakeholders from other centres to be an active part of your team. Your cross functional project team can ‘meet’ and discuss the status of certain aspects of the project, and share and capture ideas as they crop up.