Ten Intranet Success Factors

Compiled by Martin White
martin.white@intranetfocus.com

1. Document the intranet strategy

Develop and document an intranet strategy, based on a consideration of the requirements and balance of information/content, technology and governance. This strategy has to be aligned with the overall strategy of the organisation.

2. Use personas and tasks/scenarios to identify user requirements

Personas are virtual cvs that summarise the main characteristics of employees undertaking specific roles, and the tasks that these roles require. Focusing on perhaps six key user scenarios can make a significant difference to the quality and acceptance of the intranet.

3. Understand and support content contribution

Information quality in an intranet is essential. Invariably intranet content contribution is not included in job descriptions or valued by managers, and as a result gets low priority.

4. Enhance the intranet in a series of small, manageable, steps

An intranet should be continuously enhanced to reflect changing requirements, rather than wait for the opportunity and resources to carry out a major revision.

5. Manage metadata

Content authors may not have the skills and expertise needed to add metadata. Metadata is not just about ‘keywords’. The effort involved in developing metadata schemes and taxonomies is always underestimated.

6. Provide effective search functionality

Users have to trust the search functionality so that they feel totally confident that either they have found all relevant information, or that information is not on the intranet.

7. Provide access to the business environment

Make sure that the intranet provides access to information from external sources, such as business and market information. It is easy to be so focused on the provision of internal information that access to external information is overlooked

8. Undertake regular usability testing

Usability testing should be carried out at all stages of the life of an intranet, and there should be a range of feedback channels to ensure that the content and the information architecture continue to meet the expectations of contributors, users and stakeholders.

9. Support collaborative working

Intranets on their own are not good collaborative applications. There could be significant benefit in implementing wikis and blogs.

10. Set up a suitable governance structure

The governance structure should reflect this enterprise value of the intranet. There should be clear communication channels to the staff and also back to the intranet team so that changes in business requirements can be identified at the earliest opportunity.

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