Ten Intranet Success Factors

By Howard McQueen Howard@mcq.com 
McQueen Consulting 

September 8, 2008 | Version 1                                      PDF Version (100K)

1.  Document the intranet strategy
Develop and document an intranet strategy, basing this on a methodology that balances the mix of information/content, technology and governance. The intranet strategy must align with and support the key information-centric strategies of the organization. 

2. Ensure that the intranet is user-centric
Ensure that high quality quantitative and qualitative user research is conducted and analyzed and requirements explicitly published.  As soon as possible, introduce user-centric tools such as personas and tasks/scenarios to highlight the key requirements of priority audiences.  Deeply involve the business owners and the CIO in leveraging user requirement “targets” so that space is made for prototyping, usability testing and for the more advanced work of persona advocacy (see my August ’08 article http://www.mcq.com/article-persona ).

3. Understand and support content contribution
The Information quality of an intranet is essential and an intranet with ROT (Redundant, Obsolete and Trivial) information erodes user-trust.  Invariably, intranet content contribution is not included in job descriptions or valued by managers, and as a result, critical content stewardship is not recognized, rewarded or formally resourced.  Information and content assessments as well as audits are tools to enable the organization to prioritize what content has high value.

4. Enhance the intranet in a series of small, manageable, steps
One time face lifts to an intranet offer users promise, but the benefits rapidly fade because the content does not remain fresh and continuous improvements are not forthcoming.  An effective intranet program delivers continuous and progressive enhancement, but it all starts by successfully delivering modest results and building on a series of successes.  End-user trust must be rebuilt and business owners shown the value in investing in information management and later content management to create and sustain content assets.  We use several refined methodologies to support our work, including the 6 x 2 Methodology for Intranets, developed by Australian colleague James Robertson.

5. Manage metadata (i.e. target specific content to specific audiences)
At the top of every manager’s list of concerns is a sense of drowning in a tsunami of superfluous information.  For End-users to succeed in their jobs, care must be taken to select content sources they use regularly as well as place filters on various content pushed out to them.  The goal we shoot for is to try to ensure that 8 out of 10 content resources displayed/delivered to a user (on their customized web page, portal workspace or email distribution list) are considered relevant.  Today, many intranet users have indicated that a meager 20% of content they interact with is relevant.  When the organization makes an investment in managing metadata, the signal-to-noise ratio (STN) for high value content is dramatically improved (STN is an electrical engineering principal that demonstrates that a desired signal (or on the intranet, communications channel, or specific message) must stand out from the roar of the background noise), else the user will not be able to distinguish and use it.  Metadata ‘keywords', ‘target audience’, ‘topic’ and ‘I need to …’ are all critical ways to target high value information to a specific audience or need.  The effort involved in developing metadata schemes, taxonomies and the more advanced work of targeting content to specific audiencesis always underestimated. Enterprise portal programs may execute the complex technology elements extremely well, but if filtered, highly relevant content sources are not flowing through the portal to audiences, the portal will not provide the promised return on investment.

6. Provide effective search functionality
End-users often have information discovery requirements that cannot be solved by having them browse through well-developed taxonomies.   This is when they turn to the intranet search engine (or more likely Google, since intranet search is generally regarded in intranet surveys “as broken”).  Users have to trust the search functionality in order to feel totally confident that either they have found all relevant information, or that information is not on official company web sites and repositories. A combination of good metadata and designing an end-user search interface that rewards the user by refining their search and increasing their relevancy is key.

7. Provide access to the larger business environment
Make sure that the intranet provides access to information from external sources, such as business news, business intelligence, competitive intelligence and critical market information. It is easy to be so focused on the provision of internal information that access to external information is overlooked.  Collaboration (on the intranet) can pull together customer-facing staff and their disconnects and failure to provide exceptional service or win new customers.  This ability to capture customer-facing obstacles and rapidly correct these deficiences requires that the organization experiment with new communication tools that flatten communications.  Cutting-edge managers and leaders are the early adopters that help the organization change the culture to become more successful.  It is experimenting with new tools on the intranet that makes these innovations possible.   

8. Undertake regular usability testing
Regularly testing the usefulness and value derived by users of the intranet creates several benefits.  First of all, it keeps the intranet team closely connected to and seeking the feedback of intranet “customers”.  Usability testing is all about fixing defects and progressively streamlining task completion.  Properly performed, usability testing shows before and after metrics, so time savings are easily quantified.  Additionally, interviews with end-users often generate testimonials as to innovative breakthroughs that they made while using an improved version of an application or service.  Usability testing, when done in an iterative manner, can move a information architecture or a web interface from being 50% usable to being over 90% usable.  This generates goodwill among the end-user community and expectations for future improvements help support developing and justifying business cases. 

9. Support collaborative working
Intranet hosted blogs, forums and wikis are exceptional ways to improve core intranet business processes such as customer service and new product and service development.  By bringing together customer-facing staff and explicitly capturing the disconnects they experience with customers, senior management can be appraised and take action that cuts across the organization’s silos.  The theme may be “one voice to the customer” or it may simply be to commit to doing whatever it takes to win and retain customers in an increasingly competitive landscape.  The intranet can raise awareness and improve communications, but the organization must take responsibility for undertaking pilots and testing for success, thus learning when and where there are benefits to changing and evolving its culture. 

10. Set up suitable governance structure(s)
The governance structure (executive and operational governance) should reflect the 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.  And, for a global company, the requirements and pace of the intranet in the US may be substantially different from that of the German intranet, or the Brazilian intranet.  Culture and politics are the greatest obstacles when considering rolling out global solutions to the intranet.  It is important to keep a large measure of flexibility and customization in the regional or even country level.  Even something as seemingly global as a fully-functional online employee directory cannot be evenly rolled out across the US and Europe, because privacy laws in Europe significantly restrict personal information sharing.

Intranet Best Practice Workshops
Martin White and I provide half-day Intranet Best Practice workshops at major events in the US and Europe.  We can also modify these and bring them in-house into organizations.  Please contact Howard McQueen to talk about a North American workshop or Martin White for a European workshop.