Presentation delivered at an Intranet event in Zurich, September 2012. Explains 3 business drivers of an intranet and the 5 top tips to deliver a successful intranet.

1.  

2.  I run the two biggest intranet groups
on LinkedIn:
o Worldwide Intranet Challenge (11,500)
o Intranet Professionals (4,500)
 Run the Worldwide Intranet Challenge and
write the WIC blog
 Have been an intranet consultant the last 10
years – SharePoint for the last 5
 Passionate about intranets because I think
there is plenty of potential for improvement

3. It’s a web that asks intranet about their
based end users what Intranet.
survey... they think...
“...enabling leading practices & experts to be identified”

4. Collaboration Content
Overall Value
Performance
Finding info.
Look and feel Maintenance

5. New design Tips & tricks
It’s about designing more
USEFUL intranets
Before & after Business case
Motivation Manage priorities

6. 30,000+ intranet end users
108 organisations
19 countries
From Switzerland
• Eidg. Finanzdepartement
• Ferring Pharmaceuticals
• Sulzer
• Swisscom

7. 1. Intranet must support an organisation’s
objectives
2. Provide interactive capabilities
3. Focus on user adoption and leading
change
4. Provide an intranet that helps staff ‘do’
things
5. Relentless focus on content quality and
findability

9.  Discussion forums  Lists – staff,
 Team/project spaces products, customers,
 Other collaboration areas etc.
 Status updates/ questions  Tasks, grouped by
 Ideas register role
 Online training  Online forms
 Change notifications –  Templates
email alerts, 1.Innovation 2.Operation
 Re-usable
RSS feeds documents
 Reference material
 Applications/
external web sites
 Archives
3.Employee
 Tools to be productive engagement
 News stories
 Blogs, admired leaders
 Measures/KPIs – goals expectations, winning organisation
 Recognition, meaningful work
 Flexible work life – able to work off-site

10. Thanks to Teal Shapcott
http://www.tealeshapcott.com

16.  Involve end users in identifying and implementing intranet
requirements
 Continually work on obtaining executive buy-in
 Avoid implementing fluffy stuff that won’t get used
 Give staff the ability personalise their home page
 Provide quality content. Limit # of authors.
 Distinguish between ‘informal’ collaboration type work spaces
and the intranet
 Be vigilant in keeping content up-to-date.
 Manage important content changes through the use of alerts
that staff must acknowledge
 Provide access to all your business applications through your
intranet
 Talk to your end users regularly to find out what they do and
what applications will help them work more effectively

18.  McKinsey study, in which the projects of over 40
companies were investigated
 The effect of an Organizational Change Management
(OCM) program on a project’s ROI. The study
showed the ROI was
o 143 percent when an excellent OCM program was
part of the initiative;
o 35 percent when there was a poor OCM program
or no program.
http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/2010/08/the-business-impact-of-change-management/

19.  The 11 most unsuccessful companies in the McKinsey
study had poor change management, which showed up
as the following:
o Lack of commitment and follow through by senior executives;
o Defective project management skills among middle managers;
o Lack of training of and confusion among frontline employees.
 The 11 most successful companies in the study had
excellent OCM programs:
o Senior and middle managers and frontline employees were all
involved;
o Everyone’s responsibilities were clear;
o Reasons for the project were understood and accepted
throughout the organization.

20. 8 step transformation
process – John Kotter
http://www.kotterinternational.com/kotterprinci
ples/ChangeSteps/
 Useradoption strategies –
Michael Sampson
http://www.michaelsampson.net/useradoption.
html

21. Step 1: Establishing a Sense of Urgency
Step 2: Creating the Guiding Coalition
Step 3: Developing a Change Vision
Step 4: Communicating the Vision for Buy-in
Step 5: Empowering Broad-based Action
Step 6: Generating Short-term Wins
Step 7: Never Letting Up
Step 8: Incorporating Changes into the Culture

22.  Stage 1: Winning Attention
 Stage 2: Cultivating Basic Concepts
 Stage 3: Enlivening Applicability
 Stage 4: Making it Real

23.  Person needs to have a  Identify tangible benefits
track record of success  Provide support for
 Pitch to one senior person – executives to provide
not a group content (eg. commenting, a
 Identify what can be blog)
achieved in the short and  Show trust in your
long term employees
 Provide examples or case  Align intranet to vision –
studies – exemplar stories show how your intranet
 Identify the return on supports your organisation’s
investment – cost savings, KPIs
profits, increased customer
satisfaction
Tracy Hutton: Getting the C-Suite On Your Side (video 28:49), Slideshare

28. Identify key tasks Develop online forms One location
• Talk to the business users • Candidates for online forms • Provide a single location for
• Make an effort to include the most common all forms, procedures or task
understand what they do tasks descriptions (at least)
• Prioritise tasks by • Forms that are easy to • Provide other ways to
frequency and importance implement navigate if possible
• Categorise tasks by who • Can use simple lists • Ensure procedures are
does them actually documented and up-
to-date – assign owners

30. How important are the following in contributing to a valuable
intranet?
Ease of finding information 1.61
Quantity & quality of content provided 1.45
Performance & availability 1.42
Help completing work tasks 1.03
Intranet change management & maintenance 0.94
Look and feel 0.88
Staff able to contribute & interact 0.84
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20 1.40 1.60 1.80

31. Reduce content amount Easy access to key info Web analytics
• Conduct regular content • Provide access to popular • Monitor popular search
audits content from the home page terms
• Remove obsolete content • Conduct usability studies to • Identify popular pages
• Be ruthless when it comes identify best taxonomy • Ensure important
to maintaining content • Provide multiple navigation information is quickly visible
• Separate the ‘official’ paths to information
intranet from collaboration
sites

34.  Explained the WIC
 Went through 5 top tips:
1. Intranet must support an organisation’s objectives
2. Provide an interactive experience
3. Focus on user adoption and leading change
4. Provide an intranet that helps staff ‘do’ things
5. Look after content quality and ensure it’s easy to find
things
 To participate in the WIC:
worldwideintranetchallenge.com