The one thing I insist upon before revamping an intranet
I’m supposed to say that a clear strategy is essential to any intranet build or rebuild project. But that cannot be true, considering the number of organisations without an intranet or a channel strategy.
I’m not going to make every client write a strategy document, not when there’s a deadline, a need to show concrete progress, and they’ve already written a project brief. What I do ask for is a published vision.
Relying on the internal comms strategy (which most clients do have) and the project brief, a succinct vision can be crafted to express the core purposes of the intranet. Not only does this pave the way for what the intranet should support and achieve, it also implies what the intranet is not to do, providing a prosaic scope. And yes, it’s likely the vision will include some ‘soft stuff’ around how colleagues will feel about the company and how they’ll find the intranet useful, and I’m OK with that if it’s centred around practicalities.
The vision might be a few sentences or 300 words, and can now guide the whole project team as we plan work to tackle the project brief. The vision helps ensure we’re not just ticking tasks off our project plan, but truly addressing needs in a holistic way. We’re trying to build an experience here, not just throw up a tech solution!
Publish, and be damned
The vision might well need running past senior leaders, but once it’s “95% there”, it should be published. We need to be able to point people to a page when we’re discussing the intranet and asking for their support and involvement. We cannot assume that everyone has the same ideas as us.
My favourite publishing trick is when the vision is explained in a blog-like article, and linked to from the intranet help section of the intranet. The vision itself is concise and open to interpretation (not a bad thing) and so having the appropriate leader talk around the points made, and explain how ongoing work will help achieve the vision, clarifies the purposes and future of the intranet. We want the comms network and all publishers (current and future) to have a shared understanding, and we want senior leaders to know what’s in or out of scope so the intranet isn’t overwhelmed with the ‘wrong’ kind of effort or content.
There will be people who aren’t aligned with the vision. You can amend the vision when necessary, but I counsel not to make immediate changes on receipt of feedback. Wait; reflect, check your strategic notes. Keep focused on your intent, don’t allow the vision to reference everything just because it’s related to IT and digital.
Aim high but stay grounded
The vision does not do the heavy lifting or intranet revamping, but it does help start or guide conversations. It’s vital to have good conversations because while many think of an intranet build project as a technical matter, the hardest parts are around content, and that means people.
Colleagues will have feelings about any proposed changes to how and where they publish, and the vision only goes so far. A full project plan is needed of course, which will touch on the usuals: news governance, information architecture, page design, home page / landing page designs, navigation elements and menus.
What I like about our intranet redesign projects is that we rapidly build tangibles (if I’m allowed to consider digital creations as touchable). The vision guides what we should achieve, but best practices (and the technology) shapes how we create solutions. I work with clients in a collaborative, iterative manner, so the project team gets to use our draft designs, allowing us to quickly finesse, especially when user research is relied upon.
If you’d like your intranet to achieve more, to be more usable, useful, and used, talk to us about your pains and goals. Just remember, we’ll need a vision in the first week of the project!
