How to Scope an Intranet Release

When developing intranet releases, intranet teams often find themselves very constrained by both time and resources. The challenge then becomes delivering sufficient content and capabilities to meet business and user expectations, within the project constraints. This briefing introduces a simple approach to scoping a release that takes all of these factors into account.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2004). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Project Management

Intranet Authoring: a Hobby?

Much is expected of intranet authors, and they are vital to delivering an intranet that is useful (and used). Yet, in many cases, intranet authoring is treated as a hobby within organisations. This briefing looks at the role of intranet authors, and challenges organisations to either take intranet authoring seriously, or to let go of unrealistic expectations regarding content quality and timeliness.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2006). Articles>Web Design>Intranets

Intranet Managers Must Be Managers

While intranets often have someone appointed as the intranet ‘manager’, do they spend their time actually managing the site, or publishing pages? Observing many organisations and intranets, one of the critical success factors is to have an intranet manager who is free to focus solely on the management of the site. The intranet manager should not be writing HTML or publishing pages.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2006). Articles>Management>Intranets>Web Design

Intranets and Knowledge Sharing

This article challenges the vision of the corporate intranet as a publishing tool, or a static repository for web pages or documents. Instead, it looks at a number of ways in which the intranet can become a dynamic and living environment for knowledge-based activities.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2004). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Knowledge Management

Intranets as a News Channel

Improving the effectiveness of internal communications is often one of the key goals underpinning corporate intranets. In practice, this is often reflected in ‘latest news’ section on the home page of most intranets. While news on the home page is certainly widespread, the question needs to be asked: how effective is it? This article explores the role of the intranet as a news channel, revisiting some of the assumptions about how best to deliver online news within an organisation.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2006). Articles>Web Design>Intranets

Intranets as the First Source of Information

All too often, intranets become a dumping ground for “second-hand documents”. Information is sent out via email, or other mechanisms, and then stored on the intranet as an afterthought. Where this is the case, intranets deliver few real benefits, while still shouldering the full cost of maintaining an increasingly large collection of pages and documents. This briefing explores the nature of the problem, and proposes what may be considered a radical solution.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets

Intranets: Losing the Language of Enforcement

All too often, centralised intranet teams find themselves battling with decentralised authors to enforce consistency and quality standards. Not only is this fighting ultimately fruitless, it can be very damaging for the morale of all participants, and potentially crippling for the future of the intranet itself. In these situations, intranet teams need to find a new approach, and new ways of working with their decentralised authors. The first step is to lose the language of enforcement.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets

Is Your Intranet Trusted by Staff?

It is widely recognised that an intranet must be trusted, if it is to be regularly used by staff across an organisation. While it is easy to make this statement, it is harder to qualify what is meant by trust, how users assess it, and how we can build (or rebuild) trust in the intranet. This briefing looks at the issue of trust, and presents some simple steps that can be taken to further build staff trust in the intranet.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Workplace

Keeping Your Intranet Healthy and Effective

An intranet must constantly grow and evolve to match the changing needs of the business, while ensuring a high level of usability and efficiency. This is no easy task, and it will require the constant enthusiasm and efforts of the intranet team.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2002). Articles>Web Design>Intranets

Leadership Tips for Intranet Teams

Intranets require strong leaders if they are to be more than just publishing platforms for occasionally-used information. The intranet team must take on this leadership role, and drive the evolution and enhancement of the site. This is not an easy role for some intranet teams to play, but ultimately it is one that is satisfying for the team, and greatly beneficial for the site itself. This article outlines a range of practical tips that can be applied to help intranet teams operate more effectively in this leadership role. These are all small (but important) steps that can be taken immediately by any intranet team.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2006). Articles>Web Design>Management>Intranets

Meeting Your Intranet Users

You can’t usefully deliver information to users that you haven’t personally met. This article discusses the challenges in delivering information to all staff within an organisation, and outlining practical approaches that ensure efforts spent publishing intranet content are not wasted.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>User Centered Design

Nine Ways to Fix Intranet Search

Search is often the greatest source of frustration on intranets. Irrelevant results, hard to read results pages and ‘untitled document’ entries plague many intranet searches. With the size and scope of most intranets, search is a key tool used by staff to find information. While the expectation is that it should be quick and easy to find information on the intranet, this is often not the case. Beyond generating staff frustration, these problems can reduce trust and confidence in the search tool.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2006). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Search

Not All Content Needs to Be of Equal Quality

One of the greatest challenges confronting intranets is ensuring that content is up-to-date, accurate and useful. In many organisations, much thought and effort is put into maintaining (and enhancing) the quality of published content. What must be realised, however, is that not all content on an intranet needs to be of equal quality. Only once this is recognised can successful strategies be put in place to support content authoring and publishing.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2005). Articles>Content Management>Web Design>Intranets

Paradox of Delivering to Isolated Staff

Staff in geographically isolated locations are most reliant on information sources such as intranets. In practical terms, however, these staff are the hardest to reach.This is a central paradox for intranets, and while there are no easy answers, there are some practical steps that can be taken to better meet the needs of these isolated staff.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Teleconferencing

Providing Intranet Access to Records

Many organisations are attempting to clarify the relationship between the corporate intranet, and their document/records management system. While this is a broader issue of information management with an organisation, there are some short-term activities that can be taken to create a working relationship between these two platforms. This briefing outlines a simple scenario in which the intranet helps staff find key corporate information, while the documents accessed are stored in the document/records management system.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Databases

Search Should Work Like Magic

Thanks to Google, intranet users expect to be able to type in a word (or two) and find the page they are looking for, preferably in the first few results. This is not an unreasonable expectation. At the most fundamental level, search on an intranet is supposed to make it quick and easy for staff to find things, thereby saving them time and improving their productivity. This can be distilled down to a very simple concept: search should work like magic. As much as is possible, search should always give staff the information they need, somewhere in the first few results.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2006). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Search

Sixteen Steps to a Renewed Corporate Intranet

The growing status of content management systems (CMSs) is now providing many organisations with an impetus to revisit and renew their intranets. Unfortunately, while the technical aspects of implementing a CMS are well understood, many organisations are struggling to identify the issues with the content, structure and management of their intranets. The good news is that by following a disciplined approach, it is possible to re-invigorate an intranet, making it deliver real business benefits, and supporting strategic goals. This article outlines a sixteen step process which guides you through to a refreshed and dynamic new intranet.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2002). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Content Management

The "All Together" Rule for Intranets

The primary purpose of intranets is to support staff in doing their jobs, to help them complete common business tasks. In practice, however, this can be very frustrating on many intranets. Policies are located in one section, procedures in another section, and forms in a third. Information then needs to be hunted out in order to complete even simple activities. The effectiveness of intranets can be greatly enhanced by bringing together all of the information and tools relating to a task or a subject, and presenting them in a single location.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Information Design

What to Include in Intranet Search Results

Intranet search often fails to meet the needs or expectations of users, with confusing and complex results provided for even the simplest searches.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Search

Who Should Own the Intranet?

One of the first challenges when establishing an intranet is to determine who should have overall ownership of the site, and where the intranet team should be located. While the responsibility for driving the intranet must be given to a single business area, this group must be located within the right area of the organisation if the intranet is to succeed. This briefing explores a number of common intranet owners, and discusses the pros and cons of each group. It then presents some general guidelines and approaches for selecting where to place the intranet team.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2004). Articles>Web Design>Management>Intranets

Content Reuse in Practice

Few organisations are able to realise this vision of content reuse in practice. Instead, content reuse is typically only used in a few limited situations, with authoring and publishing continuing unchanged to a large extent.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2004). Articles>Content Management

Successfully Deploying a Content Management System

This article outlines a structured approach to deploying a CMS, as well as providing a range of practical guidelines and tips that will assist the implementation team.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2004). Articles>Content Management