Many organizations face this problem: the intranet was launched with the intention that it becomes the central means for communicating within the organization, but today it is chaotic, untenable and users struggle to find the information they need.
Most intranets become victims of their own success. They grow organically, without any overarching plan. The result – employees cannot find the information they need, don’t trust that it’s the right information if they find it, and limit their use of the intranet to accessing documents they already know are there.
Intranet governance itself isn’t a solution to these problems – a renewed information architecture, enhanced search, content clean up and possibly a technology change may be required to achieve intranet success. But without effective and ongoing intranet governance, the most brilliant intranet renewal will quickly revert to a set of marginally connected islands filled with aged or irrelevant content providing little business benefit.
Defined as the people, policies and processes that determine the rules by which publishers and consumers interact with the internet, “governance” is fundamentally about who has control. The seven steps we describe here have delivered results for a dozen organizations, both private companies and not-for-profits.
From assessing the intranet landscape in your company, to making sure the right mix of people are involved and building a governance framework, this whitepaper addresses:
- Guidance on inventorying your current intranet
- How to run stakeholder sessions
- Sample scenarios for workshop exercises based on our past work with clients
- An example of a governance framework
- A governance board agenda for getting started
- Communication tactics
It is important to recognize that governance questions are necessarily small-p political questions (the person who gets to say “No” has the power). So the approach we describe may require some adaptation in recognition of the specific political realities you face. Also, these seven steps are intended for organizations up to 10,000 employees – much larger or broadly multilingual, multicultural companies face different considerations, and in our experience, much more than seven steps to address all of these issues.
You are not alone. For any organization struggling with intranet management, this whitepaper is a friendly guide for re-thinking, navigating and establishing intranet governance.
About non-linear creations
non-linear creations is a leading Canadian Internet consulting firm, which was formed in 1995 with a powerful vision: leveraging the business benefits of Internet technology to drive a strong return on investment for our clients. This focus on delivering results is baked into NLC's corporate DNA and drives each of our areas of practice, including: Enterprise & Web Content Management, Enterprise Search & Navigation, Online Strategy,
Search Engine Marketing, Email Marketing, Application Development & Integration, Site Design & Multimedia and Web Analytics.
With a portfolio of more than 750 online projects and clients around the globe, non~linear creations continues to deliver impressive online results. For more information, visit www.nonlinearcreations.com.