Have you ever stopped to consider that the way in which your company is organized can have a significant impact on the workings of your Intranet? As Intranet professionals, we tend to think most about technology (if we are techies), design (if we are designers or artists) or functionality (if we deal with the business users). But how often do we consider the basic organizational dynamics of our company?

Like most Intranet professionals, I haven't paid much attention to, or had the proper reverence for the hierarchical and political nature of corporations. However, I do recognize and respect the fact that an organization's culture and structure has a significant impact on those of us trying to manage an Intranet.

As you may recall, I joined my company as a new employee to start their Intranet. Being new, I initially spent some time trying to understand how we were organized. Well, almost two years later, I still don't have a complete understanding of the decentralized nature of my company.

It can be that confusing.

 I know there are pro's and con's to centralized versus decentralized organizations and every company differs in some way, so I'll describe my organization to you in general terms. First, my company is a subsidiary of a very large, global corporation (the parent) which has what I'll call a "mini-parent" for each major geographic area (typically by continent). The company itself is extremely decentralized with over seven different businesses that each run as their own company (with all its requisite duplicate core departments) and not surprisingly, each with their own sub-culture. As if  that isn't confusing enough, there is also a segment (though extremely small) of my company that is centralized and works across all of these different businesses. This "common group" is where the Intranet and I fit in as a common resource to all of the company's businesses and product lines.

What is most challenging and often frustrating with this organizational setup is that there is no centralized means of forcing a process to change or "encouraging" all user groups to adopt the Intranet. For instance, one business may be more technologically savvy and want to champion the use of the Intranet, while another business is hesitant to use the technology at all. Not only that, each business takes pride in its originality, and therefore wants their solution to a common problem (for instance, distributing weekly sales reports) to be uniquely their's rather than capitalizing on Intranet technology that has already been running successfully  in another one of the company's businesses.

My approach to reach as wide an audience as possible has been to start with projects that have common applications across all the businesses. This approach has been successful to a degree, but even with some of this basic "no-brainer" Intranet content (like directories, policies, etc.), it has been a challenge because of the decentralized and dual-parent nature of the company.

Why is the existence of the parent company and its mini-geographic version of itself a problem? Mainly because they each have their own Intranets. In order to avoid duplication of effort and out of synch information, data physically resides on only one Intranet and the others simply link to it. So the challenge becomes an issue of who "owns" the content.

Let's take the example of posting Human Resource (HR) policies on the Intranet.. The parent company has HR policies that apply to all of its employees in all its subsidiaries. In addition, there are HR policies that apply just to the geographic locale (the "mini-parent") and policies that are common to the entire company. Lastly, each of the seven businesses have HR policies that are specific only to that part of the business. So, employees in my company need access to the parent and "mini-parent", as well as common and specific policies all in one place on the web called "HR Policies". You can see how simply publishing HR policies on the Intranet could be a full-time, long-term project of cutting through red-tape and linking up through the different Intranets.

Fortunately, the nature of Intranet technology allows for seamless linkage between content on different Intranets, so, in theory, users can have a seamless experience and simply get the information they need. However, keeping the links current and up to date when linking to remote Intranets (whose web personnel do not tell you about new content or changes in the site) can be challenging to downright aggravating. Unfortunately, the more significant impact is not on me or the other Web personnel, but on the users who simply want to find needed information, yet end up running into trouble and becoming frustrated.

Do you work for a decentralized organization? If so, what have some of your successes and failures been because of its decentralized nature? If you work for a more centralized company, what unique challenges have you faced because it is centralized nature? Eail me ( paulag@enter.net )and let me know, so I can present your experiences in future columns.

The Author

P.G. Daly is Webmaster for the Intranet of a large durable goods manufacturing company. In addition, P.G. writes for several online publications and does freelance web design and consulting. P.G. welcomes your feedback at paulag@enter.net .