Keeping Your Intranet Healthy and Effective

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You may have just built a brand new intranet, or re-invigorated your existing intranet. Either way, the challenge is now to ensure that the current quality, level of use, and value of the intranet is maintained well into the future.

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.

These efforts will deliver considerable benefits for the whole organisation. At its best, your intranet forms the core of information and knowledge management efforts in the organisation, enabling wider strategic goals to be met.

This article outlines a range of approaches which can help to ensure that your intranet remains healthy and effective. Few of these involve large expenditure, instead they focus on putting in place viable processes that guarantee intranet viability.

(Author's note: this article follows on from last month's Sixteen steps to a renewed corporate intranet.)

Make the intranet part of daily activities

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This must be the primary goal of the intranet: to become a normal part of staff's daily lives. Once there is a strong demand, there will be a strong incentive to support the intranet, and many complaints if it is not kept up to date.

It is this 'critical mass' of usage that is necessary to make the intranet viable in the long-term.

There is no one feature, tool or set of pages that universally makes an intranet desirable to staff. Instead, each organisation has its own unique set of requirements and demands.

Only by involving all stakeholders in the design and evolution of the intranet will these key features be uncovered.

A truly successful intranet is relied upon by all staff

Obtain strong management sponsorship

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The intranet must have a clear 'sponsor' within the senior levels of the organisation. This manager is the sole 'owner' of the intranet, and the intranet team.

Having strong sponsorship of the intranet is critical to the long-term viability of the intranet, and this manager must be prepared to adequately resource the intranet, and to fight on its behalf.

This senior manager also has an important communication role, in conveying the position and importance of the intranet down the chain of command.

Position the intranet as a strategic asset

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The intranet must be recognised as a strategic asset by senior management, and included in medium and long-term corporate planning.

This ensures that there is coordination between different efforts within the organisation, and that the intranet is kept in sync with new corporate directions.

Visibility of the intranet at senior levels also helps to ensure sufficient funding is available to allow the intranet to meet more than just short-term needs.

The intranet team must have enough power to ensure quality and consistency

Ensure the intranet team has sufficient authority

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Even in a decentralised authoring model, the central intranet team has a valuable role to play in setting and enforcing key standards.

In general, the intranet team is responsible for managing the: