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A Home for Your Intranet: Part 2

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Paul Chin
(postpaulchinonline.com)

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11/21/2002

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Welcome back to the construction site! In the first part of this series, "A Home for Your Intranet", I discussed your three primary options for building an intranet solution: developing it in-house, outsourcing the project, and buying an "off-the-shelf" product. We saw that, regardless of which option you choose, each has its pros and cons. The decision as to which path to take is sometimes the result of careful review of your resources, budget, and project scope. Other times it's dictated by consequence, by the infeasibility of other options.

Today, we're going to take a closer look at the option of building an intranet internally. Before we get started, let's review what we discussed in the last article.

Advantages of building in-house

Grants you the highest level of freedom - You have far greater control over the decision-making process, project management, scheduling, and future growth than if a third party were involved. More "tailor-fitted" to your company - Internal employees are more familiar with the subtleties of company politics and its more subjective requirements. Keeps talent and knowledge in-house - This is a huge advantage for the future growth of your intranet. Being able to tap the resources of those who were directly involved with the project is far more convenient than having to re-hire consultants.

Disadvantages of building in-house

You may not have the necessary in-house expertise - This is often a "deal-breaker" for those wishing to build in-house. They like the advantages of self-sufficiency but don't have the skills or personnel to carry it out. Unless you're already familiar with intranets, there's a learning curve - Your schedule might not allow for the time it takes to get over this learning curve. An infrastructure may not be in place - You might not have the required hardware, software, development tools, and security mechanisms in place to support an intranet.

Some people have a natural inclination for construction and design. Couple that with some formal training and they'll be able to erect a house capable of withstanding an earthquake or a typhoon. Then again, there are also those who believe there's nothing wrong with building a house on quicksand or in the middle of an established bison migration route.

Curious readers often E-mail me and ask whether they should build an intranet themselves. Unfortunately, I'm not able to answer that for them because it's a question they should really be asking themselves. Now, before I start sounding like a psychiatrist who answers every question with a question, let me elaborate. Different companies have varying levels of experience and some have more resources than others. Each company has its own set of requirements and circumstances, and it's with these in mind that help them determine whether they should, or are even capable of, building their intranet in-house.

At a high level, when it comes to deciding whether you should build in-house, the probability of a successful intranet is relative to the scope of the project, the experience of those involved in its construction, the amount of time you have to work with, and the availability of resources. For example, if you have an aggressive deadline for an intranet with a fairly large scope but don't have the experienced personnel to carry it out, you won't be able to factor into your schedule the time it takes to get over a learning curve. Therefore, as a result, building in-house is not an option.

So, before you lace up your construction boots, you need to determine for yourself whether you're ready to tackle an in-house intranet project or look for a "Plan B" by asking yourself 5 key, interrelated questions:

1. Am I ready to accept this responsibility?
2. Do I have experienced personnel to carry out the project?
3. What's the project scope?
4. Do I have the proper equipment and material?
5. What's the project deadline?

The conclusions you arrive at by answering these questions are not mutually exclusive. Your response to one is directly related to how you answer the others.

Am I ready to accept this responsibility?

When you decide to build your own home, from the foundation to the final decorative touches on the mantel above the fireplace, you have complete control over what happens with the end product. But, of course, you have to know what you're doing. This total control means you have an open landscape in which to do whatever you want, mistakes and all. Look at it this way, if you don't have any experience building an intranet, it will be like half-a-dozen trucks pulling up to an empty plot of land and dumping loads of lumber, cement, brick, and insulation and then driving away while the drivers shout in unison, "Good luck!!!". Meanwhile, you're standing there with all this building material around you—what do you do now?

You need to have confidence in your abilities as a project manager and in your knowledge of basic Web technologies and intranet concepts. This doesn't mean you need to know every minute detail of the latest Web standards, but it would help if you were not a complete neophyte either. If you think that XML is the newest extreme sports league, maybe you should go through Intranet Journal's Intranet FAQ page or do some research on the Web first.