My colleague Joep van Loon (@joepvanloon) and I gave a workshop about moving your intranet project forward at the 2015 IntraTeam Event in Copenhagen

1. Moving your intranet
project forward
IntraTeam Event Copenhagen, February 24th 2015

4. And who
are you?
What’s your name?
What’s your job?
What do you want to learn?

5. What are we going to do?
1. How to move your intranet project forward?
2. Setting up your project organization
3. Strategy & concept development
4. Common pitfalls
5. Wrap-up and takeaway

6. 1.
How to move your project
forward?

7. Intranet projects are extremely complex

8. Listen
Build
Design
Govern
Adopt &

9. Entopic intranet roadmap
partner
selection
strategy concept
interaction
design
visual
design
functional
design
content
design
cms
selection
front end
development
cms
implementation
content
production
content
publication
test
live
project management maintenance
communication, adoption and change

10. To scrum or not to scrum
Con’s
1. Intranet development is organizational change
2. Not every organization is fit for scrum
3. Strategy and concept are not Sprints, are they?
4. Choose technology too soon?
5. Where does content fit in?
Pro’s
1. Agile methodology
2. Standard for software development
3. Get results quickly, improve continuously

11. Getting the basics right
1. Employee involvement (broad participation)
A social intranet requires a social project approach
2. User-centered approach (don’t start with technology)
IT isn’t going to use the intranet, the employee is, plus it should support business goals
3. Integral approach (user, content, design, tech)
Don’t forget content! (Creation, Search and Navigation)
4. Stakeholder management (talk about what’s happening)
An intranet projects has implications for the whole organization
5. Executive sponsorship
That’s where the money comes from and it drives adoption
Any other insights?

12. 2.
Setting up the intranet
project organization

13. First assignment
How would you go about setting up the project organization?
Sit together in groups of 3-4 people
Start by answering the question for your own organization (5 min.)
Discuss the results in your small group and give each other feedback (10 min.)
Discuss results together (15 min.)
Some questions to get you going:
Which departments are key? Who is in the lead?
What about budget and sponsorship?
Which skills are needed in the project?
How will employees be involved?

14. Discussion
Do you always need IT or Comms? Or HR?
Does senior management really have to be on board?
Request for budget at once or in small pieces?

15. 3.
Strategy & concept
development

16. Intranet strategy
What are the objectives in this phase?

17. Second assignment
How would you go about planning the strategy phase?
Sit together in groups of 3-4 people
Start by answering the question for your own organization (5 min.)
Discuss the results in your small group and give each other feedback (10 min.)
Discuss results together (15 min.)
How will you go about…
research?
co-creation?
presenting the results?

18. ReportCo-createListen

19. ReportCo-createListen
What is the context
of the intranet?
What are the
employee needs?
What are the
organizational
needs?

20. ReportCo-create
What is the context
of the intranet?
What are the
employee needs?
What are the
organizational
needs?
What is our vision,
goal and strategy?
Which content and
tasks are important?
How will this be
visualized?

21. Report
What is the context
of the intranet?
What are the
employee needs?
What are the
organizational
needs?
What is our vision,
goal and strategy?
Which content and
tasks are important?
How will this be
visualized?
Summarize
Visualize
Recommendations
Define roadmap
Project approach

22. How to translate strategy to design?
Steps in the concept phase

23. High level information architecture

24. Top tasks
For example:
1. Find people
2. Restaurant menu
3. KPI scoreboard
4. Reserve meeting rooms
5. Declarations

25. Design principles
For example:
There is no content without a person attached to it
Information is either correct and up-to-date OR it is not on the intranet
Content is tailored to one’s needs: personalized and in context
Social is in the DNA of the intranet
Search and navigation are clear and simple

26. Prototype high level

27. Prototype in detail

28. Visual concept

29. Visual concept

30. Visual concept

31. Visual concept

32. Elements of a concept
High level information architecture
Top tasks
Design principles
Prototype
Visual concept

33. 4.
Common pitfalls

34. Third assignment
Take 5 minutes to write down pitfalls for intranet projects

35. Most common pitfalls
1. Technology first
2. Goal/strategy defined in isolation
3. No business focus (how does the intranet help product/services development, sales, etc.?)
4. Mono-disciplinary approach
5. No support from (senior) management
6. Too much at once
7. Project doesn’t show results quickly
8. Wrong choice of platform
9. No budget for development phase and continuous improvement
10. Focus on strategy and design, content is forgotten
11. Focus on project only, not on ‘go live’ phase
12. Governance is forgotten
13. Adoption is forgotten (if needed)

36. 5.
Wrap-up & takeaway

37. Key points to make your intranet succeed
1. A shared goal and strategy
2. Integral approach (content, design, technology, organization)
3. Choose a platform after concepting/designing
4. It’s about design, technology, content and the user
5. Changing how an organization works during the project: it is about
people, not IT
6. Always use real content
7. More interactive intranets require more interactive project approaches

38. 38
Entopic intranet roadmap
budget
partner
selection
strategy concept
interaction
design
visual
design
functional
design
content
design
live
project management maintenance
communication, adoption and change
front end
development
cms
implementation
content
production
content
publication
test
cms
selection

39. Tak
Thank you
samuel@entopic.com
info-architecture.blogspot.com
@driessen
www.linkedin.com/in/samueldriessen
joep@entopic.com
joepvanloon.info
@joepvanloon
www.linkedin.com/in/joepvanloon