intranet governance

Intranet governance15 Aug 09

Maish Nichani, PebbleRoadWith help from Patrick Lambe, Straits Knowledge

AgendaAt the end of this workshop you will:

• Have an actionable understanding of Intranet Governance

• Learn the elements of the Governance Cycle

• Use the governance cycle to evaluate 4 key areas of governance: information organisation, publishing, collaboration, apps

• Guard yourself against the 7 deadly sins of an intranet rollout

Intranets today

Intranet maturity

James Robertson, StepTwo Designs

Intranet maturity

Razorfish, Microsoft, Publicis

Global intranet trends - 2009

Jane McConnell, Globally local…locally global

• Collaboration features and horizontal information flows are weak.

•Many intranets are inflexible and risk losing their “raison d’etre”.

• Dissatisfaction with search is expressed by 50 percent of the organizations.

•Management is getting more involved.

• Social media are slowly finding their place behind the firewall.

• Dissatisfaction with search is 10 percent lower than last year!

3 downsides 3 upsides

Worldwide intranet challenge

Worldwide intranet challenge

What is governance?

A definition

Intranet governance is framework for managing, supporting and improving the intranet.

It aligns people and technology to realise business value.

Why governance now?

From an intranet discussion group

A big driver

“As people embrace social media in their private lives, they naturally expect to use similar tools within the enterprise. This is especially true for younger workers who use these tools in everyday life. Open communication, collaboration, and content generation are as much a part of their standard toolkit as using a computer or mobile phone.”

“Taking the slow road means that companies will risk losing workers who expect innovation in the outside world to reflect directly on how they communicate at work.”

“Going for quick adoption means that companies must find ways to overcome the risks to corporate culture that adopting these tools can entail.”

Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, August 3, 2009

So, why governance now?

Intranet is now considered to be a valuable business asset (finally) and is beginning to be treated as one

The era of interaction & contribution is upon us

Staff are more dependant on digital content (and increasing so on people content)

The governance cycle

Yup. It’s simple!

Right idea (what really needs to be done)

The strategy

The strategy // Right people

Martin While, Intranet Focus Michael Sampson, Michael Sampson Company Limited

The strategy // Right people

Intranet owner (IT?, KM? Comms? HR?), Intranet manager

Intranet manger, intranet champions

Technical teamContent strategist(s)

Information architect(s)Usability expert(s)

…

The strategy // Right processes

Strategy

Policies Procedures Guidelines

E.g.Who owns the news section? Who authors?Are approvals required for common content? Who approves?…

The strategy // Technology

Sharepoint

Ektron

FileNet

Websphere

Jive SBS

ThoughtFarmer

SocialText

Altassian

Interwoven

The strategy // Technology

Dion Hinchcliffe, ZDNet

Engaging stakeholders & staff

Marketing Training Internal professional services

Getting feedback

Small central team • develop strategy and vision • keep the standards up-to-date and make sure they are enforced • provide a central set of templates for all types of content that

comply with standards • manage a central set of conformance tools to check compliance

Content ownership the person who owns the content publishes and manages it

Approval/escalation the content owner’s manager approves requests to publish and acts if it isn’t managed to comply with standards

BT Intranet governance model

Mark Morrell, head of BT’s Intranet Centre of Excellence

Publishing CollaborationInformation organisation Apps

The governance framework 4 areas of governance

Information organisation governance

How do you answer these questions?

• I can’t find the latest security policy?• How do I know what my dental benefits are?• I have two versions of these guidelines, which

one should I use?• This policy dates to 1997, is it still in force?• What does form_11033.2 stand for?

Information organisation

Primary purpose:To ensure that staff can easily and consistently find information

Get feedback:Anecdotal evidenceUsability testingCard sorting

Need to be ready with:• Corporate taxonomy• Information architecture• Site structure• Metadata• Page layout and navigation• Collections (and their

models)

Engage staff:Build awareness (e.g. Did you know…)

Key people

Information architectContent strategistUsability expert

Intranet manager

By department? By function? By task?

How do I request for new hardware?

Finance Procurement Facilities IT

Pages vs. Collections

About MyCoMissionVisionPlan to conquer the world…

Pages CollectionNews item 1News item 2News item 3…News item n

Narrow byBy dateBy authorBy viewsBy tags or categoriesSearch

Publishing governance

How do you answer these questions?

• Do we use British or American English?• Is it ‘email’ or ‘e-mail’?• Are there any best practices to publish

procedures?• Do pages need a summary?• Can I cut-and-paste those 60 pages from MS-

Word?

Publishing

Primary purpose:To ensure that intranet content is of high quality

Engage:Build awarenessGive trainingExpose best practices, examples, non-examples

What needs to be in place:• Publishing process• Content style guide• Page templates (tasks, non-

task, FAQs, etc.)• Examples, non-examples• Publishing checklists• Training guides

Get feedback:Anecdotal evidence, Direct feedback, Usability testing, Analytics

Key people

Content strategistInformation architectUsability expert

Intranet manager

Review publishing standards

Toward Content Quality by Colleen Jones, UX Matters

Not all content is the same

Common (formal)

Team or group

Social

Personal

Announcements, shared services…

Work in progress, MOMs…

Discussion forums, polls, open wikis…

My stuff

Mark Morrell, head of BT’s Intranet Centre of Excellence

Publishing models

Direct Centralised Federated

Collaboration governance

How do you answer these questions?

• What is collaboration? And why do we need it now?• Three of us want to share project files, can we

setup a file server?• I am having difficulty reconciling changes

submitted by 6 people in our team, is there an automatic way of doing this?• I want to share 60MB of files, can you increase

my email quota?• How do I share files with people in different

departments?

Collaboration

Primary purpose:To ensure that staff know how collaboration can benefit them and when and how they can use it.

Engage:Build awarenessGive training (process + practice)Showcase best practicesOffer support services

What needs to be in place:• Collaboration processes• Collaboration examples, non-

examples• Redefined processes• Training on collaboration

featuresGet feedback:Anecdotal evidenceAnalytics

Key people

Intranet championsIntranet collaboration team

Intranet manager

Rethinking existing processesI have 25 folders in my S-drive, how do I get the same in collaboration spaces?

I can directly send documents to my partners by e-mail, how can I do it in collaboration spaces?

I share information using e-mail, can the collaboration space capture my e-mail and archive it?

Review intranet collaboration

PebbleRoad

Apps governance

How do you answer these questions?

• How do I create performance dashboard?• I cancelled my room booking but it still does not

show that it is free.• How do I manage all the resumes we get?• How can I get key customer support data on to

my page?• How can I see all staff suggestions made by a

particular staff?

Apps

Primary purpose:To ensure that apps are easy to use and fulfil required objectives.

Engage:Study & understand requirementsTest & prototype

What needs to be in place:• Good practice guides• Guidelines on using third-

party applications• Application procurement

guidelines• Interface guidelines• Usability guidelines

Get feedback:Anecdotal evidenceUsability testing

Finally…

7 deadly sins of an intranet rollout

1. No top-level support2. Low quality content3. Difficult to use4. No marketing5. No training6. No support7. Low-performing infra

Activity

Which sins do we most risk committing?

Table discussion

For more info

From PebbleRoad

• Intranet Governance Guide• Designing site structures for intranets

and websites• Reviewing intranet-based collaboration

setups• Planning & Sustaining Wiki-based

Collaboration Projects• Using Wikis on the Intranet: The British

Council Case Study• Creating & Maintaining a Web Style

Guide

From others

• ColumnTwo, James Robertson• Globally local…locally global, Jane

McConnell• Michael Sampson• Mark Morrell• Intranet Benchmarking Forum

http://www.pebbleroad.com/presentations/KMSG09-intranet-governance.pdf

Thanks!maish@pebbleroad.com