WIC Intranet Success Factors

Success factors and lessons learned from more than 100 benchmarked intranets

Andrew WrightSeptember 2012

Who am I?

I run the two biggest intranet groups on LinkedIn:o Worldwide Intranet Challenge (11,500)o Intranet Professionals (4,500)

Run the Worldwide Intranet Challenge and write the WIC blog

Have been an intranet consultant the last 10 years – SharePoint for the last 5

Passionate about intranets because I think there is plenty of potential for improvement

What is the WIC?

It’s a web basedsurvey...

that asks intranet end users what they think...

about their Intranet.

“...enabling leading practices & experts to be identified”

What does the WIC measure?

Overall Value

Look and feel

Finding info.

Collaboration

Maintenance

Performance

Content

Performance

Why do organisations participate?

It’s about designing moreUSEFUL intranets

Before & after

New design

Manage priorities

Business case

Tips & tricks

Motivation

Who has participated?

30,000+ intranet end users

108 organisations19 countries

From Switzerland• Eidg. Finanzdepartement • Ferring Pharmaceuticals• Sulzer• Swisscom

Top tips for success

1. Intranet must support an organisation’s objectives

2. Provide interactive capabilities3. Focus on user adoption and leading

change4. Provide an intranet that helps staff

‘do’ things 5. Relentless focus on content quality

and findability

Tip 1 - Support the organisation’s objectives

3 purposes of an intranet

1.Innovation

2.Operation

3.Employee

engagement

Discussion forums Team/project spaces Other collaboration

areas Status updates/

questions Ideas register Online training Change notifications –

email alerts, RSS feeds

Lists – staff, products, customers, etc.

Tasks, grouped by role

Online forms Templates Re-usable

documents Reference

material Applications/

external web sites Archives

Tools to be productive News stories Blogs, admired leaders Measures/KPIs – goals expectations, winning organisation Recognition, meaningful work Flexible work life – able to work off-site

Thanks to Teal Shapcotthttp://www.tealeshapcott.com

Tip 2 – Intranets must be interactive

Time/value of the intranet

Time/interactivity

Tips from #2 intranet Involve end users in identifying and implementing intranet

requirements Continually work on obtaining executive buy-in Avoid implementing fluffy stuff that won’t get used Give staff the ability personalise their home page Provide quality content. Limit # of authors. Distinguish between ‘informal’ collaboration type work

spaces and the intranet Be vigilant in keeping content up-to-date. Manage important content changes through the use of

alerts that staff must acknowledge Provide access to all your business applications through

your intranet Talk to your end users regularly to find out what they do

and what applications will help them work more effectively

Tip 3 – User adoption and change

The Business Impact of Change Management

McKinsey study, in which the projects of over 40 companies were investigated

The effect of an Organizational Change Management (OCM) program on a project’s ROI. The study showed the ROI waso 143 percent when an excellent OCM

program was part of the initiative;o 35 percent when there was a poor OCM

program or no program.

http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/2010/08/the-business-impact-of-change-management/

McKinsey Study on Organisational Change Management (OCM)

The 11 most unsuccessful companies in the McKinsey study had poor change management, which showed up as the following:o Lack of commitment and follow through by senior executives;o Defective project management skills among middle

managers;o Lack of training of and confusion among frontline employees.

The 11 most successful companies in the study had excellent OCM programs:o Senior and middle managers and frontline employees were all

involved;o Everyone’s responsibilities were clear;o Reasons for the project were understood and accepted

throughout the organization.

2 recommended models

8 step transformation process – John Kotterhttp://www.kotterinternational.com/kotterprinciples/ChangeSteps/

User adoption strategies – Michael Sampsonhttp://www.michaelsampson.net/useradoption.html

John Kotter8 step process for leading change

Step 1: Establishing a Sense of UrgencyStep 2: Creating the Guiding CoalitionStep 3: Developing a Change VisionStep 4: Communicating the Vision for Buy-inStep 5: Empowering Broad-based ActionStep 6: Generating Short-term WinsStep 7: Never Letting Up Step 8: Incorporating Changes into the Culture

Michael Sampson – 4 stage model of user adoption

Stage 1: Winning Attention Stage 2: Cultivating Basic

Concepts Stage 3: Enlivening Applicability Stage 4: Making it Real

Obtaining executive support

Person needs to have a track record of success

Pitch to one senior person – not a group

Identify what can be achieved in the short and long term

Provide examples or case studies – exemplar stories

Identify the return on investment – cost savings, profits, increased customer satisfaction

Identify tangible benefits

Provide support for executives to provide content (eg. commenting, a blog)

Show trust in your employees

Align intranet to vision – show how your intranet supports your organisation’s KPIs

Tracy Hutton: Getting the C-Suite On Your Side (video 28:49), Slideshare

Tip 4 - Provide an intranet to help staff do things

Tip 4 - Provide an intraet to help staff do things

A list of tasks

An example of a task

Tips for completing work tasks

One location• Provide a single location for all forms, procedures or task descriptions (at least)• Provide other ways to navigate if possible• Ensure procedures are actually documented and up-to-date – assign owners

Develop online forms• Candidates for online forms include the most common tasks• Forms that are easy to implement• Can use simple lists

Identify key tasks• Talk to the business users• Make an effort to understand what they do• Prioritise tasks by frequency and importance• Categorise tasks by who does them

Tip 5 - Look after content quality, make it easy to find

things

Qualities of a valuable intranet

Staff able to contribute & interact

Look and feel

Intranet change management & maintenance

Help completing work tasks

Performance & availability

Quantity & quality of content provided

Ease of finding information

0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20 1.40 1.60 1.80

0.84

0.88

0.94

1.03

1.42

1.45

1.61

How important are the following in contributing to a valuable intranet?

Tips for improving findability

Web analytics• Monitor popular search terms• Identify popular pages• Ensure important information is quickly visible

Easy access to key info• Provide access to popular content from the home page• Conduct usability studies to identify best taxonomy• Provide multiple navigation paths to information

Reduce content amount• Conduct regular content audits• Remove obsolete content• Be ruthless when it comes to maintaining content • Separate the ‘official’ intranet from collaboration sites

How would you compare?

How would you compare?

Recap

Explained the WIC Went through 5 top tips:

1. Intranet must support an organisation’s objectives

2. Provide an interactive experience3. Focus on user adoption and leading change4. Provide an intranet that helps staff ‘do’ things 5. Look after content quality and ensure it’s easy

to find things To participate in the WIC:

worldwideintranetchallenge.com