5 tips for a great intranet strategy

Strategies vary from one organisation to another. What makes sense for BT won’t  necessarily do for others.  Differences that influence this include purpose (online marketing company, charity or public sector) and complexity (global based in different time zones with many activities).

Here are 5 tips to help you create a great intranet strategy:

1. Find out what your organisation’s strategy is and how your intranet contributes to it

You must know what your organisation’s strategy is.  Your intranet must align with the strategy and you can show how your strategy supports its achievement.  Your intranet strategy must be clear in its aims, who owns them, how they will be measured and have senior buy-in.

2. Your intranet priorities must meet your organisation’s needs

Identify what your intranet does that has the biggest benefits for, and impact on, your organisation.  Make sure you know what people use your intranet for.   Research how they use the intranet to do their work.  How can you improve it so people do their work better (quicker, cheaper, remove unnecessary barriers).

3. Include long term priorities

Your intranet priorities need to be stretching and relevant to your organisation’s success.  They should be clear but not too detailed – an action plan can do that.  You need to show how important your intranet is to achieving the organisation’s strategy.  You should be looking at least 12 months into the future – around 3 years ideally.

4. Get stakeholders to approve your intranet strategy

You need to involve people who can make or break your intranet strategy and priorities.  These are your key stakeholders who are vital to the success of your intranet.  These will be senior people who represent large groups and/or heavy users of your intranet and decide on future investment.

5. Get the right culture and behaviour

It depends on the culture of your organisation for the best approach to adoption of your strategy.  In an open-minded, informal, dynamic organisation you can share your intranet strategy at an early stage for people to contribute and develop it.  It encourages joint ownership and engages everyone.  In a highly regulated and command driven organisation then it needs selective sharing and senior buy-in and approval first before being communicated more widely.