I wrote a book about governance: ‘Digital success or digital disaster?’

When an intranet loses its usefulness over time, and people become disengaged and end up working around it rather than through it, I often find that the strategy and governance have been neglected.

Even a strong and appropriate strategy will founder if the governance isn’t in place to execute it.

I see governance as the foundation of a great intranet, and by ‘great’ I mean an intranet that is useful, useable, and supports the organisation’s goals and people’s needs.

I often blog about intranet governance, but my brand new book offers a lot more than I could ever drip-feed via short posts.  Writing a book has helped crystallise my thinking around governance, and delve deep into my past experience as an intranet manager, and as a consultant.

Take a look at my book now – it’s called ‘Digital success or digital disaster?’ and I mean for it to be relevant to intranets, collaboration, digital workplace and mobile workspace governance, while focussing on intranets.

I’m so pleased to have it published through Intranätverk, it’s been great to work with Kristian Norling and his team.  Seeing the final book on my tablet has made the months of writing all worth the effort.  I’m thrilled to be able to offer you my experience, guidance, and tips and hope you’ll consider my book a toolkit to better governance and a better intranet.

Please take a look at what the book offers you and your organisation – this is a ‘business book’ that should help organisations of every size, but I also hope it’s of interest to individual practitioners and ‘lone intranet managers’. I think this book can support you.

* Digital success or digital disaster? – Book available now.

* Follow me on Twitter – let me know what you think!

Developing your Intranet Manager career: it’s all about partnerships

I have written a guest post for ClearBox Consulting on the need to invest at least as much time connecting with your stakeholders as identifying business requirements for technology.

In January, I wrote that intranets are transforming into digital workplaces.  As your intranet transforms into a digital workplace so the people you need to work with will expand and change.  That will involve you investing time building relationships with new and existing senior managers. They will be your stakeholders who will be at the top of your governance hierarchy.

Read more about how getting that balance right will be a giant step forward to likely success.

 

How much is your digital workplace (and manager) worth?

Do you know how much your digital workplace or intranet is worth to your organisation?  How would start to answer the question? With the global economic climate unlikely to improve greatly, organisations will want to know the full benefits to justify before investing in your plans.

In 2015, intranets are now at a jumping off point to become digital workplaces.  People are increasingly using different methods to connect whenever they need to.  When they connect it is to find information, use apps, share some news or ask for help with a work problem.

In my last three posts I have covered how this is a wonderful opportunity for you to make your digital workplace a great experience, how you need to find everything to avoid it becoming a barren digital desert, to encourage more frequent use and improve people’s productivity.

There are several steps you can take to improve the chances your plans will be approved.  To demonstrate the benefits your digital workplace you will need to look beyond traditional financial ‘ROI’ to wider benefits that also help your organisation:

1. Have a strategy, governance framework, and information architecture that shows how you support your organisation.
2. Demonstrate the full benefits of your plans.  Think about the top priorities and goals your organisation has and align with them.
3. Find the right methods that can assess the different benefits you identify as possible to achieve.  This can be using surveys, polls, or more expert analysis.
4. Consider the different ways you can show these benefits to convince your stakeholders.  Make sure you talk their language to help them understand your plans.

If you can complete all of these steps, you will have the best chances to gain the resources you need to implement your plans to transform your intranet into a digital workplace.

It may also help show the value you provide as well.  More on that in a later post!

Is this your ‘once in an intranet career’ opportunity?

Intranets are now at a jumping off point to become digital workplaces. In 2015 organisations are no longer just talking about ‘digital’.  They are now starting to take steps, sometimes slow and tentatively, towards transforming their online content and apps into something that is better coordinated.  People are also becoming better connected with their digital workplace or intranet whenever they need to be.

While this is great news for intranet practitioners, there is also pressure to make sure you take the right direction and invest in the right technologies, skills, and resources.  This is a ‘once in an intranet career’ opportunity to turn all your long-held dreams into the digital reality you have wished for.  It can also place a great amount of responsibility on you to get it right.

So, what do you need to do?  How can you turn this into your proudest moment in your career rather an underwhelming disappointment?

To successfully transform your intranet into a wider digital workplace where people can collaborate, have mobile access and apps on demand you need to consider what steps to take.  These should include:

1. Vision: What does the future look like?  What will your organisation become in the future?  How will your intranet/digital workplace support it?  You need to be able to clearly answer these questions from your senior leaders.
2. Direction: What is the right direction from your intranet?  How will you get from today’s intranet to the future digital workplace?  You need to be aware what your organisation’s strategic priorities are.  You need to see how your digital workplace can align with and support their achievement.
3. Requirements: What are your organisation’s requirements?  Have you an existing strategy for your intranet?  You need to identify what exactly your senior leaders – stakeholders – need from you.  You also need to seek support from senior leaders for your plans.
4. Plan: How are you going to complete your journey from intranet to digital workplace?  You need to be able to work out the resources needed, prioritise your activities, and timescales to achieve everything.
5. Measure: What is the current position?  How does the transformation compare when it is completed?  You need to demonstrate the changes you have made.  You should measure the full value gained – not just the narrow ROI formula – to show how your organisation benefits from a digital workplace.

For me, these are essential steps to take when transforming your intranet into a digital workplace.  This could be the most important thing you do in your intranet career.

Make sure you research to learn from other transformations, both good and not so good outcomes.  Seek advice from people who have experience or you trust.  If in doubt, seek expertise to help you get it right.

You probably won’t get a second chance if it goes wrong so make sure you prepare thoroughly so you will succeed.

My 2015 predictions

When I first got involved in 1996 with intranets people could only access them from their desktop PCs at their normal place of work.  The pages of content were hosted on a server probably in the same room or building they worked in.  What was on offer was limited to news, policies and some tools e.g. People directory.

Haven’t things changed a lot since then as we move towards 2015!

Intranets are transforming into digital workplaces offering people an amazing choice in information and applications and wider use e.g. you can collaborate with people in different locations, share and rate content and complete processes online.  You can access your intranet or digital workplace from any device e.g. smartphone, tablet and laptop from any place using wi-fi, etc., and at any time with data centres operating 24/7.

What does this mean for 2015?  Here are my predictions.

1. Take the right direction

Intranets are now at a jumping off point to become digital workplaces.  You need to make sure you take the right direction and invest in the right technologies, skills, and resources.  In 2015 good digital workplaces will be created because there is a plan supported by a clear strategy.  Your plan, based on agreed business requirements, will have prioritise actions, and stakeholder support.  These are essential to have a digital workplace that supports your organisation.

2. consistently good experience

People will need to access your content and applications from any device, any time and from any place even more in 2015.  Their experience needs to be consistently good every time with publishing standards within a governance framework applied to make this happen to all content and apps.  People will then be familiar with what they access no matter what device they use.  Good publishing standards will mean productivity gains will be achieved as people avoid stalling while they check before they use anything.

3. know where everything is

More organisations will consider moving to the cloud in 2015.  But you need to manage this well to make this successful.  You a good governance framework to manage all the content and applications, with an information architecture that has the same scope and approach.  It’s no good trying to manage your content, etc., if you don’t where it is!  And if you don’t know, how can people find what they need for their work?  Plan the structure of your digital workplace to harmonise with your governance framework before you start.

4. show you are worth it

With the global economic climate unlikely to improve greatly in 2015, organisations will demand greater justification for any improvements you plan.  You need to demonstrate the benefits your digital workplace can provide.  Having a strategy, governance framework, and information architecture will indicate you do support your organisation’s goals.  However, to show the full benefits you will need to look beyond traditional financial ‘ROI’ to wider benefits that also help your organisation.  If you can do this, and you will have the resources you need in 2015.

Have you made any plans?  Good luck and have a great 2015!

Are you moving to the Cloud?

I recently posted about the challenges organisations face as they move from having online content and tools hosted firmly on their estate to renting space in the cloud.

I believe the way forward is to have a governance framework and information architecture with the same scope to avoid gaps in content being managed or not being found.  Both need to be in harmony and included in any digital strategy.

If you want to join the live breakfast talk in Gothenburg, or online seminar and final panel discussion and Q&A using G+ Hangout, it is on 20 November 8.00AM – 10AM Central European Time.

You can also read these posts about how to move to the Cloud:

1. Wagon Trains to the Cloud: The most common challenges you are likely to face and how you may overcome these
2. Pace-Layering the Building Blocks in the Cloud: How Office 365 and SharePoint can play a part in moving to the Cloud
3. Housekeeping rules within the Habitat: How they can help join up your organisation online using their collaboration tools and features
4. The Curator – how to cultivate the habitat: Engagement and how sorting and categorisation of artifacts form the curation and cultivation process
5. Content Governance – life cycle and reach: Governance and how content should be managed in the Cloud