10 Steps to Planning Your Intranet Project

During early phases of intranet software deployment, we are frequently asked by our clients “what do I need to prepare or plan in advance to guarantee a successful intranet deployment project?”.

An intranet project is all about dialogue. It’s a dialogue between ‘us’, the software vendor, with our expertise and knowledge; and ‘you’, who knows the most about your business or organisation.

[BONUS CONTENT] DOWNLOAD OUR LATEST GUIDE ON PLANNING AN INTRANET

 

Follow these 10 steps to create and plan an intranet project

  1. Setup a goal
  2. Define the scope and audience
  3. Build a sitemap
  4. What are the key applications you want to use?
  5. Understanding permissions
  6. Create a homepage wireframe
  7. Budget and resources
  8. Timeline
  9. Future plans
  10. Do it now!

Step 1. Setup a goal

Claromentis intranet goal

 

The first step is determining the goals of your intranet project. What do you want your intranet to achieve? Some typical reasons:

  • Improving and providing a communication and collaboration tool
  • Replacing an existing intranet that’s old and dysfunctional
  • Communicating corporate news
  • Providing self-service tools to staff so that contact details, skills, notification settings, etc are always up-to-date
  • Distributing company policies and procedures online
  • Sharing documents online instead of using shared drives
  • Enabling staff to work from home
  • Better searching to find key documents

Step 2. Define the scope and audience

Have you got an answer to the following questions?

  • Is it just an intranet for staff or it is also an extranet for partners and contractors?
  • Do you want to allow your staff access to the intranet even when they’re at home or at a client’s site?
  • How about mobile access?
  • Have you asked representative from each department on what they want from an intranet?
  • How are people currently finding information, and how should that be organised on the intranet?
  • What are users’ common pain points?
  • Would you like to store sensitive information on the intranet, such as payroll?
  • What about instant messaging and corporate social networking? How open is your company culture?

Step 3. Build a sitemap

Build a sitemap, using your favourite tools such as Visio or simply hand-drawn, to create a draft of your intranet’s structure. Typically, the main branch is represented by each department – you can see an example below:

Example of Intranet Site Map Using Colour to Identify Launch Phase

Example of intranet sitemap using colours to identify launch phase

Step 4. What are the key applications you want to use?

This step is simply determining the main applications you’d like to use on the intranet. Claromentis provides a huge range of intranet features which are all available within the same digital workplace – you can simply choose the ones you’d like to use. Here’s a few examples:

News and Blog– Share and distribute company news and blog
Documents – Document collaboration with version control
Pages – Intranet builder and content management system (intranet CMS)
People – Self service personnel database
Calendar – Shared company calendar
Image Gallery – Corporate image database
Bookshelf – Online Policies & Procedures
Policy Manager – Managing lifecycle of the company policies
Holiday planner – manage corporate holiday and absence
Room booking – book a meeting room and office facilities
Business Process Management – Electronic e-forms and workflows builder
Project – Manage project online

Outside these applications we have built many other bespoke applications to suit our customers’ needs.

Step 5. Understanding permissions

Permissions groups and roles | Claromentis

Permissions groups and roles

A scalable intranet CMS should have a strong permission system, it also helps to distribute information easily. For example you may want to have an area where only the people in your department can produce or edit its content while everyone else simply views it.

This can be done easily by setting up permission, ie : Roles, Group and Sub-Groups.

To make our job easier when configuring your system, have you got a Company org-chart available?

[BONUS CONTENT] DOWNLOAD OUR LATEST GUIDE ON PLANNING AN INTRANET

 

Step 6. Create a homepage wireframe

As you know the homepage is the first page everyone is going to see, it’s worth the extra effort to design this carefully after all it is a gateway to all other the content on your Intranet. Look at several examples for inspiration and decide what you want to see on the homepage, my advice is to keep it clean and simple.

Claromentis intranet wireframe

Claromentis intranet wireframe

Step 7. Budget and resources

Claromentis intranet budget

 

How many users will be using the intranet? Many intranet software vendors price their products by the number of users.

Hardware: who is going to provide you with the hardware?  If you don’t have any, we’re happy to source this for you or you can take the SaaS model.

Have you got an internal project team?  Usually we recommend a project sponsor, an internal project manager as the main contact, a technical contact, and a rep from marketing or communication as a minimum team – smaller companies might have fewer people involved.

Step 8. Timeline

Plan your project timeline carefully.  Each company is different – an Intranet can be deployed from 2 weeks, to a year, these are some key points worth considering which may cause delays:

  • Sourcing hardware
  • Getting access through your office network
  • Finalising design
  • Updating user list
  • Content population
  • Content migration.

Like everything else in life, execution is quick; preparation is key, so do your homework!

Step 9. Future plans (keep evolving!)

Claromentis intranet planning

 

I’ve seen many intranet projects lose momentum after the initial launch phase. A successful intranet is something that grows over time, start simple and add new features gradually. Learn from user feedback and implement user requests wherever feasible.

Small improvements can make a huge different – it’s like a breath of fresh air. Keep the original team and meet regularly for project reviews and brainstorming of new ideas.

Here are some ideas to think about once you have your initial intranet.

  • Is there any business processes which can be done electronically?
  • Such as overtime request, time cards, new hire.
  • Is there a database, which is currently in Excel, and you think it will be much better if it is an online application?
  • Any existing system, which can be better integrated with the Intranet?
  • Thinking of deploying corporate micro-blogging? Online videos?

Step 10. Do it now!

This final step is the most important of all. You can implement all of the planning you need but without execution it is still just a plan. Get the ball rolling now, gather your team, email them now, start researching or simply drop us a line to discuss your requirement, book a private tour, or try out a free instant demo!

Good luck with your intranet project!

Free intranet success guide

 

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