Step Two

Join us for the launch of my new book, Designing intranets: creating sites that work. This is the latest book from Step Two Designs, and the world’s first textbook on how to create usable and effective intranets. At 275 full-colour pages, this book will transform how intranets are designed and delivered.

To coincide with the official release of the book on September 15, we will be conducting a national book tour, with stops in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, with dates as follows:

• Melbourne (September 22)
• Sydney (September 28)
• Canberra (September 30)

Come to this free afternoon session to:

• hear me share insights and examples from the book
• see screenshots from intranets around the globe
• meet and network with other intranet teams
• obtain a discounted price on the new book
• get inspired and rebuild your enthusiasm

The book has already been receiving praise:

“I cannot recommend this book too highly, and it should be bought by every intranet manager. Even if you are not contemplating a re-design you probably will after reading the book.” Martin White (UK)

“James’ both broad and deep knowledge is evident once again in ‘Designing intranets: creating sites that work’. This hard-talking, crystal-clear guide will bring a lot of value to both inexperienced and very experienced intranet managers.” Jane McConnell (France)

“Highly recommended: even experienced intranet managers will find something new in this book.” Sam Marshall (UK)

Tickets are free, but numbers are strictly limited, so register online and don’t miss out!

In our 6×2 methodology, intranet teams plan one release at a time, typically at six month intervals. Based on criteria (“why would we deliver this feature?”) and constraints (“What stops us from delivering improvements?”), potential activities are ruthlessly evaluated. The result is a list of deliverables that are both doable and worth doing.

In the 6×2 report, we indicate that criteria will change over time, based on the evolution of the intranet and changing business needs. In other words, what you focus on today may not be the priorities for tomorrow.

Last week we ended up running two 6×2 planning sessions at the one organisation, and this point was elegantly demonstrated.

The immediate focus of the project team was a quick intranet rebuild to reflect new corporate branding, to be launched in two months time (!). The criteria for this release were very focused on communications and culture:

• Expresses and communicates the new brand
• Improves findability of content / people
• Demonstrates visible progress
• Supports two way interaction / dialog
• Has wow! impact

Within the extreme time constraints, a range of small, high-impact improvements were identified.

For the proper six-month project, the criteria shifted to business and staff needs, as follows:

• Benefits frontline staff
• Demonstrates the organisation coming together
• Provides coordinated communications channel
• Improves findability
• Builds momentum for the future intranet vision

Needless to say, the activities chosen for the six-month project were very different based on these criteria…

Because it is a department connected to every part of an organisation, Human Resources (HR) has a unique position that can be leveraged to help underpin the intranet’s value to staff.

HR remains a key stakeholder of, and publisher to, the corporate intranet. Reviewing the various content and tasks available can help HR and intranet teams evaluate their current site and stimulate ideas for more compelling offerings.

For HR, the intranet often begins as an information repository or support centre facilitating access to current employment-related documents such as:

• policies and codes of conduct
• procedures and employee manuals
• employment agreements and conditions
• health and safety documentation
• events and training calendars
• internal position vacancies
• HR frequently asked questions

[CMb 2010-14 by Stephen Byrne, read the full article]

Intranet strategies vary from 100-page formal documents to informal plans that can be conveyed verbally in a lift. Some strategies cover the coming six months, while others stretch out to encompass five-year timescales.

Regardless of the scope and duration of the plans, successful strategies all build on a common narrative structure that describes:

• where we’ve been
• what we’re doing right now
• what comes next

This basic structure helps intranet teams to give shape to their strategy development efforts, and ensures that nothing is missed.

Intranets are generally the product of a long history of changes and organic evolution, which provides vital context for the planned improvements.

[CMb 2010-13, read the full article]

The term ‘social intranet’ has become popular in recent times, and describes an intranet with social media tools — blogs, wikis, microblogs, comment functionality and more — embedded within the core intranet software platform.

However, before a social intranet can be successful, work must be done to enrich and develop a much more fundamental aspect of the intranet — the staff directory. This article explores the potential of the staff directory, the impact social networks on the Web are having on intranet design, the rise of ‘social search’, and examples of these concepts in play in businesses already.

Typically, the staff (or corporate) directory is already one of the most vital and well-used utilities on an intranet. Finding out who to contact and how to contact them supersedes nearly every other intranet-based process or task that employees conduct on a day-to-day basis.

Typically, the staff directory is a highly popular intranet tool

With the increasingly powerful capabilities of modern intranet platforms, the staff directory is rapidly becoming not only the most-used utility on an intranet, but actually the very heart of the system. It’s the database and tool that all other features and functions are being tied to. Whether it’s core functionality such as business intelligence, data reporting and record keeping, or more social features such as collaborative project areas, blogging and more, the person or people using these systems, spaces and tools is becoming the focus.

No example illustrates this better than IDEO’s much-publicised and stunning entry in the 2009 Intranet Innovation Awards.

[August KM Column by Alex Manchester, read the full article]

For many, many years now I’ve used this blog to repost interesting and useful articles from across the web. 3,439 posts later, I’ve built up a large stock of valuable information. But the nature of the web is ever-changing, and so it’s time to revisit the purpose of the blog.

With the creation of sites such as Intranet Lounge, I’m thinking of stopping re-posting articles. Instead, I’ll move to a format of weekly or bi-weekly insight and commentary. Before I make this big change, however, I felt I should seek the input of you, the reader.

Please add your comments! What would you like me to be doing with this blog from now on?

I’m pleased to say that I’ll be back in Europe in October, to present at IntraTeam events in Sweden and Denmark, including running my two-day intranet masterclass. For details:

International events calendar

I’ll also be doing some consulting in the UK, leaving me two free days: Monday October 11 and Tuesday October 12. Drop me a line if you’d like to make use of that time, for consulting, mentoring, in-house workshops or even public workshops…

Something strange has happened to intranet homepages. Despite the diversity of staff needs and activities, intranets have ended up with a fixed, static and unreactive homepage that only targets generic requirements.

Having fought so hard to balance competing stakeholder demands, intranet teams are often relieved to lock down the homepage. Functionality doesn’t change over time, and the homepage is often the slowest page to evolve.

In reaction to this, some intranets moved to an entirely “personalised” view, giving staff complete freedom on what “portlets” to include. This approach also works poorly, with only 5-10% of staff taking up personalisation functionality.

What’s needed is a middle ground, where the intranet homepage is more flexible, people-centric, and proactive.

The mock screenshot above, created for my intranets in 2015 presentations, shows one possible — and very simple — example. New starters are provided with information directly for them, with a low-key way of dismissing the feature when they’re done with it. The homepage starts as being tailored for the new starter, and then evolves as their needs change.

There are many other possibilities:

• Tools targeted or tailored for key staff groups or business units.
• Global and local news, with the ability to choose what news is displayed.
• Task list that is displayed only when there are outstanding tasks to complete.
• Simple mechanisms for tweaking how the homepage works.
• Small business applications, directly on the homepage.
• “Seasonal” changes to the homepage, in response to key deadlines, activities and events.

All of this should be simple, low-key, and frictionless. Like the websites that we use routinely, we should take for granted that we can interact in a two-way fashion with intranets, without having to be techies or power users.

What have your experiences been? How can we make our homepages more reactive and responsive?

Denis Zenkin discusses the confusion between intranets and enterprise 2.0. To quote:

Intranet is basically a practical tool that creates a unified workplace for an organization supplying a number of benefits. In my opinion, the list of must-have features include collaboration, communications and knowledge base.

I agree with Denis on this one. Staff don’t need yet another tool for collaboration or enterprise 2.0. Instead, we should be bringing things together into a increasingly powerful intranet, combining information, communication, collaboration and tools.

[Thanks to Intranet Loungue]

Some while back I posted an article which asked the question: how long should the intranet homepage be? I then discused what attractive intranets look like, providing examples of modern designs, including some long homepages.

This generated some discussion and debate. Most recently, it has led Toby Ward to write some passionate posts about the length of the homepage. He started by stating that employees demand a clean home page, no scrolling, saying:

Your employees demand a clean, white home page, with absolutely no scrolling. This is a fact, supported by dozens of employee focus groups, at dozens of leading, and medium size organizations in North America.

Toby then followed this up with speed kills on roads; lack of speed kills the intranet, including:

The problem with designers, not all designers, but many of them, is that they’re trained in creative and web design. The intranet is not a website. Let me repeat: THE INTRANET IS NOT A WEBSITE! The same creative concepts for the web, and marketing driven websites, don’t always apply to the intranet.

Be warned, these are robust articles, stating strong opinions!

Intranets aren’t short of opinions, from staff, stakeholders, consultants and experts. As I discuss in eight intranet design mistakes, it’s important not to fall into the trap of “design by opinion”. I also commented at an intranet workshop yesterday:

There are plenty of statements made about design and usability. The simpler they are, the more likely they are to be wrong.

This includes classics like the “3-click rule”, and “7+/-2″. The “homepage should never scroll” falls into this trap.

Toby seems to have based his design decisions on what staff say they want. This is like asking people “do you want more or less crime”, and being surprised at the outcome. (Task-based usability testing wasn’t amongst Toby’s list of techniques.)

There is clearly a “traditional” approach to intranet homepages that squeezes everything into a single screen. This features news, with navigation at the top, quick links on the side, and a few tools. Considering how often staff complain they can’t find anything, we have to question whether this is the best approach.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying long homepages are definitively the right way to go. But I do want intranet teams to step back and to take a fresh look at how to design their sites.

What am I sure of is that it’s hard to deliver a truly useful homepage in just a single screen. There’s simply not enough space to provide more than basic information and navigation. So if we can design long homepages that are also usable, that opens up a new world of opportunities to deliver better sites.

So let’s get away from “right” and “wrong”. Let’s instead:

• Fully research staff needs, going beyond surveys and focus groups that only gather opinions.
• Take a robust user-centred approach to intranet design that includes techniques such as usability testing.
• Avoid opinions and assumptions wherever possible.
• Keep an open mind on the best design for each situation.
• Focus on delivering an intranet that works well for staff, and delivers concrete benefits for the organisation.

Intranet teams are already experimenting with new approaches, and I’ve featured a number of them in my upcoming book on intranet design. I look forward to further innovation, testing and refinement.

What are your thoughts on this topic?

Jane McConnell has written an insightful piece on balancing three perspectives of intranets. To quote:

When I work with global organizations to help them define the business objectives of the intranet, we do it from these 3 angles. The problem is when we push each dimension to its logical conclusion, we end up with a technology dilemma.

Christopher Swan writes about intranets becoming more than just a communications portal. To quote:

Over the last year or so, I’ve seen a quiet war waging between communicators and employees. Communicators passionately want to share breaking news, org changes, evergreen stories and the not so timely letter from the CEO. On the employee end they say yes, keep me in the know. But there is another want, not yet verbalized. They are really asking for a place to find what they need. Employees want to get their hands on the ever elusive employee policies, org charts, and all of the tools that will help them be good company citizens while allowing them to focus on the job they’ve been hired to do.

This is a good post written from the perspective of internal comms, and it highlights the many other roles intranets must play within organisations. (Thanks to Intranet Lounge.)

Wedge asks how staff can discern the right information on intranets, when there’s a free-for-all publishing approach. To quote:

Information overload is a real risk if your strategy is to allow anyone / everyone to publish pages, documents, wikis and blogs on your intranet. And our modern, powerful search engines can dredge the most peculiar pages up from the depths of the intranet. How is a person supposed to identify the most valuable information?

Finding content is increasingly seen as a “search problem” – install a powerful search engine, and all issues go away. As this post highlights, this is not the case, as search will often bring back multiple copies of the same content. Information won’t structure itself, and decentralised authoring doesn’t run itself.

A while back we did a mindmap (PDF) listing all the ways of improving intranet content. There’s quite a list!

Writing a book is a funny process. When putting the final touches to Designing intranets: creating sites that work, I found myself taking beauty shots of card sorting cards:

These are far from fancy photos, but even these required a fair bit of my camera gear, including remote-operated flashes and shoot-through umbrellas.

“What are you going to be doing when you grow up son? Dad, I want to be a professional card sorting photographer.”

Followers of our blog posts and tweats would be aware that I’ve been working on our next book. Called Designing intranets: creating sites that work, this is the definitive textbook for teams tasked with designing a new intranet, or redesigning an existing site.

In 275 pages, this book walks through a practical user-centred approach to the design process, richly illustrating each step with full-colour screenshots from organisations across the globe.

This book complements What every intranet team should know, which covers the strategy and management of intranets. Together, they provide intranet teams with the best possible start to a successful intranet project.

The book is going into production, with an official release date of 15 September 2010.

Our Australian and New Zealand readers can now pre-order a copy (PDF), at a 10% discount on the final purchase price. We are also offering a book bundle at an even greater saving.

(International readers: watch this space!)

It’s been a long journey to get the book finished, but I’m pleased with the results, and I’m glad to finally see the book go into production. Roll on mid-September!