Agile intranet strategies

2013-02-01

I co-wrote this piece for Image & Data Magazine in 2004 (PDF), but its still relevant to the question posted by Andrew Wright on LinkedIn:

How should great intranets be developed? As a project or as a series of rapid incremental improvements? Or both?

(For more see his blog post)

Our recommendation back in 2004 was that we should stop searching for intranet perfection, instead work in a way that is more 'agile':

• Flexibility and the ability to prioritise are key to success.

• Flexibility in intranet team resources, so that you can bring the best skills to the team as and when they are required.

• Flexibility with funding, so that in times of financial hardship you can maximise what you can do on the smell of an oily rag and in times of funding use it wisely

• Focus on the quick wins and small changes that continually move the intranet towards the moving goal.

• Focus on those aspects of the Intranet that have demonstrable cost savings for the organisation.

• Use cross functional teams to involve your organisation in the Intranet development.

• And last but not least, publicise and celebrate the successes.

Of course the assumption here is that your intranet was being developed as a solution. An equally valid agile intranet strategy might be to avoid complex intranets that require development, and instead turn to solutions that simply require configuration and lightweight integrations. Then you can focus on people, process and content and less about the technology.