[thelist] Intranets

[Fortune Elkins]

hiya!

imvho, a successful intranet *should* not be based on the org chart!! don't
do it by group or department, because these are too fluid. it is much better
to do it by task -- better still, to organize large parts of it around
customer accounts/client work if possible.

for example, clearly some things apply to all employees. HR stuff -- health
insurance reimbursement forms, 401(k) forms, employee name and home address,
who's in, who's out, vacation time used, schedule meetings, travel requests,
expense reports, timesheets, etc. you should have static pages that offer
the forms and other paperwork. it would be great if you could use adobe
acrobat's features to allow employees to fill these forms out on the web and
then route them to the appropriate HR staff for processing.

dynamic web applications that allow employees to change their addresses,
apply for time off, make a travel request, post whether they will in the
office on a certain day or out with a client, do timesheets, etc. if your
office uses exchange, it's amazing how much you can do with that info if you
can get someone to do some exchange programming. . .

needless to say, the daily meeting schedule and "who's in" info should
appear on the home page of the intranet for easy reference.

other information should be organized by task or project basis, i think.
what information do all programmers need? msdn maybe? put that up there.
what information do all programmers working on the blodgett for client X
need? put that up there in the client X area. do programmers work with
sales, tech support, and business reps on that client X task? set up a group
blog so that all the client X team can see the latest information - when the
business reps come back from a meeting with client X, they can summarize the
meeting on the blog and everyone can check it out.

finally people should be able to customize their intranet home page to show
what they need to see easily. so if i'm a programmer on the client X
project, i should be able to see on my home page: daily meetings; who's in;
a link to the msdn stuff; a link to the client X blog; a link to timesheets;
a link to the client X project schedule, etc; whatever general company daily
news that's appropriate. if i'm the receptionist, naturally, i should see
some of the same things, but also other things. . .

people also (used to) also love time and date, and a stock/news ticker.

to do this kind of thing, you need to find out what the major roles or jobs
in your company really are and what information these roles need. dont' make
it too crazy -- try to identify maybe 10 or 15 roles at most. while you work
this long-term web app stuff out, you can start with the general HR stuff
everyone needs. once you get the paperwork and forms on-line and routing, go
for the employee personal info app, timesheet app and who's in info app.
then get to the travel requests, vacation requests, all those apps etc.

you can save a lot of money in the HR area upfront and that stuff makes you
a lot of friends in management. this success will allow you to then go for
the entrenched fiefdoms of the project areas. it's surprising how many
project teams and managers don't want to share their info or make it
accessible, esp. in a cross-functional or cross-divisional manner. but if
you've done well with the HR part, you have creds to do the tough political
stuff. <Grin>

the project leaders will demand that they have control over their client X
area, but will invariably fail to update info, or will not quality check it
for bad links, etc. then that area fails, and you get the hit for it. if you
are going to delegate care of each section to the project teams or leaders,
make sure you have some way to ensure content is up-to-date and has some
quality. get some kind of clear commitment or get the senior management to
add intranet area responsibility to the project leaders review. some has to
be accountable for the intranet's quality, and it shouldn't be you, once the
project leaders have demanded control. . .

hth,

f


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