At MarketNet, we’ve designed and developed several large corporate Intranets.  Through this experience, we’ve discovered the following ten strategies to develop an Intranet that will be embraced by your employees and provide value to your business.

Develop the information architecture with the employee in mind not just the organization’s structure.

When designing a web site we look at the intended audience and how they would expect to see content organized.   Designing an Intranet should not be done any differently.  The primary audience in this case is the employee and they should be able to quickly and easily find applications and resources that they need to perform their job.   All internal applications such as accounting systems, inventory systems, training modules, etc.   should be accessible from quick drop downs or a comprehensive index.   They shouldn’t be buried down in departmental pages where they are hard to find.




Don’t develop the Intranet in a vacuum

It is essential to involve key stakeholders such as business groups, senior management, content owners, IT and end users in both the initial planning of the intranet as well as quarterly reviews.

Keep the content relevant and fresh

Nothing will hinder the adoption rate of a corporate intranet more than out of date information.  If the information is not maintained employees will quickly abandon it as a tool.

Add a little fun

Corporate intranets are a great place to add a little fun to the business day.  Consider adding a photo of the day feature or profile different employees.  Add a wiki on local area restaurants that employees can contribute to.

Allow for personalization

Empower your employees by allowing them to customize their own dashboard/page with items that they frequently use.   This can include items such as favorite links, weather feeds and customized rss feeds

Implement a robust search feature

No matter how well your content is organized there are still people who will use search to find things.   Implement an enterprise search tool that allows for auto-summaries, suggested results and synonyms sets

Utilize a content management system

Allow non-technical employees to contribute to the Intranet in a controlled environment by using pre-defined workflow and approval processes.  Keep the integrity of your brand by utilizing templates that insure a consistent look and feel.  It is critical to empower departments and divisions to publish specific content and documents relevant to their own area or function.  By providing this functionality, you will avoid the need for departments creating their own unauthorized intranet.

Promote new features as they become available

Let employees know when new features have been added.  Announce them from your home page and provide tips or even a video tutorial on how to use them.

Embrace blogging

A CEO Blog is a great way to keep employees informed on recent successes and corporate visions.  Blogs can also be used within project groups to track and report the status of a project.

Bring social networking to your Intranet

We could write an entire blog post on this and we probably will.  Social networking is not just Facebook and MySpace but rather it is a relational model in how human beings interact with one another.  Social networking brings down the divisional lines of a corporation and allows for employees to each become resources.  Social networking will allow employees to collaborate with one another more easily.

If you have additional strategies you would like to share, we would welcome your feedback.

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