The greatest barrier to intranet success is politics. Technology, budget, skill set are all secondary barriers. The intranet is a political football.
Why is the intranet so political?
Well, most intranets are still viewed as cost centers and they don’t grab the attention and focus of senior management. As such, the current state and evolution of the intranet is left to middle managers mostly in communications, IT and HR who have limited power and decision-making ability, and a limited budget. However, the intranet represents the entire organization, not just a department, business unit or silo. Therefore, communications, IT, HR and all the other business units and corporate departments are left to cooperate and collaborate on a single channel representing all.
This cooperation and collaboration is of course usually in the absence of little or no direction from senior management. So, the kids are left to themselves to play nicely. Uh-oh.
Of course all know by now that….
- Communications sees the world quite differently than IT
- IT views the intranet far differently than HR
- HR are not technologists and are focused on people
- Business units have a laser like focus on their own markets and profit & loss
- Finance cares about the bottom-line which is not a driver of intranets
- Etc., etc.
And so the predictable happens: CONFLICT.
- Conflict over vision
- Conflict over ownership
- Conflict over application priority
- Conflict over content
- Etc., etc.
With predictable conflict, little consensus and no direction from senior management, the intranet stalls. Often, it stalls for years.
An additional problem lies with the traditional growth and evolution of the intranet. Initially, when intranets first came online in the early to mid-1990s, they were nothing more than a web brochure (a.k.a. ‘brochureware’) that sat on a small server under the desk of a Web developer who served as designer, writer and Webmaster.
Over time the intranet grows into disparate fiefdoms of many dozens or hundreds or thousands of independent intranets with incredibly confusing and differing navigation schemes, layouts, designs, etc.
Eventually someone catches on and says, “Hey – this is crazy! We have to consolidate these sites!” With the rational consolidation of intranet sites and services under a central site or portal, disparate departments and stakeholders such as corporate communications, human resources, IT and varying business units now must cooperate under a lone umbrella with a single intranet home page. Along with this ‘forced’ cooperation comes the predictable politics and competition for ownership of the intranet.
There are two principle methods for beating back the political challenge.
Do it yourself. This is more difficult because you are an intranet stakeholder – a competing stakeholder with the others and therefore not non-partisan. However, it’s cheaper than hiring a consultant.
Hire a consultant. A consultant has the outside expertise (hopefully the one you work with has extensive expertise. If not contact us directly and we can steer you to the right consultant, give you some free advice, or give you a quote).
Learn more on this subject by reading the following:
The Politics of Intranet Ownership
Collaborative Intranet Governance (Intranet Politics Part II)