Leading an intranet redesign

An intranet redesign is like a political campaign – you might win, you might lose. And like a political campaign, an intranet redesign requires the support and vote of those that count – particularly senior management.

It is possible to do a redesign without the support of senior management and eek out a minority victory, but your power and potential success will be severely limited without the support of those key taxpayers – the people that pony up the cash.

If your intranet isn’t owned by a senior executive then you need a champion. However, unlike a political campaign working for a democratic purpose, a corporation is not a democracy. Senior executives are all powerful. They have the political clout and they control the purse strings.

Enlisting an executive champion

In organizations with successful intranets, the intranet champion is a c-level executive. In other words, a senior executive that reports directly to the CEO. This could be the CIO, the CFO, the COO or perhaps the SVP for communications or human resources.

Determining which executive makes the best champion in your organization depends on the executive and their power and influence within the ranks. Firstly, your executive champion should understand the value of the intranet and the potential it can deliver. Secondly, your executive champion needs to be involved. Not on a day-to-day basis, but when a decision needs to be made or funding is required. As far as a time commitment, your champion need only attend an occasional meeting (perhaps twice per year).

Usually, in most cases, executives don’t know much about intranets. In fact, most think of the intranet as a cost center. You need to educate them.

Education comes in the form of:

• Best practices and case studies
• Employee research
• Business case with ROI

Developing a complete business case with all of the above will convince just about any executive of the need for a high value intranet.

Keep reading…. Intranet Redesign