A Business Agility e-book. Planning your SharePoint Intranet

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1 A Business Agility e-book Planning your SharePoint Intranet

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3 Business Agility is expert in the delivery of solutions built on Office 365 and SharePoint. 3 We build solutions to both the common and the uncommon. This can be anything from: Intranets, Document Management Systems, workflow processes Migrating you to a new version of SharePoint Planning your information architecture around SharePoint Hosted SharePoint, SharePoint Online and Office 365 Building industry-specific solutions Business Agility Consulting Ltd

4 What can an Intranet be for you? Your intranet has the potential to be the heart and soul of your business. It can be a platform that drives innovation, operations, engagement and continual improvement within your business. So, why do so many intranets simply become a dumping ground for old content, out of date policies and forgotten workflows? It is too easy to allow a mindset that disregards the value of the intranet and treat it as a flawed file-sharing platform. Without proper governance and controls this internal tool can become a burden; no longer fit for HR processes, collaboration, reporting and content management. If your intranet is out of date, clunky and/or inefficient then your organisation is missing out on the potential to: Improve and develop products and services Drive process efficiency and run current operational services Engage employees and driving innovation and collaboration Underpin efficiency through effective search of structured (and unstructured) data This guide will demonstrate ways in which you can plan for a bright, shiny, new Intranet that supports innovation, operation and engagement. Efficiency Innovation & Collaboration Operations

5 What could be wrong with your current set-up? 5 For many, an Intranet is like wallpaper. You see it so often that you no longer notice the flaws or areas it needs to improve. You just deal with what you ve got. Before you begin planning for a new intranet, you should evaluate why the current version didn t meet expectations. No demand If you re finding that general usage of the Intranet is low and not growing, it s a sign there s no internal demand for it and users are resorting to other methods to communicate or run certain processes. Out of date Perhaps your content is out of date, incomplete or inaccurate. Maybe there is only one person who adds content to the Intranet and this person has no idea if the information is correct or up to date. Because of this, it s hard to tell if the information is up to date and it won t be very clear. It also becomes obvious that different groups manage different parts of the Intranet. This isn t a bad thing, especially in large companies. However, it gives the impression that the organisation may be siloed. Overgrown Many Intranets have had patches and add-ons over the years, leading to a clunky looking site with inconsistent branding and imagery. This can involve odd-looking additions which don t work properly, or adding new branding without completely removing the old design. Siloed departments Various departments only use the Intranet to publicise themselves to the rest of the company. In BIG organisations especially, there can be a lot going on and when departments are siloed, a well-structured Intranet can do wonders to educate employees on the various goings on in the company. This doesn t really achieve anything in the long run and impacts the functionality and purpose of the Intranet. It is of course important to showcase what various departments do especially is an intranet objective is to foster innovation, but if it s done in a way where other departments won t understand the extent of the achievement, the objective is lost. Business Agility Consulting Ltd

6 6 No interaction A good Intranet needs to have extensive interactive features, otherwise it s just a glorified message board. The Intranet needs to be a necessary tool in the day to day tasks of co-workers. Whether that means complying with certain policy, checking important HR announcements and calendars, managing important content, or searching for critical business information, it s important to have a functioning Intranet with plenty of interactive tools. No governance In today s Cloud-based world, digital governance has never been so important. Out of date Intranets may have unsuitable permissions and poor security. Coupled with a need for regular content reviews and firm processes, an out of date system could leave an organisation s information open vulnerabilities. Difficult to update If your system is cumbersome to update it can foster a culture of ignoring updates, allowing content to become old and stale. This can have long-term effects on use as well as making people resent the Intranet! If you find that updating information on your Intranet is a labour-intensive, overly-manual process, it s time to start anew. Decision makers aren t interested Many see an Intranet as an internal file-share rather than a modern workplace upon which to foster innovation, collaboration and better operations. The problem here is that senior managers may not see an improved Intranet as a strategic resource for the company in the long term and it often is pushed to the bottom of the to-do list. Inadequate funding All organisations need to be cost-conscious. A lack of funding for the Intranet can lead to poor development and, in turn, poor usage. Rectifying this can be difficult, especially if the Intranet isn t viewed strategically it can be tough to build a business case for its improvement/overhaul. business-agility.com

7 Why use SharePoint for your Intranet? Choosing the right platform for your intranet is obviously going to be a part of your intranet planning! Microsoft SharePoint has evolved a great deal over the last number of years. It s a solution you may have explored previously, but perhaps it wasn t for you then. We d love to change your mind on this. Here are 10 compelling reasons to use SharePoint as your intranet: Low cost SharePoint is available if you have access to Office 365. So, if you already use Office 365, you can get started with SharePoint and not have to worry about spending money on a dedicated, complex Intranet service. SharePoint could already be waiting for you and you may not know it! Branding and design are sorted An Intranet is effectively a website. And with many websites, lots of cost and resource go on the design. One of the wonderful things with SharePoint is that you can design your Intranet exactly to the requirements of your brand without needing to shell out money and other resources on extra designing. If you already have an established brand design, you can customise your Intranet to look exactly how you like it. It won t look like a SharePoint site (unless you want it to!) It has an internal, intelligent search engine built in When it comes to data discovery, SharePoint s search functionality is second to none. Many companies have files and data scattered about and won t always be as organised as they d like. If you re struggling to find a company policy for example, simply use SharePoint s search to get what you re after. Share your findings with the world (or just certain people) SharePoint takes document management and data security very seriously. So, on an Intranet built with SharePoint, you can ensure that certain documents and records only get shared to those who you want to see them. It s quick and easy to add content SharePoint is designed for collaborative use. Therefore, if you have several departments adding to content to different areas, SharePoint makes it easy for content to be updated quickly. There s also functionality for proofing before publishing so particular content can get checked first. Business Agility Consulting Ltd

8 8 6 7 Document management is streamlined SharePoint s document management system is both simple and efficient. Several reasons such as SharePoint being in the Cloud as well as the ability to automate document processes make the management of documents very simple. You can also edit documents right in the browser itself as well as co-author documents to avoid tennis. There s a social aspect which can drive efficiency SharePoint is not a social media tool; but it does have functionality that allows you to know your audience a little bit better especially if you re in a big company. SharePoint has the ability for you to add personal profiles to your Intranet, so others can see their interests, who they work with and what their job function is. This can be an exceptionally helpful function it allows you to search for somebody in the company and improves communication channels. 8 External sharing and access If you need to access your Intranet from an offsite location or while on the go, an outdated system won t allow you to do this. However, as SharePoint can be retrieved from the Cloud, you ll be able to have access to information you need much more easily and it s easy to use on a mobile device (depending on the design and branding that s implemented). 9 Automation As mentioned previously, document and records management within SharePoint is much more streamlined. Lots of Intranets will be inundated with documents in all sorts of places. Moving this content and managing it manually could be a thing of the past if you set up automation functionality. You can set expiry dates on documents that may need updating later or destroyed. You can move documents after a certain period or once permission in a workflow has been granted. Being able to automate documents in an Intranet can be hugely productive and take half the time of doing it manually. 10 business-agility.com You don t have to stick with it if you don t like something about it Due to the many ways you can customise your Intranet to suit your needs, there s no need to stick with something that s not working. So many Intranets aren t used because the processes are cumbersome or outdated. SharePoint is a very flexible bit of kit and you can create solutions that would otherwise cost you more on other software but is already built in on SharePoint.

9 Planning your Intranet: What do you want it to do? The most popular demand within an Intranet is content aggregation and document lifecycle management. These are two things that SharePoint can cater to well. 9 Content aggregation Intranets can have a lot of content in them, and being able to organise, search for and relay the right information for everyone s requirements can be a challenging task. Luckily, SharePoint has a lot of this functionality already built in. As previously mentioned, SharePoint s search functionality is second to none. This will help your organisation s Intranet, whether there s tens or hundreds of users. Content can be aggregated from your departmental and team sites and surfaced in a single intranet portal providing an intranet that is self-sufficient, current and engaging Document lifecycle management Managing the lifecycle on documents can be critical for compliance and governance purposes. In some organisations, legal documents must be destroyed within a set timeframe or archived. SharePoint s automation feature can assist you with document lifecycles. For example, if you have a policy that needs renewing every year, then you can set up an automation process in SharePoint and it ll remind you in the timeframe when to renew the policy. When there s a multitude of documents in an Intranet, automation policies help hugely with document lifecycles. Business Agility Consulting Ltd

10 10 Planning Here are several factors that you need to plan for in your intranet project: Plan for: Content Management Document management can cover many different types of document. When it comes to an Intranet, lots of documents will need attention. Private employee documents for example will need to either be kept/held, moved or destroyed depending on the company s process. A good Intranet will be able to look after these documents in a secure and efficient manner. Document versioning is also important when it comes to an efficient Intranet. Different departments within a company may be updating various documents such as policies. Good versioning capability means that the correct documents can get reviewed, published and retrieved. A good interface on an Intranet is also very useful for document management purposes. If things aren t easy to move or edit, then document management can be very cumbersome. Plan for: Content aggregation Having searchable and relevant content is crucial to good content aggregation for an Intranet. Without this, the Intranet will become either barren of decent material or overloaded with complex workflows and files. Having a concise way of displaying searchable content is very important. Meta tagging documents when they re published on the Intranet will help with how easily they re found when searched for. Plan for: User-adoption As mentioned previously, the Intranet will fail almost immediately if there s no user adoption upon release. If users haven t been business-agility.com Before you begin, it s important to get an idea of what you want to get out of the Intranet before you start implementing things. Starting: Planning should always take place in a linear, collaborative fashion Stakeholders/Objectives: Ensure the right people are involved, understand their needs and the objectives of the Intranet Requirements: Gather requirements and ensure the selected platform for the Intranet (SharePoint, hint hint!) can cope with these requirements Design and deliver: Once you have your requirements, including the governance plan, then you can set about the design and implementation phase. We d recommend running this as a small proof of concept piece of work initially, then when successful, rolling it out to a wider audience User-adoption: the success of a programme is usually measured by uptake. There are several adoption programmes you can implement to aid commitment of use Support and maintenance: your project will have a delivery date, but that doesn t mean the project is over. A good system will need a certain level of support as well as continued development to ensure it stays relevant and core to the business.

11 listened to in the development process of the new Intranet, then they won t have a reason to use it. Listen to feedback along the planning process where you can. If you use SharePoint for your Intranet, you can add things in and take them out as necessary. So, if you do find that an error has been made in the functionality of the Intranet, you won t have to start all over again. Intranets aren t always 100% perfect, but SharePoint allows you to correct mistakes as you go along. Plan for: What you don t want Not all aspects of a new Intranet must add business value. Functionality such as letting employees socialise on the platform and post non-work-related information can make an Intranet all the more interactive and interesting (such as a message board where staff can sell things). On the other hand, if you have reporting functionality on there but everybody tends to use their own programs for reporting, it could be a bit of a dead duck so if it s designed to add business value but it doesn t, scrap it. You can always decide to add it in later if the need is there. A good place to start is to think about your current Intranet and what you don t like about it. Keep those things in mind when developing your new Intranet. 11 Plan for: Design and branding An Intranet is designed to represent the company as a whole to individuals within the company. Clever design and branding help to achieve this. With a SharePoint Intranet, you can design and brand it however you like, so it fits in with your company s existing look and feel. Design and branding help a huge amount towards user adoption too as employees will feel a sense of familiarity with the product before they start using it. Plan for: Security and permissions (who should have access to what, and what should be moderated before publishing) As your Intranet grows, you ll likely have a lot of content creators and producers from different areas in the business. Because of this, it s vital to have set permissions from the start. A good workflow can help streamline content in a safe and efficient way: As you can see, having a process of publishing can prevent security breaches and makes sure that the content that s published is relevant and up to date. A good workflow process can ensure that your new Intranet avoids falling into the same problems as your previous one. Plan for: Automation This is part of good document management. Policies may need renewing after a set time or employee records on the Intranet may need removing. Automating these processes not only assists with compliance but also improves security protocols too. Business Agility Consulting Ltd

12 12 Plan for: Personal touches An Intranet can be a social place where colleagues can collaborate on various projects and tasks. Not only this, but having a social aspect to your Intranet will enable colleagues to find each other. In a big company, it can be difficult to determine who does what. An Intranet with a good search function plus social profiles can help this. Encouraging employees to have a small social profile on the Intranet will encourage them to use it as well as improve the communication within the company. Plan for: Stakeholder input When developing a new Intranet, it can be difficult having to listen to feedback from all directions. Make sure you have appointed the key stakeholders for your project. Their buy-in will help monumentally with end user adoption. If they too listen to feedback from their teams and relay it to developers, it makes building the Intranet much easier. These are just a few points worth considering before you begin developing your Intranet. Once you have a plan of what you want and don t want, you can begin to see where the value lies. Beyond planning It s good to remember how flexible SharePoint is. The platform allows you to add and remove features quickly and easily, so decide what is most important for now and add it. You can always change it later if it is not what the end user wants to see (and you should change it, because the intranet lives and dies on end user acceptance!) Our advice, ultimately, is seek advice and ensure you re trained. It s much, much less expensive to front-load your project/s with planning and guidance than it is to go it alone and try to correct your course mid-project. Remember, you want to maximise your investments, not minimise them! If you d like to know more about SharePoint, either as an Intranet or how to apply it as another business applications, please don t hesitate to get in touch with us. info@business-agility.com business-agility.com

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