How to make intranets better?

Find out if there is any feedback mechanism on your intranet already. It may be an ‘email the webmaster’ type link, or an intranet based discussion forum. You may have to ask around to find out who is responsible for the intranet.

The key to closing the loop with the Intranet team is to talk to them about positive outcomes, not about the “terrible intranet” or the “appalling form”. Just like you, staff responsible for the intranet invest a lot in their creations, and getting negative feedback doesn’t help them respond to your plea for improvements. So choose your words with care.

Provide your specific example of frustration without too much emotive language. Then provide the intranet team with a suggestion as to how, and why, changes should be made. Don’t worry about the technical solution, focus more on your key knowledge about the organisation and the job that you do. By making the changes relate to improving things for staff the intranet team will have a much easier job of justifying changes to those they have to report to.

To illustrate my point, here is a real life example:

Bob, and all the sales staff, have to fill out a ‘client interaction form’ every week. The form is on the intranet (yeah) and can be filled out online (double yeah!). This is a vast improvement over the paper forms that used to have to be filled out. Or is it ?

Bob used to have a Word doc of the paper form, that he copied each week, modified according to the clients he had spoken with, and then printed out and submitted. The intranet form is blank every week when Bob has to fill it in meaning Bob has a lot of information to fill in that is the same from week to week (booo!).

Bob reads a blog post called “grassroots to greatness”, and on the back of that item closes the feedback loop regarding the ‘client interaction form’ and how he, and all the sales staff could benefit from some changes to it.

Bob asks the intranet team to make last week’s ‘client interaction form’ visible to him when he goes to fill in this week’s form, so that he can make sure he has the correct information in the form (lots of his client contacts span several weeks), and so he can copy and paste from one to the other.

After talking to Bob the intranet team go one step further and provide the sales staff, including Bob, with this week’s ‘client interaction form’ filled in with last week’s data. The intranet team make it so that only after changing some of the information can the form be submitted, to ensure new information is submitted.

The outcome: sales staff save lots of time not having to fill in the form entirely every week and they love the intranet team. The intranet team get recognition for helping the most important group within their organisation. Management and sales staff see some of the potential of the intranet and lots of suggestions for operational tools are generated on the back of Bob’s suggestion being implemented.

Take the initiative – close the intranet feedback loop and start moving your organisation from grassroots to greatness.

About the author

DorjeM work as 'Intranet Overseer' for a division of a large global corporate from New Zealand, and is heavily involved in the intranet world. Read more at his blog: dorjem.blogspot.com