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Beating back the political challenge of intranets
by Toby Ward — The greatest barrier to intranet success is politics. Technology, budget, skillset are all secondary barriers. The intranet is a political football.
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 we all know by now that….
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Communications sees the world quite differently than IT
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IT views the intranet far differently than HR
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HR are not technologists and are focused on people
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Business units have a laser like focus on their own markets and profit & loss
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Finance cares about the bottom-line which is not a driver of intranets
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Etc., etc.
And so the predictable happens: conflict.
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Conflict over vision
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Conflict over ownership
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Conflict over application priority
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Conflict over content
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Etc., etc.
With predictable conflict, little consensus and no direction from senior management, the intranet stalls. Often, it stalls for years.
Centralized vs. Decentralized
A 2001 study of 500+ intranet managers by Melcrum Research of London, England, found that 74% of them identified “content management” – the creation, publishing and management of content on the intranet – as the top intranet management issue. “Insufficient control and ownership” of the intranet, was cited by 46% of managers, making this the 6th ranked issue. Number eight on the list, with 43%, was politics. Inexorably intertwined, ownership and politics together rank number one on the issues list.“If you don’t have structure, you’re going to constantly run into
politics,” said Terry Lister, Partner and Leader of IBM Canada’s
Business Consulting Services at an IQPC Intranets for Corporate
Communications conference in Toronto, Ontario.
“Without a governance structure with standards different silos try
to do something in parallel (their own thing) and it costs more… and
will lessen the user experience.”
The need to resolve political and ownership issues has driven the
demand for a defined governance model, a structure outlining the
ownership and decision-making process. Three governance models in
particular stand out: decentralized, centralized and collaborative or
federated.
Centralized
Centralized, more common in early stage intranets or smaller companies, is characterized by single ownership consolidated in a single department, often IT, HR or corporate communications. Centralized intranets are highly controlled, regulated and bureaucratic with one department acting as the lone sheriff and boss of all publishing and design. While process rules the day and there exists more consistency across the intranet, a centralized intranet is not as responsive to the needs of stakeholders and content owners and highly restricts creative freedom and ingenuity.
Centralized, more common in early stage intranets or smaller companies, is characterized by single ownership consolidated in a single department, often IT, HR or corporate communications. Centralized intranets are highly controlled, regulated and bureaucratic with one department acting as the lone sheriff and boss of all publishing and design. While process rules the day and there exists more consistency across the intranet, a centralized intranet is not as responsive to the needs of stakeholders and content owners and highly restricts creative freedom and ingenuity.
Decentralized
The “wild west” or “intranet sprawl” approach to development and management is often the end result of decentralized intranet ownership, which is more common in larger organizations.
The “wild west” or “intranet sprawl” approach to development and management is often the end result of decentralized intranet ownership, which is more common in larger organizations.
“Everybody had their own server or intranet site – hundreds or
thousands – that allowed many intranet ‘flowers’ to blossom,” says
Lister. “The problem was that a lot of the flowers went stale and
withered but stayed on the vine, and it became increasingly difficult
to find the right information through all the stale clutter. And I
don’t think we helped a lot of employees through this approach.”
Ultimately, the decentralized model has no one owner and promotes
maximum freedom for content owners and publishers, but promotes a
sprawling mish-mash of sites with little or no standards and an
increasing amount of resources to create and maintain many separate and
disparate intranet sites.
Collaborative or Federated
The emerging next generation model of intranet governance is a collaborative or federated model most often taking the form of a cross-representative steering committee representing the major functional stakeholders in communications, human resources, operations, IT and business units. This model is most successful when the committee is championed by one or two key executives, often the CIO, the head of communications or human resources. Instead of no owner, or one single owner, a collaborative team governs the intranet through the application of policies, standards and templates.
The emerging next generation model of intranet governance is a collaborative or federated model most often taking the form of a cross-representative steering committee representing the major functional stakeholders in communications, human resources, operations, IT and business units. This model is most successful when the committee is championed by one or two key executives, often the CIO, the head of communications or human resources. Instead of no owner, or one single owner, a collaborative team governs the intranet through the application of policies, standards and templates.
Intranet sprawl
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 grew into disparate fiefdoms of many dozens
or hundreds or thousands of independent intranets with incredibly
confusing and differing navigation schemes, layouts, designs, etc.
Dozens if not hundreds or even thousands of intranets in the largest
corporations (at one time IBM had 9,000 intranet sites) proliferated on
the corporate network.
Understandably, some CIOs and corporate bean-counters .took notice
and began wondering why they were wasting so much time, money and
resources operating a host of disparate intranets servicing the same
employees. And so began the rationalization of intranet sites and
resources that led to the likes of IT, Human Resources, Corporate
Communications and other departments and business units having to
cooperate and cohabitate together under a single structure.
“It’s ironic,” adds Lister, “we wouldn’t have these difficulties
in a building where you have different groups existing together in the
same space. But partly because of the way the intranet grew up, we
didn’t create a corporate view and you have to struggle to pull the
intranet back and find something better.”
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.
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.
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Do it yourself. This is more difficult because you are an intranet stakeholder – a competing stakeholder with the others and therefore not non-partisan.
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Hire a consultant. A consultant has the outside expertise (hopefully the one you work with has extensive expertise. If not contact us 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:
Toby Ward writes for several news blogs including www.GetStrat.com from
which this article was adapted. His other news blogs include www.IntranetBlog.com
and www.eHealthNews.com.
Toby is the President of Prescient Digital
Media which specializes in Internet and intranet strategy,
technology and total site management. For a copy of the free intranet
white paper Finding
ROI, please contact us.
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