According to research done by Modalis Research Technology, 72% of
companies surveyed said the intranet improves collaboration and
knowledge sharing. Additional benefits include reducing stress and
confusion, improving the quality of work, enabling better decision
making, improving communications with suppliers and customers, enabling
speedier production and reducing costs.
There should be two points that jump out at you from this
survey:
-
An intranet is a powerful business tool.
-
That assertion is supported by quantifiable data.
With virtually any other business opportunity, most organizations
wouldn’t dream of not doing some market research to see how they’re
doing and whether or not customers are happy with the product or
service. Why should an intranet be any different? After all, intranets
exist to serve employees, and employees exist to serve customers.
Unfortunately, many of the 28% of companies who aren’t getting full
value from their intranet are in this state because they failed to
develop objective, user-informed data on how to turn their intranet
into an effective business tool.
“In God We Trust, all others
bring data.”
Edward Deming, a recognized guru in the field of quality and
continuous improvement, made this statement to reinforce the importance
of collecting data and statistics when driving quality improvements.
While conducting user research on an intranet improvement project isn’t
sexy or novel, it’s a proven best practice.
There are a few basic research methods that can provide you with
the information you need and it’s important to cover at least a few
different methods to ensure the accuracy of the results that you get
because each method has a slightly different focus and will reveal
different opportunities for improvement.
Online Surveys
One effective way for measuring the pulse of the organization in
relation to its intranet is an online survey. Surveys are great for
this high level view because they can quickly and efficiently reach a
broad range of users without putting anyone’s confidentiality at risk.
They can be done whenever the user has time and doesn’t require the
attention of a facilitator or interviewer.
Surveys are most often used for “quantitative research” which
means that they are suited for solving problems where you need to gauge
or measure something. For example you may wish to survey how much time
the average employee spends on the intranet for their job. Or you may
want to know how many employees use the various sections in your
intranet to see if there is more useful content that should be
presented.
Although surveys and opinion polls have varying levels of
participation with the general public, employees have a vested interest
in the outcome of internal surveys and participation and engagement can
be very high. The very act of including participation into design or
redesign exercises leverages the intellectual capital business leaders
are so fond of talking about.
Online surveys are gaining popularity because of their obvious
economic advantage, speed and ease of administration.
According to Websurvey, here are some costs comparisons for
surveys
|
Telephone
|
Mail
|
Websurveyor
|
Panel Size
|
10,000
|
10,000
|
10,000
|
Costs
|
$28k
|
16k
|
$1,500
|
Expected Response
|
10%
|
2%
|
10%
|
Cost Per Response
|
$3.50
|
$80
|
$0.44
|
Clearly, there are significant cost advantages and higher response
rates attributed to executing an online survey compared to traditional
methods.
In addition, research from Insight Express states that online
research actually produces higher quality results than traditional
methods. Their research shows that:
-
Online research respondents are more willing to answer questions
on sensitive issues than they are in phone interviews. For example, if
you asked employees if your intranet is meeting the needs of its users,
how many respondents would answer “not at all” if asked in person,
compared to an online survey?
-
Online research respondents are also more willing to answer
open-ended questions than those responding to mail or telephone
interviews.
Finally, the main benefit of online research is that since you can
reach a broad range and quantity of users you can have a high degree of
confidence in the accuracy of the results (as long as you can meet your
set sample size requirements and ensure adequate representation across
the different user groups.)
Focus Groups
Focus groups are an excellent complement to surveys because they
help understand attitudes rather than measuring them. Although surveys
are a great way to measure responses on clear issues, sometimes the
topics are too broad or complex to get meaningful information. This is
where focus groups come in. They are a great way to get a good
understanding of how users utilize the intranet and what they
want out of it. Its informal nature lends itself to lively discussion
and debate and, with a skilled moderator, you can elicit valuable
information on how people really work and what information is valuable
to them and ultimately the business.
For example, a few years ago when the Royal Bank of Canada moved
its insurance operations to a suburban location, approximately 30 km
away from its downtown head office, there were many concerns about the
distance between the centres and how it might impact the operations for
meetings and face to face conversations. The business reasons for the
location remained strong so the move went ahead.
When it came time to developing the intranet strategy, there were
a variety of input mechanisms utilized including focus groups. A
suggestion resulting from these inputs was to include a link to the
local ministry of transportation camera which would show if there was
any traffic congestion between the two locations, as well as detailed
directions and travel time estimates. Users loved this feature and it
helped to mitigate concerns over the traveling issues between the
locations.
Interviews
Individual interviews have the capacity to get user centric
research and can be used effectively to delve deeply into the root
causes of a specific intranet issue in ways that surveys and focus
groups can’t. Interviewers can observe body language, tone and
delivery, which is not possible or is difficult with other types of
data gathering techniques discussed. Solo interview candidates are also
free from the influence of other people, unlike focus groups where a
few outspoken people can dominate the conversation. So for example, if
you need to know “why” something is the way it is, or what the
political history is behind the structure and governance of the
intranet, interviews will help the most in gathering that
information.
While this may seem like a lot of work, how do you know what you
don’t know? So you’re either going to find out new information or
confirm what you already knew and have the data to justify the effort
with three different sources of validation. This can be invaluable when
it comes time to find money in the budget to undertake the required
changes, especially if there are political forces at play. If you find
out some things you didn’t know, you have potentially saved the
organization time and resources that would’ve been spent fixing the
wrong thing. Either way, when you’re in a boardroom deciding on where
to spend your budget, wouldn’t you rather have ideas that are backed up
by data rather than what you think you know?
Prescient Digital Media is a
veteran web and intranet consulting firm with 10+ years of rich history.
We provide strategic Internet and intranet
consulting, planning and communications services to many Fortune 500 and
big brand clients, as well as small and medium-sized leaders