So you’ve decided to build a brand new intranet for your organisation. You chose a CMS system that suits your company and employees intranet needs. Preferably, you chose a social intranet like LumApps to improve the information flow and engagement level of your internal communications. Whichever intranet platform you will be using, you’ll need to set up your new intranet first.
To do that, use the 6 best practices that are symbolised by these classic pop songs to get the best results!
Hint: Listen to the playlist on Spotify here while reading this post & while building your new intranet
#1 Let it go (Idina Menzel)
When you’re starting up the project, you may be tempted to add all the whistles & bells you can think of to the scope of your new social intranet. You may think you need all those integrations with other systems in order to go live – but you don’t, so keep yourself in check.
Keep the project scope under your own span of control, and focus on the MVP – “minimum viable product” – for your first launch. Reduce dependencies with other projects, teams and technologies as much as possible.
Best tip: get the decision makers & validators in your core project team, and you’ll move at lightning speed.
#2 Complicated (Avril Lavigne)
Keep it simple. It’s your project, so apply this to basically everything you as a project manager can control. Keep the design simple, keep the core project team small, keep your governance lean – less meetings, boards & committees! Simplify your business rules, your metadata, and your validation workflows – and thank me later.
And if you’re looking for a simple tool for tracking your project than say, MS Project or creating your own project planning spreadsheets, have a look at the wonderful Asana. Asana is great for visual planning and setting up Kanban boards. It’s a super simple way to collaborate and to discuss tasks & deliverables in a project space.
#3 Parents just don’t understand (Will Smith)
When you decide to do things right and pour all your super valuable user research into personas, use them in all UX decisions you will be taking. But remember: your board of directors and C-level execs will most likely not understand, and will struggle to see how 7 very specific user personas could possibly cover the needs of their entire company.
They will point out details that are not correct. They may have allergic reactions to a few specific words in the copywriting. And… if you show your early wireframes, they will bazooka the hell out of them because they’ll be expecting picture-perfect colourful designs matching the new branding to the pixel. So unless your CEO is a former UX Ninja, just… don’t.
#4 Heroes (David Bowie)
Stop thinking about employees as intranet users – make them your heroes from day 1 of your project. Your intranet – your new, social intranet – will live & thrive by the grace of these heroes.
Thought leaders, extraverts, people who serve as social glue in a community, new joiners & managers, the whole HR team, content editors & content owners across the organisation: you need every single one of these people to get onboard with you.
Need more change management tips? Check out my colleague Change Manager Keren’s blog posts here.
#5 Hello (Lionel Richie)
Your project may be lodged firmly in the Communications or HR department – or if you’re unlucky, in the basement of IT department ;-)… But know that your real stakeholders are strewn across the organisation. They may not be apparent if you only look at the org chart. Observe communication flows and track the influencers & the blockers. Meet them face to face and say “hello”.
Or even better: observe what they do, what they say, which meetings they have, which topics keep them awake that have nothing to do with your new social intranet. Then see how you can help them with their personal agenda, leveraging the power of your new social intranet.
Serve them instead of thinking how they can serve you.
#6 Don’t Leave me this way (The Communards)
If you’re relying on external partners or consultants to get the project live, make sure you have internal champions that will remain visible & engaged long after the go live, and long after the project is dismantled.
Make sure they are intrinsically motivated, incentivised, empowered and trained to take the MVP of your new social intranet to the next level!
Keep these best practices for building your new intranet in mind, why not with the help of this playlist of classic pop songs. You’ll see your social intranet project will turn into a success and can really transform the internal communications at your organisation. Good luck!
Need some help with setting up your new intranet? Not sure which new intranet platform to choose? We can help!