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But are you? Soon, you notice that although the team collected the necessary content, they do not create intranet pages with a uniform look ‘n feel. Some authors like long, elaborate sentences while other editors prefer it short and crisp to keep the reader’s attention. New people joining the team don’t know who to contact to get the editing rights on the new environment. And while you know that some nifty function is supported by your intranet platform, you just can’t seem to find how to build it because it was not documented in the manual.
But don’t worry, we have the answers. In this blog, we’ll focus on 3 overlooked aspects that are indispensable to achieve long-term success for your new intranet!
You need to learn the ins and outs of your new intranet: how to create and edit content, but also how to manage it. Typically, this is done with some training sessions. The result is that the team has all required knowledge to get started. As soon as you start filling the new environment with fresh content, you might run into questions like:
That’s where the first tip comes in. Make sure you have easy access to an expert that can help with the typical “How do I” questions. Get the expert in your office building for a few hours per week, ensure you can easily contact her or him, … The important thing is: don’t get stuck with questions about the environment or the content during the time you are building your new intranet!
Governance is not the most popular concept, but it is a crucial aspect of your intranet environment. Governance can cover a broad set of different topics, like:
Such a plan might grow into a large document! Although the document requires additional effort from the team, don’t ignore it. Once the intranet team has familiarized itself with the new environment, specify all rules, regulations, and other conventions for the intranet as early as possible.
The governance plan will help you keep the intranet healthy in the long term and release you from (a part of) the management tasks with clear process descriptions.
Building a new intranet is one thing. Getting your audience to the brand-new site is another. And to keep them coming back, you will need to be prepared!
Make sure you have a user adoption plan that depicts how to introduce the new intranet to your audience, describes the process to attract people so that they keep visiting it and has a monitoring plan.
Let’s dive into these three items:
