BUSINESS MANAGEMENT MASTER CLASS SERIES

Intranet Web Development Master Class

Long before the Internet came to fruition organisations developed electronic methods of

communicating internally such as bulletin boards, eMail lists and hypertext pages. These

internal services are commonly referred to as Intranet technologies. Developing an

Intranet site can turbo charge internal broadcast communications or can sometimes

leech time away from core business activities.

The Intranet Strategy

Before you start developing your Intranet it is sensible to develop a formal strategy to

ensure that common sense prevails. In particular you should consider what the benefits

of the site are to the business? What will the site allow your business to do better? Do

the ways that you communicate right now work for the business? If they do work why

does the business need an Intranet? Is the Intranet being developed for the business or

for the CV’s of your staff?

If you choose to proceed who will develop and maintain the site? If you opt for an

internal virtual development team with members from every department do they really

have the time, capability and desire? If you go for a dedicated central team or

outsourced team can you really justify the expenditure? Remember, one way or another

your proposed Intranet will cost you time and money. If you can’t see a tangible return

on investment don’t do it or don’t do it yet.

Also, one often overlooked fact about Intranet sites is the small matter of communicating

change. Let’s say you update your expenses policy on your Intranet – if that’s all you do

the policy will not be followed. You also need to consider how you push the fact that

something has changed to those that need to know. It is unreasonable to expect your

staff to trawl through the site looking for updates that may or may not affect them. You

could send out eMails, send memos, put a news item on the site’s homepage, mention

the change at team meetings, tell managers to tell their staff, put up posters, provide a

‘tell me when this page changes’ function on every page, send out news letters… In

other words you still need to do many of the things that you used to do in terms of

internal communication.

© Neuro Innovation 2004

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11/10/2005