Why tech selection should come last in your intranet redesign
Are the tools working for you, or are you working for the tools? On this month’s IBF Live program, intranet managers affirm the seemingly counterintuitive step-by-step process that a popular guidebook extols.
According to author Maish Nichani’s book, “The Manager’s Guidebook on Intranet Redesign Projects,” there are eight steps in the process of rebuilding an intranet. Technology comes sixth, after intranet strategy, information architecture, content strategy, collaboration and branding.
Even the last two steps, governance and user adoption strategy, actually start before selecting the technology, Nichani pointed out. Those two steps go throughout the entire redesign process.
The idea of choosing your platform near the end of rebuilding an intranet is quite different from the way many companies go about doing it, the hosts of this month’s IBF Live program observed.
“All too often we’ve seen organizations leading with the bright, shiny object,” said Nancy Goebel, managing director at the Intranet Benchmarking Forum, the organization that sponsors IBF Live.
Wedge Black, intranet consultant with Interact Intranet, agreed. Businesses should know what they need before picking a tech platform, he asserted.
“If we can get the business requirements, then it’s all about matching the technology to the business,” Black said.
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