All project methodologies, including agile, embrace the idea of scope: a defined set of time-bound deliverables. The more complex the project in terms of stakeholders, delivery teams and outcomes, the more scope needs to be clearly defined. And intranet launches, redesigns and refreshes certainly fall into this category. Agreeing on scope at a high level is important but can bring a false sense of alignment between project teams and can introduce significant risk later in the project.
One project, three perspectives
Intranet redesign projects will have at least three, and often more, project perspectives – those of the owner, developer and designer.
The different perspectives provide ample opportunity for vaguely scoped items to be interpreted in very different ways. Take, for example, the staff directory, an inclusion in almost all intranets. But what this means can vary. The following illustrates how perspectives can vary:
- The project owner’s focus will be driven by multiple, often competing, stakeholder needs (staff, executive, sponsor, content owners), and will centre very much on outcomes for the organisation.
For an address book, the project owner may have expectations of a single source of staff contact detail, integrated from multiple systems delivered seamlessly via mobile and desktop.
- The developers’ focus is on what can and will be built. If the developers’ are in-house their perspective may also be influenced by complexity, sustainability and support following launch.
The developers’ are often hoping to deliver an ‘out-of-the-box’ solution with the minimum of development work.
- The designers job is centred on how a solution is delivered looking at integration, architecture, usability, governability, and page layout and styling.
Designing the address book is delivering best-practice, while joining the dots between what is in place now, what will deliver the most value, and what can be built and sustained.
One discussion, a shared understanding
It is evident that ‘staff directory’ is no longer enough detail, and the perspectives of each project team need to be shared, explored, evaluated and decided upon. This requires project teams getting together and working through any potential misunderstandings or gaps. To be most effective this process should:
- be bound and guided by a well researched strategy and overall scope
- be based on agreement about who the intranet is for and use this group’s needs to drive decisions
- follow a well structured process
- be conducted with everyone in a single space, actual or virtual
- be about collaboration and consensus
- capture the agreed outcomes and relevant discussion points in a scoping document
- end with agreement on the items discussed
Facilitation is key
The session should be run by an experienced and objective facilitator who should also be a seasoned intranet practitioner, as well as being familiar with the organisation and its context. Vagueness ‘to be worked out later’ should not be tolerated, indeed, the facilitator has to be prepared to:
- ask hard questions and get clear answers
- challenge assumptions and explore gaps
- ensure responsibilities are assigned
- seek detail: what? when? how? by whom?
Breadth as well as depth
This attention to scope detail needs to be repeated for all key scope items – news, content, social, tools, home page, search and so forth – so put aside at least a day to work through them. Different aspects of the intranet often have interdependencies and where possible they should all be examined together.
Having one shared and aligned vision limits the risk of misunderstandings that might stall or derail the project later.
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