Politics of Intranet Design

Intranets are truly company-wide endeavors. As previously mentioned, getting an entire company to "buy into" the intranet is critical to its success. As you may have encountered (or at least seen as a common theme in Dilbert), marketing and technology departments tend to be diametrically opposed to each other (see WebSmart newsletter "The IT Guy". Because an intranet project will involve both groups (as well as others including secretarial support staff, HR, reception, customer support, etc.), the relational tensions need to be handled delicately. The most critical department to have on board is technology. This is because an intranet is usually hosted and maintained inside a company's Local Area Network (LAN) which is the highly protected domain of IT. Because intranets often need to integrate with other internal third party software (i.e. HR software, time entry and analysis software, etc.) the intranet usually has to be hosted inside the corporate network. For this to take place, IT will have to give complete approval and support to the effort. The best situation is when IT is fully on board with the way the project is being done, but also values the role of marketing in the project. Fostering communication and appreciation between these two departments during the development process is an important political dynamic to keep an eye on.

Determining the hosting needs of an intranet is the first technology consideration when discussing an intranet project. When intranets are to be hosted internally to the company, the cooperation and approval of IT is essential. However in cases where an intranet does not need to be hosted internally, the need for IT approval is not as critical. An externally hosted intranet might make sense for a smaller company without a dedicated IT staff, or for an intranet that is primarily a communications tool (publishing an internal newsletter, or posting corporate information, for example). If the intranet is limited to publishing and posting of information rather than as a working tool for daily tasks (like managing time entry) the intranet can be hosted outside of the company's network. An externally hosted intranet will be easier, less complicated, and less expensive to build. Of course the intranet would still need to be password protected and easily maintainable by internal staff.

If the intranet must be hosted internally, the level of openness IT has toward dealing with an outside company is the very first thing to be determined. Openness from IT is a green light. A red light from IT, when discussing an internally hosted intranet, would make it very difficult to develop an intranet in an effective manner.

Another technology issue to consider is the use of third party software. Certain intranet tasks such as time keeping, real-time HR forms, and accounting processes are usually best left to specialized third party software. There are many choices of special software for these tasks and most offer web-based interfaces. For example, if a company used a particular software package for entering time sheet information that integrates with back-end accounting systems, recreating an intranet time keeper would be a waste of time and money. It would be better for the intranet to simply link over to the time keeping software itself. Often these third party solutions will allow for custom interfaces to be added to them so that look and feel can be maintained across the intranet. But even if this is not an option, it is still better to leave specialized tasks to the software that has been specifically designed to handle them. Don't reinvent the wheel.

Software integration is a technically challenging task that is sometimes needed or expected in intranet development. This section will define software integration so that you can identify this expectation when discussing intranet development with a client. If software integration is either needed or expected (and there is a huge difference between the two) the project is likely going to be complicated and expensive. A third party software integration consultant will need to be brought into the project.

Software integration, or getting data from one piece of software to interact with information in another piece of software is hard to do. Uncovering the expectation for software integration can be hard when planning and designing an intranet with non-technical clients. IT departments usually appreciate the complexity of integration work, but non-technical people sometimes have unrealistic expectations about software integration. Technological hype tends to create unrealistic expectations about what technology can automate. While there is a lot that technology can do, accomplishing some of these tasks is costly. Clarifying expectations about software integration is important in the early stages of planning an intranet. Keeping the boundaries between each of the various systems involved in an intranet distinct from each other is the best way to address integration expectations.

For example, an intranet might allow users to enter time sheet information that could automatically go into the back-end accounting system and provide current project status based on that information to project managers. There are accounting systems available that have web based interfaces that would be useful for this kind of function. This accounting function is distinct from the general content management function of the intranet. A separate system, such as Newfangled's content management system could be used for general site content management. The boundaries of these two systems need to be clearly defined. Data that enters one system will not necessarily be entered into the other. When the real time passing of data from one system to the other is necessary, software integration needs to take place.

The simplest and least expensive approach, which usually is more than adequate for most companies' intranet needs, is to separate the functions and use the systems independently of each other. The look and feel of the two systems can be matched so that the user experience is not interupted.   next >