Implementing an intranet is hard work; it spreads its tentacles right across the firm or chambers (or should do), it takes considerable skill on behalf of the people doing it, it is a major drain on their time and there are real costs (both staff time and IT related).
1. There needs to be somebody driving the project. Without such a person, goals will not be defined, staff time will not be allocated, there will be no budget and no time scale. In addition, there will be no one to deal with any problems which arise and to remind people that the project is worthwhile. This person has to be either a hands-on partner or the practice manager; anyone “less” and the project will probably founder.
2. Define the goals. In the case of the intranet described in the last issue (Lextranet) the key aim was to help the firm achieve Lexel accreditation, together with improving communication in the firm, but other goals could lead to a different solution. Defining the goals is really very important; without goals (and priorities) you will not know whether the system has been a success!
3. Decide which departments are involved. This is closely related to the setting of aims; is the main aim of the project to improve marketing, to enable library resources to be widely disseminated, to share information across different sites, to set up “best practice” initiatives in different work areas, or to improve the use of IT in the firm? To say “all of these” is not really good enough – you have to know which goals are the most important.
4. Once you know the aims and the departments involved in those aims, the creation of a team to manage the intranet should be relatively straight forward: all key departments involved with a major goal should be represented. Please note – if there is no-one willing to be involved in fulfilling a particular goal, it will probably not be fulfilled.
5. You should now be able to set a budget. If there is a formal system of charging internal services to particular cost headings, the budget will need to include staff time but if there is no formal system of this sort, there should at least be an explicit recognition of the time input required from each relevant department or work area – and a real life person willing and able to take on the role.
6. There will need to be a major role for the IT department. The intranet will need to work seamlessly with all the firms’ other IT applications, both in terms of hardware and software and additional hardware or networking capacity may be required as well as new software. This is not a trivial task. Even if you use an external service company to help you implement the intranet, you will still need the firm’s key IT people to be heavily involved.
7. You will need to choose the software to be used and this will need time allocated by all the key players. The cost of the software is relevant here. If you are basing the intranet on Microsoft SharePoint, you need to decide whether you can use the free parts of SharePoint to achieve your aims, or whether you need to purchase the additional modules. You may also decide to use a Content Management System (CMS) in conjunction with SharePoint which also has a cost (and a learning curve) or you may opt for a standalone system, such as Intranet Dashboard or Lextranet.
8. You will need to schedule training for all the staff involved with supplying information for the intranet (which is, after all, one of the key aims) and there will need to be someone in the firm to co-ordinate training and to provide post-implementation support. This is probably going to be someone involved with IT, but not necessarily so, as long as the communication with the IT department is good. People need to feel excited by the prospect of sharing information across the firm. If it becomes a burden, the project will not be very successful.
9. Related to this, there is a need to keep up the psychological pressure to provide good information on the intranet and to encourage people to use it. Many an IT project has faded away even after a successful implementation because of the lack of a continuing drive to make the most of it.
Please let me know of successful implementations (or less successful ones) and we will continue to provide information on this topic.
Past articles on the topic
Alastair Morrison of Strathclyde University reviewed Microsoft’s SharePoint in March/April 2008. He described both the (free) add on to Windows Server 2003 called Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) which is more powerful and also costs real money.
David Gilroy of Conscious Solutions described an out of the box solution called Intranet DASBOARD in the May/June 2008 issue. This comes as a package – much cheaper and easier to implement than SharePoint but focussed on the specific requirements of a basic intranet rather than being (effectively) infinitely flexible.
Also in the May/June 2008 issue, Bruce Lawson, an expert on accessibility, described why he thinks that using SharePoint can lead to intranets or websites which contravene the Disability Discrimination Act. This is a topic worthy of consideration.
Catherine Copp of Ingrams Solicitors commissioned an intranet for her firm from a local IT company. The system uses basic Microsoft Windows-based tools but puts these together in a manner designed to manage the Lexel requirements.
Delia Venables is joint editor of this Newsletter
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