Developing the best governance framework will give the right support to your intranet and organisation. Don’t forget your governance needs to help, not hinder, how people use the intranet. That is the best way that your intranet can support your organisation’s goals.
Governance needs people using your intranet to be confident in the integrity of the information and tools every time they use them. They can always rely on your intranet helping, not hindering, them with their work.
Getting the right balance is critical to avoid a sinister underweb. You need to be pragmatic with your governance approach. It doesn not have to be perfect but it must be good enough to give people confidence whenever they use the intranet. What exactly do I mean? Here is an example:
If your ‘Official’ intranet is designed and branded to a very high standard, containing all the information people should need but rarely use, the problem is probably that governance is too rigid.
Publishers must follow a complex process especially when it comes to branding for the ‘Official’ intranet. If their site has an image that deviates by a few pixels it can’t be published. Yes, it can be that tight! To add to their misery, the steps to final approval are onerous and take a lot of time and effort.
Naturally, publishers become frustrated and look for other options to publish their content more easily. Over time, an ‘Underweb’ starts to sprout up and competes with the ‘Official’ intranet.
If left unchecked, you can have a bizarre situation with an ‘Official’ intranet looking beautiful, on-brand, but little content that people need for their work. Conversely, the ‘Underweb’ thrives although it is not completely on brand. It has information and tools that people use for their work and it’s easy to use.
You need a good publishing experience as it is easy to create content and make changes to meet people’s needs. You also need a user experience that is good enough.
The lesson here is to remember the purpose of your intranet. It is to provide the information and tools that people need to help them. Your governance must support this. Research with people using your intranet what they like most and what they do not. It will quickly help you to assess if your governance is helping or hindering people’s use.
This means you need a publishing process that is both easy to use and compliant with your publishing standards. You also need people using the intranet to have a consistently good experience. Achieving the needs of both groups means you will have more productive and effective people. That is what your organisation needs most of all.
Find out more information on how to avoid sinister underwebs from my new book ‘Digital success or digital disaster?‘. Read the introductory chapter to find out more. A license to share the ebook with publishers across your organisation is available.