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	(72k PDF)             CM Briefing Content Management Intranets Usability & Information Architecture             IA Essentials (Brisbane)                   Intranet Roadmap Wallchart        Interested in syndicating our articles? Find out more CMb 2003-07 Five minute intranet self-evaluation by James Robertson Published on 18 March 2003 How well is your intranet working, and is it meeting business needs? These are the fundamental questions facing many intranets. Having grown organically for years, most intranets are now suffering from major structural and content issues. This briefing presents a simple checklist that will allow you to judge just how much work will be required to bring your intranet back to top performance. Work through this checklist, and tick all those statements that apply to your intranet. Intranet danger signs Layout and structure   Intranet issue       Design and layout of the intranet is inconsistent across different sections         Staff have considerable difficulty finding required information         Search engine works poorly         Overall appearance of the intranet is unprofessional and dated         Navigation is ad-hoc and inconsistent         Few cross-links between different sections of the site         Intranet is not accessible for disabled users       Intranet content   Intranet issue       Content is out-of-date and inaccurate         Level of detail and amount of content varies greatly between sections         Few dynamic or interactive features (the intranet is not a "place to do things")         No clear idea of what content exists on the intranet         Content owners are not known for all pages       Intranet maintenance   Intranet issue       Update processes are labour-intensive         Authors require extensive HTML knowledge         Very long cycle times for updates         Bottlenecks in the publishing process         Limited review or authorisation for changes         No audit trail or version histories maintained         Little or no security control over intranet changes         Unable to easily make global changes to the intranet (eg. new design or branding)       Processes and strategy   Intranet issue       No documented intranet goals         Intranet metrics not measured or assessed         Intranet not seen as strategic asset by senior management         Intranet resourcing is inadequate         Other competing information platforms exist, with no clear distinction between their use         Some staff are not aware that the intranet even exists         E-mail is (over) used as the primary communications tool         Intranet usage by staff is very low       Results Add up all the entries that you’ve ticked. If the total is more than five, you will need to do some work to address these problem areas. If you have more than ten marked, a complete intranet overhaul may be in order. See our article Sixteen steps to a renewed corporate intranet for some ideas on where to start. (For an overall methodology for developing or redeveloping an intranet, see the Intranet Roadmap.) If you have any comments on this article, please send them to: jamesr@steptwo.com.au Printed version of this article (PDF)

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