A few weeks ago, I participated in an intranet conference in Sydney. One of the speakers was Cushla Dawson from Air New Zealand, and she talked about a question that she was often asked within Air NZ regarding the intranet:

“Does it make the planes fly?”

I thought this was wonderful. Don’t get me wrong, this hasn’t made Cushla’s life very easy, as it’s hard to get resources and support when this is the question it quickly comes back to.

What I love though, is this the great clarity of business focus. At the end of the day, the fundamental purpose of Air New Zealand is to fly people from A to B. If the intranet can’t assist the airline to deliver this service, then is it really providing enough business value?

All organisations can learn something from this. Ask yourself: does my intranet really help to “make the planes fly?” If it doesn’t, look to do something more, something new. Something beyond just delivering HR and finance information, online forms and a staff directory…