Intranet teams need to use their time wisely. It is very easy to fall into the trap of dealing with urgent requests and problems, never actually making any progress.

Effective intranet teams must plan up front how they will spend their time to deliver both short term and long term benefits to their organisations.

The rule of thumb for intranet resources is:

• 30% effort for day-to-day maintenance
• 40% effort for projects and new initiatives
• 30% effort managing relationships with staff and stakeholders

For a team of one this can mean devoting one day a week to managing relationships with staff and stakeholders. In a team of 5 these responsibilities can be split between different roles.

30% effort for day-to-day maintenance

Day-to-day maintenance can include:

• publishing and maintaining content
• providing support for publishers
• fixing technical problems
• assessing search logs
• maintaining the home page
• reviewing content areas with owners
• creating graphics

If day-to-day maintenance of the intranet absorbs excessive amounts of the team’s time the intranet will never progress. This can lead to the the team becoming disengaged and experiencing a never ending workload.

[CM Briefing 2008-10 by Catherine Grenfell, read the full article]