Let’s face it, everyone knows that intranet governance can be a swamp that swallows up the best of teams, and the fear is that internal politics will overwhelm any efforts to put in place the governance that’s required. Not unreasonably, despite its importance, teams are hesitant to open up that pandora’s box.

Intranet governance, however, is critical for a successful intranet. It puts shape around decision-making processes, outlines shared responsibilities, and sets the rules of the road. Great governance brings together stakeholders from across the organisation, fostering consensus that smooths the way for an ever-improving site.

What if I was to tell you that there’s a way to establish, practical, real-world governance that makes a difference, via productive conversations and pragmatic decisions? I’m pretty sure you’d be interested!

The Intranet Operating Model to the rescue

In 2016, Step Two released the first outcomes of the Intranet Operating Model, the only truly comprehensive framework for intranet governance in the world. This model covers not just the policies and standards (the ‘guiding’ part) but also the practical details of intranet support, publishing processes and more (the ‘doing’ part).

The Operating Model doesn’t just stay at a big picture level, it drills down into exactly what needs to be put in place to ensure that intranets are usable, sustainable and valuable.

Working with a wide variety of organisations, the Operating Model is now supported by a consulting offering, delivered by Step Two. This enables us to work directly with intranet teams to help them put in place workable governance, that’s formal enough to make things stick, while bringing all stakeholders on the journey.

This is how it works:

1. We have a best-practice foundation for intranet governance which we work with you to fit the specifics of your situation.
2. This produces a solid ‘strawman’ governance policy that covers a lot of the bases right from the very outset.
3. We then run a governance workshop with stakeholders, that starts with the draft governance policy (not a blank sheet of paper!) and then refines the governance model via carefully facilitated discussions.
4. Before you know it, you will have a solid governance model, with a unique structure of one ‘master’ governance policy, and multiple ‘child’ policies each covering specific aspects of governance (eg social media use, publishing process, writing standards, image usage, etc, etc).

At every step of the way, we’ll be bringing to bear the full 20+ years of experience we have in this space, along with best-practices drawn from what we’ve seen done in many hundreds of organisations around the world.

The methodology is streamlined and practical, but it also delivers robust governance that will stand the test of time. As your intranet evolves, we can help you further flesh out additional ‘child’ governance policies to cover new opportunities and challenges.

Reach out for a chat, and we can do a ‘show and tell’ of what we can offer. You’ll like what you see!