The starting point for our recent Intranet Peers in Government forum was a discussion of possible intranet goals. Here is what the group brainstormed (in no particular order, and fairly unedited):
- Provide a reference tool for staff
- Target information to audience
- Achieve business improvements
- Provide best practice examples
- Establish corporate identity
- Support geographically isolated staff
- Communicate information consistently
- Support business processes
- Provide a common access point
- Reduce information overload (e-mails, etc)
- Provide information self-service
- Support skills sharing
- Support networking
- Reduce workplace costs
- Reduce information dissemination costs
- Improve decision making
- Improve public image
- Give access to centralised source of information
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- Reduce e-mail
- Improve staff knowledge
- Use as “moral support” for isolated staff
- Help staff to do their jobs well
- Help the organisation to learn from past activities
- Act as an archive
- Assist cultural change
- Improve currency and reliability of information
- Improve trust in information
- Support staff orientation
- Support information producers
- Enhance knowledge management
- Become a focus for organisational systems
- Improve information accessibility
- Improve information management
- Reduce “silo effect”
- Improve collaboration
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- Improve communication
- Support training
- Support change management
- Improve staff “sense of belonging”
- Provide social environment (fun!)
- Provide business rules and guidelines
- Provide portal to wider world
- Support knowledge sharing
- Raise awareness of activities
- Decrease paperwork
- Increase efficiency
- Enable feedback
- Reduce need for support
- Create a single culture
- Align with organisational strategy
- Improve distribution of news
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I think that’s a very impressive list, and it shows the diversity of ways that an intranet can be used, beyond the usual “deliver timely and accurate information to staff”.
