I’m back working with the Area Health Service tomorrow. The next three days will consist entirely of stakeholder interviews, finished up with a day of information architecture activities (card sorting).

We’ve taken a different tack with the interviews than previous approaches. In the past, focus groups were convened to discuss how the intranet is used, and what changes could be made.

This time, instead of focusing on the intranet, we’ll be investigating what information is needed by staff. To this end, we’ll be asking a range of questions:

• nature of the staff person’s job
• key activities
• information needs
  current information sources

• lines and methods of communication
• current sources of organisational news

This is really a simple form of knowledge mapping, trimmed to fit within our time and budget constraints.

I have five one-hour sessions scheduled for each day, so it’s going to be pretty exhausting. Hopefully though, by the end of this, we will have a clearer idea of how the intranet can help staff to do their daily work.

Of course, it’s going to be a challenge to facilitate answers to these quite difficult questions. I’m looking forward to refining my interviewing skills, and fully expect to revise the set of questions at the end of each day.

I’ll report further as we make progress.