Our article ‘An intranet needs to be managed as a product’ introduced product management in the context of intranets and digital workplaces. It emphasised that teams should learn from the product management space, with the goal of changing how enterprise solutions are managed and improved over time.

This article elaborates on this idea and its importance in the digital employee experience, using six simple rules of product management (provided by Brainmates):

1. Customers first 
2. Problems before solutions
3. Leave the building
4. Tie deliverables to strategic intent
5. Do less more often
6. Show and tell

1. Customers first = employees first

Most consumer-grade products or services, from your mobile phone, to your car or even your trip to the supermarket, are based on making the customer experience central to the design. The same should be done for intranets and digital workplaces.

Intranet teams should:

• create deliverables that communicate who the product is for (such as personas)
• be the voice of the employees and understand what their expectations are of the product

2. Problems before solutions

‘I have an idea.’ We hear it all the time and I’m sure most of us are guilty of saying it. Having ideas is fine, but it’s crucial to clearly articulate which problem the idea will solve, who will benefit from the solution and how the digital employee experience will be enhanced for staff as well as the organisation.

Intranet teams should:

• be able to identify problems (opportunities)
• evaluate the problems that are worth solving
• rank the problem and the importance of solving it rather than ranking the idea
• conceptualise the solution and test it before investing in development. Rather than failing fast, start experimenting fast

3. Leave the building (or at least your desk)

Spend time with staff, something that we have been advocating for years. Whether this means carrying out focused research in the field, shadowing staff,  bringing staff together in a workshop or even ‘guerrilla research’, something is better than nothing. 

Intranet teams should:

• leave their desks and spend time with staff who use their product
• focus on staff at the coal face, carrying out important business functions
• identify common issues and points of pain, including looking at the intranet through the eyes of employees
• engage with stakeholders and executives to ensure you know what’s important to them and why

4. Tie deliverables to strategic intent

Successful products solve problems and provide value to the organisation. After you’ve spent time with staff, you will have a list of things to fix and opportunities to investigate. However, you won’t be able to focus on all of them at once and neither would you want to.

It’s important to identify both the low-hanging fruit and the larger pieces of work that provide most value. If you don’t know the goals of your organisation, how can you and the intranet help achieve them?

Intranet teams should:

• identify business objectives and value criteria to assess opportunities against
• recognise competition, such as another application or source of information outside your influence, and work with its owners to see how the applications can work together

5. Do less, more often

Take the Apple iPhone as an example of product management. It’s fair to say that every two to three years there are major changes to the physical product, the phone itself. Sometimes new technology or competition drive a significant redesign.

At the same time, every 12 months or so there is a major update of the operating system and one or two minor versions released with additional features and fixes within that year. Successful products are iterative, rather than a series of projects.

Intranet teams should:

• set smaller goals to achieve more often, so the intranet is managed as a product and not as a series of projects
• use techniques such as our 6×2 methodology to prioritise your roadmap, and deliver frequent, tangible improvements

6. Show and tell

What your intranet can do and how it can help staff won’t matter if they don’t know about it. And, for the team to develop and progress in their careers, they need to showcase their knowledge, experience and expertise. Successful intranets have successful and driven people behind them.

Intranet teams should:

• show and test ideas early
• train staff and support them through the changes in methods that are right for the organisation
• share their learnings, including what went well and what didn’t, and what was learnt about staff, the culture, and the solution

Managing like a product team

Following these six simple rules will allow you and your team to identify the problems your intranet can help to solve. Engage widely with the organisation, regularly deliver improvements, build your profile and constantly demonstrate the value of what you’re doing. Onwards and upwards!