This article explains a quick and effective technique for assessing whether your home page is an effective gateway to site content.

Much is expected of intranet authors, in terms of the quality, accuracy and timliness of published material. Yet, many organisations treat intranet authoring as a hobby.

Intranet teams must take on a strong leadership role, and drive forward the evolution and enhancement of the site.

The intranet manager should be free to focus solely on managing the site, and not publishing content or doing admin work.

Intranet content and tools should be aggregated, to help staff find required information, and to complete key tasks.

Users are not all the same, and do not have the same needs. A key principle is therefore: you can’t usefully deliver information to users you haven’t personally met.

This briefing outlines a simple scenario in which the intranet helps staff find key corporate information, while the documents accessed are stored in the document/records management system.

There are two main approaches to redeveloping an intranet: a big bang and evolution.

Determining what an intranet is actually for involves gaining an in-depth understanding of staff (and organisational) needs and issues.

It is widely recognised that an intranet must be trusted, if it is to be regularly used by staff across an organisation.