Owning an intranet is not the same as being responsible for it

Two examples that can happen with your intranet:

The HR department keeps all the employee data up to date for their own records, but they defer the responsibility for the 'People Find' to the owner of the intranet.

The IT department has delivered the intranet, it works fine and the roll out was a success. But after that they keep rolling out there own portals and platforms to the business. They see building the intranet only as an item on their work program.

There are some tasks that belong to the owner of the intranet and of course there must be:

• a main budget holder
• a chair of the editorial board
• a chair of the steering committee
• a unit to co-ordinate daily tasks
• a unit dealing with first line support
• a unit to co-ordinate with the IT department

You have noticed that there is no mention of "content" or "processes" in this list. These are items that can't be the responsibility of one unit alone.

For what are the units responsible?

Of course not every unit has the same responsibility on the intranet. Some units are very small or have content that is not suitable for the intranet (but very few units have these characteristics).

Every Unit in the organisations should have a minimal presence on the intranet

Every Unit should have a minimal presence on the intranet. There is one thing all units need to provide: What they do and who they are. (Especially important for new employees in the company). We now all agree that intranets should be task based, but it is recommended to place links to this 'task based content' on the units pages as well: cross-linking.

Service Units

In most companies you can identify service units and business units. The service units ( let's take in this example: Corporate Communications, Human resources, Facilities, Finance and IT Services) facilitate the business units.

The service units are very important on the intranet!

Corporate Communication

Corporate Communication is the ideal owner for the intranet because they know best how to communicate. They have natural links with many other units and countries in the organisation and often have a close link to the top of the company.

Corp Comms know in general best what is going on in and outside the company.

Corp Comms should be responsible for all "corporate" information and for a coherent intranet experience for the employees.

Human Resources.

Human resources is of course responsible for the "About Me" section on the intranet. They are the ideal candidate for being responsible for the employee data and employee related processes. And often there is an officer in HR that is assigned to employee development and training. Involve that person as well for maybe a Knowledge Management initiative.

- updated 2010/09/01: The article from Stephen Byrne 'How HR can leverage the intranet' gives a good overview of how HR can improve the relevance of the intranet to staff.

Facilities

All about the buildings, the environments, the restaurants, everything to faciltate the company. A very important partner in the intranet. There are probably a lot of tasks they are responsible for that can be automated on the intranet.

The IT Department

The IT department is a very important unit for the intranet. Actually they play a double role on the intranet! They are responsible for keeping the intranet in the air, provide access for all employees, build new functionalities and integrate it with back end processes and applications.

The IT Department has also a voice in the strategy of the intranet.

But except that they also have a strong responsibility in the content (think about the Helpdesk, business application support and documentation)

Business Units

The business units... well to keep it simple, let's call them the units that generate the money. Generally there is a sales department, but the rest depends very much on the type of the business.

The business units are very important on the intranet!

Collaboration is very important in modern business: easy access to all information and knowledge to do their jobs. Talk with the business units and find how they think what can be improved to do their work more efficient.

Shared Responsibilities

• Write for your audience; the employees of the company. The people who will actually read or use your content. Not your colleagues in your unit.
• Write for the search engine as well, choose your keywords wisely.
• Participate pro-active in the editorial board.
• Discover the intranet as a tool to do your work more efficiently.

The Boss...

There are no excuses for not taking responsibility. Senior management should make that clear.

And the owner of the intranet should make that clear to the management. Or is this the real challenge?