The Internet Model encourages access and
contributions. Anyone who wants access to the
intranet can have it, and anyone who wants to
create content can do so. Obviously, you can’t
have everyone contributing to an external Web
site--someone has to manage its development
or you’ll confuse your customers. For an
internal web site, you have lots more flexibility.
You may wish to encourage everyone’s
contributions. You can encourage people, and
even departments, to learn, experiment, and try
new things that can yield wonderful ideas and
insights. The end result may be things that
help people do their jobs better.
What lessons have we learned, and where do we go from here?
Step 1: Do You Need an Intranet?
The first step is to determine if you need or
want an intranet. What is compelling you to
have one? At the time of this writing, you can
hardly pick up a magazine without seeing
articles about how companies use intranets.
It’s enough to make you want to run out and
get one of your own, whether you need it or not!
Have your internal customers been reading
those same articles? Are they starting to ask
you for an intranet? Do you see a need in your
organization that’s not being met and for which
an intranet is a perfect solution? Does your
organization need better tools for
communicating information, and maybe even
for collaborating on projects? These are all
reasons that compel many companies to
consider creating an intranet.
As you saw, often the intranet started from a
grassroots effort when some employees saw a
need that an internal web could fill. They put
together a prototype, and top management
soon heard about it. They then created a team
to do something about it. If you see needs that
an intranet can solve, maybe it’s time for you to
get moving!
What about Business Goals?
Part of determining if you need an intranet is in
figuring out the goals of your organization. Is
there something an intranet can do to help
meet those goals? Unless you focus on
meeting the needs and goals of your
organization, then you're looking at this
backward. There really should be a reason that
you need an intranet or you needn’t get started
on it.
This part isn’t as hard as it sounds. Can an
intranet help meet competitive threats? Can it
help you do things faster, better, and cheaper?
Intranets can provide lots of ways to do these
things.
What problems and opportunities do you have
because of the rapidly changing business
environment? Are you reengineering a business
process that requires information technology as
part of the new process? What are the specific
requirements? How does an intranet compare
with other possible solutions?
Do some looking around--it shouldn’t be too
hard to spot potential opportunities where an
intranet can make a big difference.
Step 2: Are You Ready?
Once you’ve determined that you have a need
that an intranet can fulfill, then it’s time to
determine what it would take to create an
intranet. There are five major areas of concern.
Each area has its own set of steps.
What is the scope
of the project? In
other words, what
area or areas of the
organization should
be part of the initial
intranet project?
This could be
enterprise wide, or
just a workgroup or
department.
Do you have the
infrastructure you
need?What are the
computer needs of
the area of your
organization that
you have chosen?
Do they have PCs,
Macintoshes, Unix
machines,
mainframe
terminals, or no
desktop machines
at all? Will you
need any
computers?
Is
that
area
on a
LAN
or
WAN?
If not,
what
is
necessary
to put
it on
one?
Does
the
LAN
or
WAN
use
TCP/IP?
Today,
most
organizations
have
some
mixture
of
protocols,
but IT
has
recently
been
moving
toward
TCP/IP
as a
single
standard.
If a
protocol
other
than
TCP/IP
is in
use,
such
as
IBM’s
SNA
or
Novell’s
IPX,
what
do
you
need
to do
to
change
to
TCP/IP?
Through
some
workarounds,
it’s
possible
to
have
an
intranet
without
TCP/IP,
but in
doing
so,
you
won’t
be
able
to
provide
your
employees
with
the
wealth
of
resources
available
on
the
Internet.
To
change
to
TCP/IP,
you
can:
Load
an
Internet
Protocol
(IP)
stack
on
each
machine.
Have
IP
reside
on
a
gateway
server.
If you’re missing
any of these
components, you’ll
need to plunk down
some serious
money to change
that.
If you already have
TCP/IP in use on
your LAN or WAN,
you’re in good
shape and ready to
move on to the next
question.
Do you have the
skills and
resources you
need? Are you
willing to acquire
the expertise to set
up web technology,
e-mail, and all the
other intranet
tools?
Do
you
have
expertise
in
setting
up
and
running
TCP/IP
on
the
networks?
Do
you
have
expertise
in
Unix
or
Windows
NT?
In the
early
days
of
internal
webs,
Unix
expertise
was
mandatory.
That’s
changing
somewhat.
In the
past
year,
more
servers
ran
on
Windows
NT,
and
even
Windows
95. If
you
intend
to
use
Unix-based
servers,
you’ll
still
need
Unix
expertise
in-house
or
available
for
purchase.
If NT
is
your
chosen
platform,
then
knowledge
of NT
is
helpful.
Recent
research
has
shown
that
while
Unix
servers
have
been
predominant
for
external
servers,
NT
has
been
coming
on
strongly
for
internal
servers.
You can hire the
skills you need, if
necessary. In our
case, we were
fortunate enough to
have a new
graduate with a
Masters degree in
Computer Science
who was real sharp
when it came to the
tools we needed.
New grads can be
a good source of
these skills.
Do you have the
people resources to
take on the extra
workload of an
intranet? Once up
and running, the
impact may be
fairly small, but to
get started requires
someone to
evaluate, select,
acquire, install, and
maintain server
hardware, software,
browsers, and
content and
management tools.
Do you have
someone who can
take the lead in
developing and
maintaining
applications for the
internal web? You
may need
additional
resources. Some
organizations have
added only a single
staffer, while others
have found that
they didn't need
additional people.
In some cases,
someone was
already doing some
or all of these
things for other
systems and was
moved into these
responsibilities. As
intranets have
grown, people have
moved into this
from other areas of
systems
development.
Step 3: How Do You Proceed?
You should be aware that in the Internet model,
steps 3 through 6 can, and should, be done
concurrently, and probably in an iterative
fashion.
Champions and Steering Committees
Often, one or two people have the original vision
of what an intranet will do for your organization.
Once the CIO or someone high in the
organization shares or catches your vision and
is willing to become the champion, then it
becomes easy to start deploying an intranet.
In most of the companies I spoke with, the
champion or sponsor of the intranet was
someone in IT, usually the CIO. In some
companies, the role of champion and sponsor
was held by several people, with the CIO being
joined by his or her peers in corporate
communications, HR, or occasionally R&D.
Some companies also had steering
committees, which often consisted of the CIO
and top IT management.
The roles of the champion and the steering
committee should be to create and spread the
vision of how the intranet can help the
organization and to eliminate obstacles. The
goal of the champion and steering committee
should be to determine where the intranet can
best help the organization and to make sure its
deployed there. The champions will also be the
sponsors for the intranet team, providing
support, encouragement, and funding to get the
team going.
In my situation, when our champion, the CIO,
gave me responsibility for the Internet Team, he
made me responsible to a steering committee.
This committee consisted of himself and all of
the top management in IS. The role of this
steering committee was not only to make sure
that I was moving fast enough at selling the
Internet and intranet, but also to make sure
that we addressed issues and took care of
infrastructure needs. The clout of the steering
committee overcame lots of obstacles. This
support was critical to the successful
deployment of a Web.
A comment that I hear frequently in conjunction
with intranets is that you must have support
from the very top executives. That may be true
in some organizations, but it may be
counterproductive in others. In the Traditional
model, you probably do need that kind of
support to get the funding required. In the
Internet model, all that may really be
necessary is that the top executives are aware
of, and in favor of, having an intranet. They don’t
have to actively support it. In fact, if the CEO
comes out and tells everybody that "intranets
are wonderful," then everyone will get on the
bandwagon. They may have a tendency,
however, to stop and get approvals from every
boss up the chain of command before putting
anything on the web. Nobody wants to
disappoint the CEO, and no boss wants to be
responsible for something in his or her area
being less than perfect. What this may do is
slow it all down and stifle innovation. If the top
executives and management are aware of the
intranet and allow people to innovate and
explore, the results may be amazing. A lot,
however, depends on your culture, so it’s up to
you to make that call.
Should You Get Outside Help?
Once you have a champion, and his or her
budget, you need to decide how to proceed.
You should first identify your goals. What do
you want an intranet to do? Once you’ve
identified your goals, you can then identify
things you don’t have the experience or depth
of knowledge to do. What things would you like
someone else to do for you? What resources
do you need that you don’t have? This should
dictate whether to hire some help or to go it
alone.
Go it alone. If you
have people with
the necessary
skills and time to
set up an intranet,
then you can
certainly do it
yourself. If you
make mistakes,
you can just back
up and try
something different.
Nobody gets the
perfect intranet the
first time out--don’t
expect to. The best
implementation will
come from learning
what you like and
don’t like, and from
trying new things
until something
works well for you.
You may find
yourself enhancing,
or even redoing, it
in a few months.
You’ll have to keep
it fresh and new, or
people just won’t
use it. It’s harder to
keep it new and
interesting than it is
to create it in the
first place.
Bring In Some
Help. If you’re
running pretty lean
and mean, and
you’re starting to
get scared about
what an intranet will
require, then you
may want to bring
in some
assistance. If you
hire some help,
you’ll get up to
speed faster and
avoid the pitfalls
others have
encountered.
What Should a Consultant Do?
Here are some of the things a consultant can
help with or do for you:
Help you identify
your goals for the
intranet
Help you work
through any
organizational
issues
Meet with areas
throughout your
organization to help
identify needs for
an intranet and the
types of information
that should be
found on your
intranet
Help identify how
people use the
information and
how you should
provide it to them
Help identify the
sources and
locations of
information you
need on your
intranet
Identify ways to get
the information on
the intranet and
determine any
conversion that’s
required
Identify any
network
infrastructure you
need and help with
the procurement
and installation
required to get the
network ready for
the intranet
Identify server
hardware and
server and browser
software needed for
the intranet and
help with the
installation
Identify authoring
and graphics tools
for publishing web
content
Identify document
databases,
conversion tools,
and any tools
necessary to
provide access to
existing documents
Assist with
development of
internal web
structure and
design
Help develop
guidelines and
standards
Help develop a
publishing and
approval process
Help create demos
Help promote the
intranet throughout
the organization
Help form an
intranet team and
help them get
focused
Help develop
applications and
links to legacy
databases
Help figure out how
to bring suppliers
and customers into
your intranet to
provide
opportunities for
business
partnerships
Help identify and
implement workflow
and groupware
Help identify and
implement
leading-edge
technologies
Help ensure you
meet your intranet
goals
With an intranet, you may not want to farm out
quite as much as you would with an external
Web site. You probably want more control over
your proprietary information. You’ll also want to
make sure your intranet fits your culture. The
intranet is just the medium. The
communication and information are the
important parts.
How Do You Select a Consultant?
Once you’ve decided that you want help on
this, how do you find and select a consultant or
outsourcer to help you?
What kind of
assistance is
available?
Hardware and
software vendors,
such as Sun, HP,
IBM, Digital, and a
host of others, offer
intranet services
and consulting.
Then there are the
systems
integrators, such
as EDS and others.
There are
partnerships that
have sprung up,
such as the
teaming of HP and
Netscape, to
provide intranet
services. There are
also independent
consultants who
specialize in
intranet and
Internet consulting.
How do you locate
the kind of
assistance you
need? Ask your
hardware and
software vendors
about the services
they provide. Keep
in mind that they
focus on selling
products as well as
consulting services.
Call the systems
integrators you
know. They focus
on the technology
to give you the right
solution. What
about intranet and
Internet
consultants? You
can find listings for
them on the
Internet, so check
out the search
engines for
consultants.
How do you choose
the right one for
you? Ask whether
these consultants
can do the things
for which you need
assistance. If not,
can they help you
find the resources
to do all these
things? What are
their capabilities
and what alliances
do they have?
Large firms may
have a depth of
resources that can
help you with just
about any need,
but they can be
expensive. Small
firms may not have
the depth of
resources, but if
they have alliances
with other firms
they can often
provide most of the
things you need.
Typically, they cost
less, too. Finally,
do you want
one-stop shopping,
or are you willing to
do a little of the
coordination
yourself?
Talk to the people
who would be
working with you,
not just the person
selling the
services. What
have their intranet
experiences been?
What is their
perspective? Do
they focus on the
technology or on
the solutions that
an intranet can
provide? Are you
comfortable with
them? Do they
seem to know
about your
business and how
it works? Do they
understand your
culture, and can
they work within
the constraints it
imposes? Request
the names of
previous clients and
talk with them.
Were they
pleased? Did the
consultant
understand their
needs?
After you’ve assessed the answers to these
questions, you will have narrowed your list of
candidates. At this point, the selection may
come down to gut feel as to which consultants
will best fit with your culture and the people
with whom they’ll work.
Once you’ve chosen your consultant, identify
what you expect from them and what they
should expect from you and your organization.
Also, make sure to define how you’ll both know
whether or not the project has been a success.
Step 4: Build Your Intranet
It’s here at step 4 that the information for each
step becomes far too much to include in this
chapter. For each of the remaining steps of the
Internet model, I’ll give you a summary of the
step here and refer you to the appropriate
chapter for the details.
The role of the champion is to create and share
the vision and sow the seeds for the intranet.
Now it’s time for the champion to make a
modest investment to get the ball rolling. It’s
really important to get some applications going
to prove the value of the project before anyone
starts mentioning the dreaded ROI. Though you
can measure ROIs for intranets, it seems that
most companies just aren’t bothering with that.
They see intranets as no-brainers and are just
doing it. In many cases, it’s just so cheap that
it doesn’t make sense to go through the
justification process. In some cases, they
aren’t measuring the results because they’ve
already seen the impact. It’s pretty obvious
once you’ve shown people, but you do have to
show them, not just talk about it. That’s where
funding by the champion comes in.
In Chapter 7, I’ll talk in great detail about the
specific things you’ll need to do to build your
intranet, which include the following:
Determine and
develop
infrastructure
needs.
Determine security
needs and
implement security.
Evaluate and select
an Internet service
provider.
Select and install
hardware and
software.
Plan for
maintenance of
your intranet.
Step 5: Create Your Audience
Before people will be willing to publish content
for the intranet, they’ll want assurance that
there will be an audience for their content. Your
next step is to actually create that audience.
One of the reasons you’ll do your demos is to
create demand. People will want browsers and
access as a result of what they’ve seen.
Prepare for rolling out browsers and other tools
before you even start presenting the demos.
In Chapter 8, I’ll talk in great detail about the
specific things to do to create your audience,
which include:
Identify and select
the tools you will
need.
Determine how to
deploy these tools
to your users.
Develop a plan for
training and
supporting users.
Step 6: Promote Your Intranet
The next step is to start doing demos to show
people your intranet and what it can do. You
have to have something to show customers in
order for them to buy. People can’t see what
isn’t there, so you have to build something to
show them. You could describe it until you’re
blue in the face, and they just won’t get it.
Show them, and they’ll understand.
There were two goals for our demos:
Recruit web
publishers--those
people in your
company who have
content they wish
to publish on the
intranet.
Recruit an
audience of
users--those people
who will use the
content the web
publishers create.
There are two steps in promoting your intranet:
Build the demo
Present the demo
Build the Demo
You can build your demo very cheaply. My
colleagues had already set up a server, but
that’s not necessary to create a demo for an
intranet. All you really need is a spare
computer, a browser, and an HTML tool, which
you can download from the Internet for free. If
you need to get access to the Internet cheaply,
you can get by with a modem and an
inexpensive dial-up account. When you get the
tools, then you can start learning HTML. You
can find lots of guidance on the Internet and in
a variety of books. So it’s really very
inexpensive to create your demo.
While you’re getting the computer and the
tools, you can also figure out what to put in the
demo. It seems that the standard first
application for an intranet is the employee
telephone directory. After that, you can get
some employee benefits information and then
find some kind of documentation to use. It
helps if it’s something that you print and
distribute widely, and which you must update
frequently. The more expensive the process of
reprinting and distributing the information, the
better candidate it is for a demo, and the
greater the impact of your presentation. Once
you have your material, you can start setting
up HTML pages.
Next, start talking to your business partners in
various parts of the business to find out what
they would like to have in easily accessible
electronic form. Every area has critical
information that needs to be at everyone’s
fingertips. With a little research, you’ll have
more stuff for a demo than you can possibly
have time to set up. You’ll want to have enough
variety in your demo to strike a chord with
everyone who sees it. If you can’t always get
the data you need, there’s nothing wrong with
using mock data so that you can illustrate the
concept.
A very fertile area is where the people using
information have several different types of
computers and operating systems. This makes
the cost of creating a typical application much
more expensive because it requires that it be
built for multiple platforms. This kind of
information is a good candidate for your demo,
since Web browsers are available for almost
every platform and you have to set up the data
only once.
One more thing to look for: What kind of
information do people need that is in databases
but that they can’t easily access? Use some of
the web-to-database tools if you can get them
before you start showing your demo. If not, you
can create a mock-up simply to show the
concept for your demo. The purpose of your
demo is to help nontechnical people
understand the concept, so you needn’t be
concerned that this isn’t real database access.
Once you’ve set up a variety of information,
you’re ready to go, especially if you have hit on
a lot of the hot buttons from different parts of
your organization.
If you have the time and resources, add some
glitz to your demo with fancy graphics, sound
bites, and even video clips. You can probably
already see their eyes lighting up! Be careful--a
little goes a long way.
When you have the demo ready, it’s time to
start building the real intranet. Once it’s ready,
you can incorporate it into your presentations
in place of the demo applications.
In Chapter 9, I’ll talk in more detail about the
specific steps involved in building the demo,
which include:
