10 Steps to Planning Your Intranet Project

Note: this blog was last updated on 23rd September 2024

‘What do I need to prepare for or plan to guarantee a successful intranet project deployment?’

This is a question clients often ask us during their intranet software deployment – and it’s one we feel is worth discussing in depth.

We’ll start by saying this: planning an intranet project is a team effort. It requires a clear dialogue between us, the software vendor, and you, our client. We have the subject matter expertise to build your platform and realise your vision – but you’re the one who guides us.

In order to guide us, you need to establish a well thought out intranet plan. Think of this as your blueprint; a foundation for us both to build upon.

In this blog, we’ll help you construct this blueprint and plan for a smooth (and successful) intranet project.

[BONUS CONTENT] DOWNLOAD OUR LATEST GUIDE ON PLANNING AN INTRANET

Create an intranet implementation project plan in 10 steps

When it comes to IT projects, the outlook isn’t always sunshine and roses. In fact, a large majority of IT projects fail due to team misalignment and a lack of preparation.

This is why planning is an integral part of intranet project management.

To make this stage as straightforward as possible, we’ve broken it down into 10 manageable steps:

Define your goal
Discuss the scope and audience
Build a sitemap
Choose your applications
Set up user permissions
Create a homepage wireframe
Plan your budget and resources
Anticipate your deployment timeline
Brainstorm future plans
Kick off your intranet project

Step 1. Define your goal and get your stakeholders onboard

Projects require more than just a cookie-cutter business plan. You have to imbue them with a concrete purpose.

Why is this intranet project important to your business, its employees and your overarching strategic goals? What is its reason for existing? What can it help you accomplish beyond saving or making money?

Purpose-driven companies are more likely to experience success with their transformation efforts, according to research from the Harvard Business Review. So don’t skip this step. Some typical intranet project goals include:

Improving communication across your dispersed and/or deskless teams
Facilitating remote working with a secure, accessible portal for collaboration, knowledge sharing and team building
Replacing an existing intranet that’s old, dysfunctional and is causing productivity problems for your employees
Aligning your workforce with your strategic goals, purpose and mission
Increasing business transparency via internal communications, such as regular news updates and announcements
Distributing company policies and procedures in a structured, traceable way
Housing all your important workplace documents in one centralised, easily searchable platform
Automating various HR and operational processes to increase employee satisfaction and reduce tedious administrative tasks

Refer to these goals throughout your intranet deployment and be sure to communicate them when getting buy-in with project stakeholders. Executive support and sponsorship is crucial in any project, so keep them in the loop and appeal to their strategic aims.

Step 2. Discuss the scope and audience

Once you’ve cemented your purpose, it’s time to define the scope of your project.

You can start by evaluating your existing intranet (or equivalent) and your current pain points:

How are people currently finding information in your organisation? If applicable, refer to the structure of your existing intranet. This will help you determine how you should organise your communications.
What are your users’ common pain points? Be sure to drill down into specific issues, such as communication with team members, remote access, document searchability, and process management.
What about department-specific challenges? Before planning your intranet, ask representatives from across your organisation what issues they currently face – and what they would like to see change on your new platform.

From here, you can begin to imagine how your future intranet should look and function. Again, this requires asking (and answering) the right questions:

Who will use the intranet? Is it for staff only? Or will you use it as an extranet for your partners and contractors too?
How accessible will it be? Should staff have access to the intranet even when they’re not at the office (e.g. at home or at a client’s site)? Do you plan to provide mobile access?
What communications do you plan to create and share? Will your intranet house formal policies and news updates only? Or will you also use it as an enterprise social networking tool?
Will you store sensitive information on the intranet? This may include payroll information, medical records and other personal details. If you do choose to store this data, you’ll want to discuss implementing data security controls and creating an intranet governance plan with your IT department and/or software vendor.

Step 3. Build a sitemap

Next, create a sitemap of your ideal intranet. This involves:

Deciding your menu structure. In our experience, businesses tend to choose one of three structures: departmental-based, task-based or product-based. There’s no right or wrong route – it’s all dependent on your preferences.
Asking department heads for their input. What pages and resources do they think belong on the intranet? Will they need to create new content or simply migrate content from your existing intranet?
Prioritising concision and clarity. Don’t overwhelm your users with hundreds of pages and a long navigation bar. Try to make the experience as user friendly as possible.

You can draw the sitemap by hand or build it using a tool such as Visio. Below, you can see an intranet sitemap that follows a departmental structure. We’ve used a colour code to represent the launch phases of each page, which we highly recommend adopting.

Example of Intranet Site Map Using Colour to Identify Launch Phase

Example of intranet sitemap using colours to identify launch phase

Step 4. Choose your applications

Claromentis provides a huge range of intranet features and internal comms tools which are all available within the same digital workplace. You can choose to use all of these features or hide them if they’re not relevant to your business.

Some features you’ll find on the platform include:

News and blog – share and distribute company news and informal blogs
Document manager – collaborate on documents with version control
Pages – build intranet pages and manage content via a content management system (intranet CMS)
People directory – self-service personnel database
Calendar – access a shared company calendar
Image gallery – upload and view images on a corporate image database
Polls and surveys – conduct regular or ad-hoc user questionnaires
Policy Manager – manage the lifecycle of your company policies
Holiday planner – manage corporate holiday and absence
Room booking – book a meeting room and office facilities

As well as the feature-rich intranet software, Claromentis also comes ready-made with three other extensive platforms:

InfoCapture – create electronic e-forms and automate workflows
Learning management system – develop engaging, tailored learning pathways
Project management – assign tasks and manage your project teams online

Of course, this is only skimming the surface. We’ve built many other bespoke applications to suit our customers’ needs over the years. Some of which you can find in our dedicated customer marketplace.

Step 5. Understanding permissions

Permissions groups and roles

A scalable intranet CMS should have a strong permission system to help you maintain intranet compliance and distribute information easily.

As an example, you may want to create department-specific areas where only those in the respective departments can produce or edit content. People outside of those teams can only view the content.

Your intranet administrators can easily set up these permissions by defining roles, groups and sub-groups.

It can be helpful to share your company organisation chart with us – or your intranet vendor of choice – during system configuration. We can help you filter the right people into the right permissions groups.

Step 6. Create a homepage wireframe

As you know, your intranet homepage is the first page everyone is going to see. So it’s worth going the extra mile to make sure the design is as good as it can be.

Beyond ensuring your intranet looks professional and aligns with your branding, pay close attention to the user experience. As a gateway to all other content on your intranet, it’s crucial your users can easily find what they’re looking for. The harder it is to navigate, the less likely your employees will use it.

Look at several intranet examples for inspiration – as well as intranet usability guidelines – and decide what you want to see on your homepage.

Claromentis intranet wireframe

Step 7. Plan your budget and resources

Let’s start with pricing, as this is a huge consideration during the initial planning stages – especially when presenting the project to your stakeholders.

To better understand how much you can expect to pay:

Decide your deployment. Will you opt for a SaaS or on-premise intranet? As you’ll already know, on-premise installations will have a higher up-front cost, whereas cloud-based deployments are generally more cost-effective in the long run.
Estimate your number of users. If you opt for a SaaS deployment this will be an important metric for gauging your monthly costs, as many vendors base their pricing on the number of users.
Get a free quote if possible. For an accurate pricing estimate, speak to your vendor and discuss your requirements. They can give you a more concrete number to present to your stakeholders.

From here, you’ll want to assess your other resourcing requirements. For example, who is going to provide you with the hardware? If you don’t have any, we’re happy to source this for you (if you don’t want to opt for the SaaS model).

In addition to this, think about the human resources necessary to complete the project. In most cases, we recommend building a team that includes:

A rep from marketing or communication
An internal intranet project manager (the main point of contact)
A project sponsor
A technical contact

Step 8. Anticipate your deployment timeline

As the saying goes: Rome wasn’t built in a day. It can take anywhere from 2 weeks to a year (or more) to deploy an intranet. It all depends on the scope of your project, the data you need to migrate (if any), and any back-and-forth between you and your vendor.

That being said, these are some common areas that may cause delays:

Sourcing hardware
Getting access through your office network
Finalising the design and structure of your intranet
Updating and/or migrating your user list
Populating your intranet with content
Migrating content

Like everything else in life, execution is quick; preparation is key, so do your homework!

Step 9. Brainstorm future improvements

A successful intranet is something that grows over time. So start simple and add new features gradually; learn from feedback and implement user requests wherever feasible. Much like a breath of fresh air, small improvements can make a huge difference.

To avoid losing momentum after the initial launch phase, conduct regular project reviews and brainstorms. Invite your original project team, as well as your stakeholders, to ensure they stay engaged with your project and your future ambitions.

With that in mind, here are some ideas to think about during those meetings:

What new internal communications could you implement? It may be as simple as kickstarting a corporate micro-blog or as inventive as creating your own employee training videos and learning pathways.
Are there any tedious manual processes you can automate? Consider overtime requests, time cards and onboarding new hires.
Could you transform an Excel-based database into an online, intranet-based application?
Do you have an existing system which could be better integrated with your intranet?

Step 10. Kick off your intranet project

You can plan for as long as you want, but without execution your plan is still just a plan. So, once you’ve mapped out your requirements, determined your implementation roadmap, and brought everyone onboard, it’s time to get the ball rolling.

If you’d like to get that ball rolling quicker, simply drop us a line and we’d be more than happy to help.

One of our experts can discuss your unique business needs, identify your software requirements, and give you a private (and personalised) demo of Claromentis.
Interested? Click here to get your intranet project underway.