During the excitement of delivering a new intranet project, intranet governance is not necessarily something that is widely considered. In this blog post I’m going to be highlighting why governance should be taken seriously and the impact it can have on the success of your intranet. Download our comprehensive intranet governance guide for a more in-depth view on the steps you can take to effectively govern your intranet.
What is governance?
Intranet governance considers how your intranet is managed. Everything from the objectives the intranet is designed to achieve through to who is responsible for what. Governance clearly sets this all out and acts as a reference for those that have a management responsibility or oversight for this tool.
Selecting an effective intranet sponsor is the key. Ideally your sponsor will have access to budget and the ability to make decisions on a strategic level. They will set the direction of your intranet, aligning its goals with the objective of the business. Without a sponsor your intranet is likely to lose direction and may not keep pace with the needs of the business or those of your employees.
With the right sponsor you can build the right team. Depending on how your intranet software is set up will determine how much involvement IT operations have. For most, IT is responsible for the availability of the intranet, with the day to day management down to different departments within the organisation. You may also have an intranet steering committee which is headed by your senior sponsor and involves key stakeholders from across the business. The team helps plan the development of your intranet making sure it consistently helps staff achieve their objectives and the objectives of the business.
Intranet governance will also define how much control is centralised and how much is given over to departments around your organisation. This will depend on your business objectives and the culture of your organisation. It is important for the business to understand where content is created and who is responsible for what. We are talking here about the content that is being created and distributed by the business (such as news stories, policies etc) and not necessarily user generated or social content.
Good intranets will facilitate the sharing of content by people across your business, intranet governance helps define these boundaries. Without governance there is little responsibility or accountability for the frequency and quality of your intranet content. Intranet governance is crucial in making sure contribution from the business is more than just a hobby. Governance puts intranet contribution as a part of your employee’s formal reviews, allowing managers to address any issues that may cause intranet contribution to be side-lined.
Intranet governance is such a broad topic that can impact the success of your intranet in many different ways. To help you create strong governance on your intranet we have produced a Governance Guide for you to download. Let us know about your experiences with intranet governance (good, bad or indifferent) by posting in the comments section below.
