Launching a new intranet is exciting news for your organisation. Getting your launch right is really important for generating an initial buzz and also encouraging colleagues to adopt your new intranet software. There are many tried and tested launch tips that clients have shared with us over the years and to save you time I thought I would share some of these with you. If you would like to read more download our free guide on how to manage your intranet.
Top 10 Intranet Launch Tips:
1) Set a launch date
You know your intranet project better than anyone and it’s important that you set a launch date that is realistic and stick to it. Sometimes you can tie your intranet launch into an important company date or occasion, first day in the new office, new product launch or if no natural date exists, create your own!
2) Set launch goals
What do you want your intranet launch to achieve? What percentage of people logging in will you think is success? It’s great to have some benchmarks to evaluate your launch against.
3) Decide on your launch strategy
Once you have set your date and launch goals you need to think about how you will launch? Will you go big bang, secret squirrel? The no launch, launch? My previous blog goes into more detail on each of these.
4) Manage expectations
Planning your launch will help you to set expectations with your senior management. If you are starting from a place of very low engagement, collaboration and interaction, your new intranet is not going to transform this overnight but will do over time. Your launch goals and intranet performance metrics will enable you to monitor your goals on an ongoing basis.
5) Think about Launch videos
Planning your launch gives you the time to think about ways in which you can help end users get to grips with your intranet as smoothly as possible. Many of our clients have made low cost launch videos to introduce their new intranet and short “how to” videos for new functionality.
6) Team launch
You may have created a great intranet steering group to help you understand your organisation’s intranet requirements and help to create your new intranet structure but don’t end the great work there! These colleagues are your intranet champions and can really help you with your launch with great ideas, help spreading the word and doing whatever is needed to launch your new intranet.
7) Plan your pre-launch messaging
Working with your internal communication’s team is a great idea as they are the experts when it comes to managing messages and launch communications. They can help you plan and write pre-launch teaser emails letting colleagues know what’s happening and what to look out for on launch day.
8) Big launch day plan
Setting a launch date is great but it’s a good idea to go further than that and plan out what’s going to happen on the big day itself. Just as with any other project, scheduling the day’s events makes it’s easier to manage and make happen. What time will your new intranet launch? Will you be supporting the launch with an all user email? Will you have launch promotions such as a coffee mornings, launch packs or something else?
9) Walk the floor
Launching a new intranet is really exciting and you can really go for it in terms of low cost launch tactics but make sure you have time planned in to walk around your office chatting to colleagues about what they think of the new intranet and how they are using it. If you are based over multiple sites, maybe you could host a video call?
10) Review your launch
Once your new intranet is live, make sure to review how it went. Just writing down notes, comments and reviewing your metrics are great ways to record your intranet launch and can be the start of your continual development programme.
I hope you have found these intranet launch tips useful. Your intranet is unique to your organisation and your launch will be too but the tips provided here can be adapted to your own requirements. If you would like to find out more you can download our free guide on how to manage your intranet.
