Matthew Chestnut is a Senior Consultant at ThreeWill. He has over 25 years of software development experience around enterprise and departmental business productivity applications. He has a proven track record of quality software development, on-budget project management and management of successful software development teams.
An Intelligent Intranet is useful for all sizes! So, how did we do?
That was then…
In my August 2023 blog post “The Intelligent Intranet – A Smart Choice of Organizations Big and Small” I said:
One of my hobbies outside of working at ThreeWill is my volunteer work as founder and head coach of a youth running club (track and cross country). Since 2011 over 1300 elementary and middle school-aged kids of all abilities have participated in my club as they prepare for high school distance running (or, perhaps as a way for mom to get them out of the house and “do something” after school!)
I have found that implementing many of the same features found in a corporate intelligent intranet allows my organization to scale and work effectively and efficiently regardless of the number of members for a given session.
The purpose of the August blog post was to discuss how even small organizations (i.e. my youth running club) can benefit from an intelligent intranet.
As a follow-up to the original discussion, I have provided some thoughts below on how even small organizations can benefit from well-established project management processes (like we use at ThreeWill!) to manage rollouts of features for their intelligent intranet.
This is now…the retrospective
The 2023 cross-country season is over for my youth club. So, how did we do? Did the club’s intranet serve its intended purpose this season?
Here at ThreeWill, we follow the agile software development process. At the end of each project, we have a retrospective to reflect on what happened during the project and identify actions for improvement going forward. Each member of the team (that’s me!) answers the following questions:
- What worked well for us?
- What did not work well for us?
- What actions can we take to improve our process going forward?
But first, a reminder … The Qualities of an Intelligent Intranet
In previous blog posts we’ve described the list of qualities and characteristics of a successful intelligent intranet:
- Transparent and Open
- Constant change
- Single source of truth
- Follows proper web design conventions and principles
- First place to start
What worked well for us?
- Our intranet provided the “single source of truth” for upcoming events. A huge benefit knowing where to go to find out what’s coming next.
- The intranet did a great job in providing the event schedules (dates and times), information about the event (i.e. the “agenda”), and the results (outcomes) of the event. We kept the content fresh as new details emerged; our intranet handled the “constant change” of details very well.
- Our intranet followed proper web design conventions and principles. A big benefit was being mobile-friendly, thereby providing information to the parents and members wherever they may be.
What did not work well for us?
- At times some parents forgot that the intranet was the “first place to start” for getting information. Answers to frequently asked questions like “What time should we get there” or “Where is the next event being held” were on the intranet, but some still found it easier “to ask” rather than to resort to “self-service” reviewing the content on the intranet.
- Certain processes were not as clear and concise as they should have been. Less experienced parents were confused and needed a bit more detail.
What actions can we take to improve our process going forward?
- Improvements to site navigation will help our members find the information they need when the information is needed.
- Information needed at the beginning of the season differs from the information needed at the middle and at the end.
What’s next?
Our upcoming track and field session starts in March 2024. Planning is underway to improve our intranet by tackling the project retrospective items we identified where we can “do better”!
Need more information about ThreeWill’s approach to an intelligent intranet … it’s on the website!
GET STARTED BY BOOKING A DEMO OF OUR INTELLIGENT INTRANET TODAY!
- The Intelligent Intranet – A smart choice of organizations big and small”
- What makes an Intranet Intelligent?
- Top 3 Ways ThreeWill Community Management Drives Adoption of an Intelligent Intranet
- Top Three Ways an Intelligent Intranet Improves Employee Experience
- Leveraging the ThreeWill Intranet to Streamline Marketing Activities
- Being Agile – A Practical Example
- Confessions of a Traditional Project Manager Turning Agile
