Comments on: Why Intranet Governance Matters

By: 81 Intranet Governance Questions to Ask Yourself - Intranet Blog - ThoughtFarmer

81 Intranet Governance Questions to Ask Yourself - Intranet Blog - ThoughtFarmer — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:00:32 +0000

[...] governance, especially social intranet governance, is tough. We believe intranet governance matters and that it is a crucial factor in the success or failure of an intranet [...]

By: 4 simple questions for governing collaborative content - Intranet Blog - ThoughtFarmer

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 19:50:39 +0000

[...] around issues of responsibility and communication. A little while back our man Gord wrote about governance as the decision making process and helped define the issue. Here we’ve whittled governance of collaborative content down to [...]

By: Интранет Блог » Blog Archive » В библиотеку интранет-менеджера

Интранет Блог » Blog Archive » В библиотеку интранет-менеджера — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 19:38:30 +0000

[...] планированием писали также Костя Коломеец и Gordon Ross из ThoughtFarmer). DWMM помогает выстроить жизнеспособную и [...]

By: EphraimJF

EphraimJF — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:59:51 +0000

OUR GOVERNANCE MISTAKES

We launched a ThoughtFarmer intranet that has been very successful, but it hasn’t met it’s full potential due to what can be categorized as governance issues.

The main mistakes:

1: An individual’s vision & efforts led the project rather than the combined vision & collaborative work of a global, cross-functional team. (I confess, I am that individual.)

2: Unclear mandates and support from the Executive level.

#1 led to a lack of shared commitment and interest and inadequate involvement from key business units. Different teams didn’t have a substantial enough role in shaping the project and the new intranet and, as a result, felt little ownership of the outputs.

#2 led to an uphill battle to engage different business units and teams. Both of these issues are closely related. Executives supported the project generally, but didn’t make it a priority for any teams. Sort of “we’re too busy to get a lot of people deeply involved, so try to use people’s time as little as possible on the project.”

The good news is that today there is a lot of support. Every day we’re more reliant on our ThoughtFarmer intranet and Executives put more and more emphasis on effective use of this tool and others.

By: Andy Jankowski

Andy Jankowski — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:41:39 +0000

Great points all. I have also noticed that governance is one the main obstacles intranet teams face when trying to get an internal social media proposal approved: specifically, the ability to answer management’s line of questioning around how these new tools and processes will be governed. I think a common trap that companies fall into is agreeing just to make tweaks to existing policies. If the tweaks are too strict, they stifle the use and adoption of the new tools and processes. If they are too weak, they put the company at risk and potentially lead to litigation. Either way, the practice of tweaking existing policies glosses over an underlying problem, “an on-going proliferation of processes and tools that fundamentally change the way people do things, use information and connect to others requires new governance models and methods independent of the tools and processes they govern.”

By: Jane McConnell

Jane McConnell — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:49:33 +0000

What I’ve found to be the most interesting aspect of working on governance with large organizations, is the incredibly differing and frequently conflicting views on who should be making the decisions! very often, everyone is right, as seen from their viewpoints!
Thanks for a “thoughtful” post!

By: Gord

Gord — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:21:20 +0000

@RGauthier,

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Are these power users required to report to a larger steering committee or some other kind of oversight structure? Do they set direction, implement the direction, or make sure the direction is getting done?

It sounds like to me you’ve established an intranet community of interest or practice, which is great in making sure that the intranet is adopted and supported throughout the organization, but how do they relate to the people who are accountable for the intranet corporately?

By: R. Gauthier

R. Gauthier — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:54:55 +0000

Governance is an extremely important aspect of setting up a corporate intranet. I work for a tech company that operates in all regions of the world and we have found that establishing a group of “power users” that meet every month to share best practices and new enhancements to the sites that they manage. These “power users” are located in different functional teams and are the “go to” people if anyone has questions or ideas about the intranet.

By: Jed

Jed — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:50:14 +0000

Your absolutely right, no amount of technology will help if the governance issues are not sorted out ! If the intranet falls into paralysis by analysis, or just the “well I don’t want to own it” syndrome, then even ThoughFarmer wouldn’t be able to rescue it.

Governance and day to day management (the other element of decision making) is indeed key. By the way I have previously worked for an organization that has benefited greatly from Graham Oakes input, he is a star !