Launch faster

We’ll help you launch your new intranet quickly. We can fill in any resource gaps you have and make sure you meet your deadlines.

Avoid pitfalls

We’ve had experience with hundreds of intranets. We’ll help you overcome common pitfalls and hurdles, so your project is done right the first time.

Tap the A-Team

Benefit from a full team of intranet experts including strategy, design, usability, analytics, internal communications, content migration and systems integration.

Get it your way

ThoughtFarmer is a very flexible tool and we can help customize, configure, and integrate it to fit your business and technology needs.


Our intranet consulting streams

An intranet project is about more than clicking "install" — it's about changing the way your organization works together. Our consulting services focus on three main streams: content, engagement, and technology. In our experience, we've found these are the three core components for success in every intranet project.

Content

What it is: All the resources, news items, files, documents, and data on your intranet.

Our goal: Employees can find the information they need to do their job quickly and easily.

Activities
Clear, understandable navigation makes it easy for users to complete tasks and find information on ThoughtFarmer. Designing navigation starts with an inventory of your existing content. Next, we run exercises to learn how users group and categorize content and to help build your information architecture (IA).

Content audit how-to guide
Card sorting how-to guide
Your new homepage will be your employees' go-to place for information. We'll help you make it as useful as possible by determining what types of content will be seen by different employees. We can also add company-specific information (e.g. your social media feeds, links to important places, company events calendars, etc). Major department and location pages will also be thoughtfully designed.
Content needs to be easy to find and high quality so employees trust the intranet. The good news is that you don't need to migrate everything from your old intranet (or shared drives). We help you filter out the best content and make a plan to migrate it to the new intranet.

Content migration worksheet
By testing your intranet's navigation, we can find out what works for employees and what is confusing. Capturing this data will help make decisions and avoid messy internal politics.

Task testing how-to guide

Technology

What it is: The infrastructure that makes it work.

Our goal: Software works well, employees can log in, and IT is set up for success.

Activities
Well-managed user data ensures users can log in with ease, access secure intranet areas and find accurate employee information. Plus, it removes a ton of IT headaches. We can help you set up password management, single-sign-on, two-way Active Directory sync, user management policies, and security frameworks.
Well-integrated systems create happy users and efficient employees. Connect ThoughtFarmer to your other internal systems, such as Sharepoint, Microsoft Lync, or numerous other systems.
Customize ThoughtFarmer to solve unique business problems. We offer design and development services that can help you customize your intranet to your requirements.

Engagement

What it is: Pre- and post-launch activities that include your employees and improve adoption.

Our goal: People are excited to use the intranet and view it as a valuable resource to help them do their job.

Activities
A social intranet can have a big impact on company culture and employee satisfaction. By giving your intranet an identity that incorporates your brand values and styles, we'll help employees make an emotional connection to it.

What to name your new intranet
Best looking intranets
Intranet adoption depends on launch communication. We'll help you create a user engagement strategy that creates excitement in the lead up to your intranet launch and encourages ongoing enthusiasm after the official announcement.

15 ways to engage users in building an intranet
What gets measured gets managed. We coach you on best practices for identifying intranet KPIs and create a plan upfront for measuring intranet success and driving continuous improvement.

How to measure business outcomes
Few initiatives within the modern enterprise have such cross-organizational ownership than the intranet. We will review basic governance topics and have collaborative workshops to help you build your governance model.

Governing collaborative content
81 intranet governance questions
What policies need to be created or what existing policies need to be modified with the introduction of a social intranet to the organization? The usual suspects are HR policies, IT usage policies, and confidentiality policies.
An intranet is only effective if employees understand how to use it. We provide intranet role-based training for administrators, content creators, in-house trainers, leadership, and end users.

Tailored approach

While every intranet project focuses on the three intranet consulting streams outlined above, the individual mix of resources and activities depends on your business. We start with an introductory call to explore your unique needs and then recommend a package tailored to your organization.

We listen to you and seek to understand:

  • Practical information about your company (type of business, locations, languages, etc).
  • Availability of internal resources.
  • Existing content and technology.
  • Internal buy-in and governance processes.
  • Vision and objectives of the new intranet.

Depending on your organization, your existing content and your internal resources, engagements usually vary from 50 to 200 hours of consulting, or more.

On-site or remote

We can provide on-site or remote consulting, or a blend of both depending on your needs. We recommend on-site consulting when your project has tight timeframes or limited internal resources. On-site engagements are short, intensive sessions designed to get your project off the ground. If you have more flexible timelines and in-house resources, remote engagements are spread over the timeline of your project where we coach your team to success.

Put our experience to work for you

We offer a diversified team of intranet strategists, usability experts, corporate trainers, graphic designers, support consultants, and software developers to meet your intranet consulting needs.

Inquire about intranet consulting services