Editorial
The average duration of an intranet project is 25 months, according to NN/g.
Yet in February 2023, a large healthcare organization brought me on to replace its old, Drupal-based intranet with a new, SharePoint-based one within one year. Below is the story of how I, along with a fabulous project team and product vendor, delivered a new platform within 16 months.
The Scope of the New Intranet Project
The intranet project had a hard deadline, because support for the Drupal 7 intranet would stop the following year. The SharePoint requirement was also non-negotiable, because the organization was introducing Microsoft 365 in parallel to the new intranet.
The scope of this project was an intranet or solution for:
- Corporate, top-down communications.
- Formal corporate reference content.
- Informal collaboration and communication.
Outside of the scope were:
- Document management: handled by the digital workplace team in SharePoint.
- Formal(er) collaboration: ditto, but with Teams.
- Internal digital services: various departments and applications were already in place.
A Cross-Departmental Project Team
The project group consisted of colleagues from across the organization. One person was particularly experienced in managing the old intranet, another with internal communications and yet another with HR topics. What we didn’t have on the project team was IT expertise, because most of the in-house people were already taken up by the Microsoft 365 project.
Involving Multiple Stakeholders From the Start
We wanted to build a usable and meaningful intranet for the healthcare employees, so the project team collaborated with an extended group of colleagues across all professional levels and departments, in order to make the right choices from the start. By involving multiple stakeholders, we respected people’s time and lightened the load on the project team.
Async Collaboration
Given the number of people involved, the hard deadline and the limited availability of stakeholders, we chose to forego the traditional twice-weekly project meetings and instead worked asynchronously as much as possible.
As a result, the project team only met online for one 50 minute meeting every two weeks. Almost all other communication, coordination and collaboration happened in the various Teams channels and documents.
In fact, we only met physically once (!) during the course of the project, namely at the vendors’ presentations. The other time we met physically was just after going live.
Establishing the Vision and Strategy for the Intranet
One of the preparation documents I received in advance of the project was a project plan for the previous, Drupal-based intranet. Funnily enough, I had created that plan in my limited involvement in the preparations for that intranet.
The project plan still worked for the client, so we were able to build on it for the vision and strategy for the new intranet solution. However, we did recalibrate the contents of the strategy with both the project group and the steering committee, with the outcomes serving as the foundation for the project.
The goal for the 2023/24 intranet was:
The intranet supports daily work by bringing people, information, and applications together in a single place. It provides access to relevant and up-to-date information, news, and documents, and it facilitates the acquisition and delivery of knowledge. The intranet contributes to job satisfaction, and mutual connection, and ensures employee engagement with one another and with the organization. For many colleagues, the intranet is the starting point of their (digital) work, and an inseparable part of everyone's work day.
Discovering Employee Wants and Needs
Prior to my start, project team members had tried to uncover employee needs in a 2021 survey. Although the outcomes were valuable, the survey had two flaws: 1) it was done in the middle of the COVID pandemic, and 2) it was not tangible enough to use in our project.
And so we asked more than 900 of the 16,000 colleagues one question: "Which 5 things are most important to you, to be able to find or do on the intranet?" This so-called task identification survey revealed what employees prioritized in general, per brand, per role (e.g. nurse, support staff), per use context and per device type (laptop, tablet or smartphone).
The insights from the survey results allowed us to make choices on the types of content and functionality that were most important for employees. The findings were also relevant for the next steps: design, content and technology.
The top 10 tasks in the survey were:
- Protocols, procedures
- Education, training, e-learning
- Sharing knowledge, news, information
- Who's who, finding a colleague
- News
- Corporate messages
- My personnel file
- Work schedule, shift swap
- Syndromes, problems (dementia, rehabilitation, etc.)
- Electronic patient record
These 10 items got 39.7% of the votes, which was almost identical to the lowest scoring 71 items in the survey.
The Design Stage: Navigation and Functionality
Two things were important in the design step:
- Functional/technical design, in other words: what should the new intranet include and be able to do; and
- Navigation design/menu structure, in other words: how do employees navigate to the desired information and functions?
Navigation Structure
We created a draft navigational structure with the project team and a small group of colleagues. We subjected the design to a so-called tree test in which a diverse group of almost 500 employees tested the tree structure based on their own highest scoring tasks from the survey. This test allowed us to demonstrate that the intranet's navigation structure would work as it was designed to do, and, where this was not the case, we were able to make adjustments based on test feedback.
The result of one of the tree test tasks looked like this:
Functional Design
We created a list of 31 so-called epics, where each epic described a functional unit, e.g. News, Profiles or Search. By doing this in a detailed fashion, the project team thoroughly understood what the intranet needed to provide, and potential suppliers were able to create a proposal based on the same epics.
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An example of the list of epics is this one, for employee profiles:
- Employees can find, view, follow, and contact colleagues’ Profiles.
- Employees can edit their own Profile.
- Administrators can edit Profiles of (other) employees.
Content Audit and Migration
Without relevant, useful content, an intranet will not succeed. We didn't want to throw the content of the old intranet overboard, but we also wanted to avoid taking everything with us and thus copying some of the old intranet’s problems onto the new one.
We were able to significantly reduce the amount of content on the old intranet based on two guidelines:
- We would not include any information with a publication date before January 1, 2022, unless there was a very good reason to do so (e.g. because something is still up to date). Based on a sample set, we estimated that we would not have to migrate 33% of the content pages.
- We would not include any pages that were consulted a maximum of 10 times between January and May 2023, again, unless there was a very good reason to do so (e.g. because something is required by law). The same sample set showed that this would mean we wouldn’t have to migrate about 40% of the pages.
With these guidelines, we instructed comms professionals in the various brands and departments: decide for your own content whether it could be removed, or migrated to the new platform. As a result, we were able to delete about one third of the pages on the old intranet, and no less than two thirds of the documents.
Once we knew with each intranet solution we were going to work with (more on that later), we could manipulate the pages and documents on the old intranet to such an extent — particularly adding relevant labels — to create a structured export, which could then be imported by the chosen supplier.
The final step — and this is where the communication colleagues did a huge amount of work in May 2024 — was to correct any links to the old intranet pages and documents contained in the migrated content.
Technology Choice: How to Deliver a SharePoint-Based Intranet?
As I mentioned, the premise of the project was to deliver a SharePoint, Microsoft 365-based intranet. So parallel to the steps I described above, the question on the table was: how are we going to realize the new intranet, technically?
We started by presenting our epics (functional requirements) to the supplier that was involved in the Microsoft 365 project. They told us our requirements could not be achieved in the standard Microsoft 365 suite, so we would have to look at additional tools.
Additional Tools Required
The fact that this supplier, a renowned party when it comes to Microsoft 365, had to immediately turn to alternative tools came as a bit of a surprise.
Microsoft 365 may be a large toolbox, but apparently it does not offer a suitable solution for an intranet that transcends the basic level. At least, not if we didn't want to break that ‘intranet’ up into different parts — think SharePoint, Viva Engage, Teams, etc. — where we would have to explain to the healthcare workers that their intranet was now a set of separate parts.
This latter argument spurred the project team to start thinking about alternatives to SharePoint and Microsoft 365. The digital workplace supplier gave us a cost estimate based on the epics.
And my experience with similar processes at other organizations gave me the impression that we would be better off, finished sooner and save money with an alternative solution.
Several Vendors Queried
So, in the early summer of 2023, the project group asked various vendors to answer, again based on our epics, whether they could meet these requirements, and if so, in which way, and at what cost for a period of four years.
Although this wasn’t a proper market exploration or product comparison, based on the results, we were able to narrow it down to one of two scenarios: 1) SharePoint plus an additional tool, to be delivered by the aforementioned supplier, or 2) a standard, independent solution from one of the Dutch-based vendors.
Project Team’s Preference
Given the functional (im)possibilities of these various solutions and suppliers and the cost estimates, the project group unanimously opted for the second scenario. The group submitted this advice to the steering group.
However, the steering group was divided: three people were in favor of our advice and one person opted for the first scenario. Their arguments were completely understandable, and, looking back, I should have involved the various stakeholders in our dilemma earlier.
Our next step was to go to the Board of Directors with the issue. There, two of the three members were in favor of the second scenario, and so were the two members of the Supervisory Board's digitization committee. The Board therefore asked the project team and the steering committee to conduct a second round of exploration among comparable organizations.
A Comparable Organization Chose Independent SaaS
This second exploratory round showed us that the only comparable healthcare organization to my client had also opted for the second scenario. However, they did note that, like my client, they expected the Microsoft 365 suite would eventually deliver many, if not all, of the functions of an intranet in a user-friendly and manageable fashion.
Eventually Phase Out in Favor of Microsoft 365
The outcome was acceptable to all involved: we would opt for a second scenario intranet solution, but would also explicitly look for ways for the newly rolled out Microsoft 365 suite to incorporate intranet functionality over the course of three to five years.
This implied that, in time, the new intranet would be completely phased out and replaced by Microsoft 365 applications. I continue to doubt whether this is indeed feasible, but time will tell.
Drupal 7 Support Extended
The technology-related impasse resulted in our project being delayed by about three months. Luckily, the Drupal developer community decided to extend support for Drupal 7 by about a year, which gave us some necessary breathing room to absorb the delay.
Our Drupal supplier made one condition, however: they were willing to commit to supporting us for only three more months, and on a best-effort basis. In other words: we got more time, but only so much, and this extension would come with risks for the old intranet.
Intranet Technology Procurement
A Procurement specialist came on board for the next phase in our project, and her knowledge and experience of the tender process was an enormous help to the project team. Together we worked out an RFP, based on the vision and strategy, employees’ wants and needs, our list of epics and the navigation design.
This meant we could accelerate the initial schedule for the tender process — a vendor chosen late May 2024 — to choose the vendor by late December 2023. What also sped up the process was the fact that the Board had given the steering group some financial leeway to start implementation and configuration during the finalization of the contracts.
For purchasing we opted for a multiple private tender process with three vendors. Let’s call them A (market leader in the Netherlands), B (number two) and C (intranet market leader for Dutch healthcare sector).
The outcome of this process was as follows:
- B offered the highest quality based on our epics (6% better than C, and much better than A).
- B had the lowest price (almost 25% lower than C, but comparable to A).
- Weighing quality (70) and price (30), B was the winner (from C with 11% difference, and a better score than A, too).
The project team, the procurement consultant and a small number of other colleagues agreed on vendor B being the winner. The steering group subsequently confirmed it, and we then submitted this advice to the Board, which approved it on January 3, 2024.
Although this was already beyond the initial deadline, we now had three months for the next step, the implementation of the new intranet.
Intranet Implementation
For the implementation and design phase, the project group decided to rely on the knowledge, experience and the schedule of the chosen vendor. My role as project manager changed at this point from being the driving force of the project to that of the client liaison for the vendor.
The Importance of a Technical Project Lead
The project team was very happy with the professionalism and knowledge of the vendor’s technical project lead. Of course, things went wrong in the process and implementation at times, but thanks to substantive thinking and cooperation by the project lead — and the fact that sometimes he would just say "no" when something was not possible — we almost always found a pleasant and usable solution.
Delays, Mostly Due to Content
We did experience delays because the content migration showed that extra work was required, mainly around the links and documents in the migrated content. All of them referred to the old intranet, and we could only solve this manually. Moreover, we had to put this work in the hands of the various comms professionals of the healthcare brands, due to their deep expertise in their content.
At a certain point we deliberately chose to delay the project to alleviate the pressure on these comms professionals. This gave the content migration and optimization some breathing room, and offered a little more space for the technical setup and implementation. Finally, after a process of about 15 months, the intranet went live on June 3, 2024.
Post-Live
So, that was that … well, at least for me. The very experienced and utterly professional team I worked with would handle any further issues, improvements, adoption and day-to-day intranet and community management tasks.
The old intranet would remain online during the summer of 2024, in order to be able to overcome any missed 'old' links on the new platform. It went offline on September 1 after more than eight years of service.
Deliverables
This is what the project team and I delivered over the course of those fifteen months.
- A vision and strategy document for the new intranet.
- A task identification of employees’ needs and wants.
- A user-generated and validated navigation design.
- A list of epics/functional requirements.
- The procurement process, product/vendor selection, and vendor contracts.
- An new intranet based on the selected product.
- Content migration and optimization.
- An adoption and communication campaign around go-live.
- Governance and management structure.
What About Future Developments?
After go-live there was still room to grow. We had not (yet) bought all the available modules of the selected product. And the new intranet only linked to the organization’s digital workplace to a limited extent.
Furthermore, additional methods of were used in addition to the intranet, which the intranet may facilitate in the future, such as:
- Sharing news via news and/or groups on the intranet instead of via email newsletters.
- Segmentation/personalization of content and features based on employee traits and behavior on the platform.
- So-called pre-boarding of new employees after they have formally been hired, but before their first work day.
- Integration with applications such as workplace management, personnel file and more based on micro-services.
Final Thoughts
In the end, the project was about much more than just replacing an old intranet platform. It was about creating something usable, useful and meaningful for the employees who use it every day.
The new intranet reflects a shared vision, shaped by real, tangible needs, thoughtful decisions, and a collaborative effort by the project group and the vendor team. Our collaborative journey laid the groundwork for a platform that can evolve over time, and grow as the organization grows. Because a truly effective intranet isn’t a destination — it’s a continuous commitment to supporting people in their day-to-day work.
Editor's Note: Read more practical intranet advice:
- So You Want to Build a SharePoint Intranet. Here's What to Know — SharePoint intranets hold potentials and pitfalls. A look into the hidden costs, challenges and implications for communications professionals.
- The Communicator's Guide to Building a Corporate Intranet: Part 1 — Ready to fix the mess that is your intranet? Part 1 of this five-part series explains what an intranet is for and who should build it.
- The Only Intranet That Matters — Too much information causes stress. How does this apply to our intranets?
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