10 steps to build an engaging SharePoint intranet in weeks
- John Scott
How do you create a great intranet an intranet in a compressed timeframe of a few weeks?
Usually, it’s best to take time to create a new SharePoint intranet, ensuring you get everything right, working on the content, and even launching in a phased approach. In the past SharePoint intranets projects used to take years, but these days six months is a decent length for a project to deliver an excellent intranet.
However, sometimes you have less of a choice, and you need to get an intranet live quickly, working to a rapid (and quite frankly ambitious) timetable of a few weeks. The reasons for a fast intranet implementation are various and might include:
- The license for your old intranet is set to expire, or it has gone out of support
- Your company is going through a new or recent merger, and you need a new “one company” intranet quickly
- You have an ambitious leadership who loves doing things quickly or you’re an equally ambitious intranet team
- You are strictly taking a Minimum Viable Product (MVAP) approach, and the scope means an implementation lasting weeks is realistic
- And more!
Ten steps to launch your intranet
In this post we are going to explore ten steps to take to get your SharePoint intranet ready in weeks. These steps are not all sequential – in fact, some will need to run concurrently. You can also follow these steps for longer projects too, so this post will be useful for anyone planning an intranet project.
Ready? Let’s dive into the ten steps!
1. Understand your users and stakeholders
Never build an intranet on assumptions. An intranet helps employees get work done by providing the right information, overcoming pain points, improving processes and more. To design a successful intranet you need to have a thorough understanding of how employees work and the issues they face.
Always undertake a discovery phase that involves user research but also takes into account the strategic plans of key stakeholders from across the business so the internet aligns with their vision too.
When working at speed it is tempting to skip this research step, but it is important not too. However, there are pragmatic ways to undertake research more quickly, including using surveys, conducting group workshops, and leveraging previous research. You can also get local champions or communicators across the business to carry out interviews in parallel on your behalf.
2. Defining your intranet strategy, scope, and requirements
Once you have your discovery data, it’s time to analyse it to find obvious trends, patterns, and needs. When you’re in a hurry AI can be great for analysing raw data at speed and scale.
It’s important to articulate a headline strategy to ensure you have direction, and everyone is on the same page. Given the need for speed, the strategy does not need to be a massive document. Start with a mission statement and a set of guiding principles. Ideally, you want to get key business stakeholders to buy into this, so consider holding a workshop to get their input and make any necessary tweaks to the strategy.
Ideally you also need to have a headline content and comms strategy for the intranet too. Ensure you involve internal comms and make sure the content strategy is part of or aligns with your intranet strategy.
At this time there is also some work to do to define basic requirements and features. Some of these will already be part of SharePoint but there will likely be additional capabilities you need Resources like the Lightspeed365 features list will be a useful reference point.
You’ll also need to define the scope for your launch. Which features and sites do you want to include on day one? With a rapid implementation you will almost certainly be working to a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach without full features. Consider carefully the balance with what is achievable in your timeframe and the value your “day one” intranet needs to support to drive adoption and create a good enough impression for employees to want to return to the intranet.
3. Confirm your technology choices
In this post we have assumed you are going to be using SharePoint for your new intranet. But there are choices to make about how you should use SharePoint. For example, just using SharePoint out of the box does not always deliver the required features you want.
There are effectively five options all of which have particular strengths and sometimes weaknesses to bear in mind:
- SharePoint Online straight out of the box.
- A custom-built SharePoint intranet.
- SharePoint Online out of the box with limited customisation.
- SharePoint Online enhanced by an in-a box product.
- SharePoint Online plus a modular in-a-box product like Lightspeed365.
The tight timescale for your project, might mean you have already worked out the best option prior to the start, but there a variety of data inputs to consider in making any decision:
- your intranet requirements for the MVP and beyond
- budget
- technical constraints
- licensing constraint
- views of stakeholders
- and more!
4. Plan your project and identify your team and stakeholders
Once your plans are more concrete it’s time to fully plan out your project and identify your core project team and main stakeholders. It is likely that you will have already partly done this through your planning and engagement up to this point.
Intranets are an ensemble effort, and your team will certainly be cross-functional, perhaps involving HR, IT, and internal comms. There will be a core project team but also a wider community of site and content owners, publishers, and digital champions. You may also involve specialist teams like legal and brand. A RACI matrix is very useful in trying to work out who is involved and at what level.
Working out your project plan will involve different work streams (technology, content, adoption etc), some which will need to run in parallel. With time very tight, ensure the plan feels doable rather than aspirational.
5. Define and iterate your design and information architecture
As part of your project, you’ll need to work out a few key details that ideally will be workshopped, iterated, and tested with users and stakeholders. These include:
- Designing the homepage
- Working out the different content types such as news, people profiles, site landing pages, location pages and so on.
- Working out SharePoint designs for each of the content types
- The information architecture and navigation
The related site architecture and model (for example, using a “hub sites” approach).
6. Set up your SharePoint environment
Armed with your information and basic site architecture you should then the proceed to set up your SharePoint environment, add different people and assign roles, and set up templates for each of the content types.
7. Migrate content and train content owners to defined standards
In the scope for your MVP intranet and also in defining your information architecture, you should now have an idea of the sites and content that will be included at launch. This content will be a mixture of:
- Content migrated from your old intranet as is.
- Content migrated that is then updated.
- New content created from scratch.
You’ll need to work with individual site or content owners to define the content mix for their particular area. In an intranet project with a longer lead time it helps to do a detailed content audit with metrics to define this, but with a short time frame you may not have this luxury.
Migrating content form the legacy intranet can be done manually or potentially automatically if you have internal know-how. You’ll also need to train content authors on how to create and edit pages. As part of this, prepare training resources and publishing guidelines that can be accessed on a self-serve basis. Ensure you run any training sessions at the time content owners get access to the environment so they can use their new knowledge straight away before they forget what that have learned.
One pro-tip: the content stream always takes longer than you think, so it is always best to start early.
8. Finalise and review content
Content owners will likely need some support and engagement as they finalise their content prior to launch. It also usually helps to have the central intranet team do a final review of content before the big day to make sure it is up to standard. You want the content to look good and be useful when you launch.
9. Launch with a splash
It’s time for the intranet launch. Make some noise about it so you can start with momentum and drive adoption. Typical tactics include using a network of voluntary digital champions to promote the use of the intranet to their peers, adding local context. If you are launching an intranet in weeks, you may have to recruit these early on at the beginning of the project.
Getting your CEO to endorse the intranet can also give it visibility. Some comms functions will also run a teaser campaign, although this is not always possible in a compressed time frame. In larger companies launches are often phased, but again that is less likely if you want to get this live within weeks.
10. Build adoption and drive continuous improvement
Congratulations! You got the project over the line, launched the intranet, and probably now need a holiday! Unfortunately, the hard work actually begins now. Am intranet is never really done!
Always consider what happens after launch, especially as working to speed will mean your intranet is likely an MVP and will have additional features to launch or sites to migrate. Develop a plan based on metrics and user feedback, as well as your backlog, to drive continual improvement, increase adoption and generate value.
Summary of the ten steps
| | Step | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| One | Understand your users and stakeholders | Undertake research and discovery to inform your strategy and design |
| Two | Defining your intranet strategy, scope, and requirements | Use your discovery data to define a plan for your intranet, articulate the functional requirements, and establish the MVP scope |
| Three | Confirm your technology choices | Confirm if you’re going to use SharePoint with any customisation or additional project |
| Four | Plan your project and identify your team and stakeholders | Work out who will be involved and plan the different workstreams of your intranet |
| Five | Define and iterate your design, templates, and IA | Work out the essential detail of your intranet and iterate and test with users |
| Six | Set up your SharePoint environment | Set up the new site and provide access to admins and content contributors |
| Seven | Migrate content and train content owners to defined standards | Work out the approach to content, migrate any content from the legacy intranet, and train users to add new content |
| Eight | Finalise and review content | Review all the content ready for launch |
| Nine | Launch with a splash | Launch your intranet in a high-profile way to drive adoption and momentum |
| Ten | Build adoption and drive continuous improvement | The real hard work starts the day after launch |
Frequently asked questions
Is it possible to launch a SharePoint intranet in a few weeks?
While SharePoint intranet projects usually take several months, it is perfectly possible to launch an intranet in a few weeks, particularly if a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach is taken with a more limited scope. There will be several dependencies including running different project workstreams in parallel and taking a devolved approach to content creation to make this achievable.
What are the key steps to take when developing and launching a new intranet?
There are several key steps to take when launching any new intranet. At a high level, first you will need to undertake research and discovery to help scope your intranet strategy and requirements. Then you will need to choose your base technology, such as SharePoint. The next step will be to assemble a project team and make a plan. From here, you can then start to design your intranet including the homepage and different content types and work out the information architecture. Next set up your intranet environment, implement any site, or page templates, and add any people who need access. Next migrate any content and train your content owners to edit or add new content. Finally, once the intranet is ready, launch it with a splash and undertake a programme of continuous improvement.
Launching a SharePoint intranet in weeks
Launching an intranet in weeks is challenging but it can achievable if you follow the steps in this article. Using a product like Lightspeed365 in conjunction with SharePoint will definitely help. Why not organise a free demo?
