Your 5 steps to a successful intranet deployment

Did you know that there’s more to successful intranet deployment than simply going live with your chosen product? The way you launch your intranet will determine its success.

Launching a new intranet is more than just a tech rollout. There’s a very human aspect to it too. Think of your intranet as a streamlined digital workplace that can transform communication, collaboration and culture within your organisation.

That’s why its deployment needs careful planning and consideration to ensure it meets your teams’ needs. What’s the point in going through a roll out project if people don’t actually use the end product?

Here, we’ll run through the five steps you need to put in place for planning and deploying a successful intranet. Don’t just launch an intranet, deploy a successful intranet. Here’s how.

1. Plan: Lay the foundations for success

“Fail to plan and you plan to fail” as the wise saying goes. Every great intranet starts with a solid strategy. Before jumping into platforms and design, take a step back and focus on the “why” behind your intranet. Considered intranet planning is time well spent.

Define your business goals. Which problems is the intranet solving? It may be about improving internal communication, enhancing employee engagement and/or centralising information. Look at what’s working or not working with your current systems. That will inform the issues to be addressed by your new intranet.

Set realistic budgets and timeframes. Keep your project on track to avoid costly delays or having to downscale your ambitions to meet deadlines. A phased deployment’s often a sensible approach. It gives you wiggle room to be agile and learn from early wins.

Involve your teams early on. Allow a mix of employees to have their say in shaping the new intranet planning. After all, they’re the ones you want to champion and utilise the intranet once it’s deployed. Develop personas and user journeys to tailor your intranet for those employees’ specific business needs.

2. Build: Put your plans into action

Once the foundations have been laid, it’s time to build. Follow your strategy and translate your project plans into tangible results.
Choose the right platform and components to match your needs. Pre-built templates and modules really speed up your build whilst still delivering a high-quality result.

Think about how people will use it. Design with the user experience in mind. Make it easy to navigate with a clean, consistent structure. An intuitive, mobile-responsive design’s essential. Be smart with the way you structure your content. Think about content ownership and governance, as well as where it sits on the site.

Get the core functionality right first. Use those learnings to inform later stages and the implementation of more bespoke components.

3. Launch: Beyond the go live date

It’s the big day! You work towards launch day and it’s an important milestone. But you can’t just go live and walk away. A successful intranet deployment isn’t just technical, it’s cultural.

Part of your pre-launch strategy must be to build excitement amongst your teams. Use teasers, countdowns and sneak previews to generate buzz. Create intranet champions – perhaps the people who had their say on shaping the intranet platform. Encourage them to enthuse about the new intranet.

Create a memorable moment with celebratory internal communications. Importantly, show how the intranet solves pain points for people across the business. People will appreciate feeling heard and considered when finding intranet solutions.

Don’t view launch day as the finish line. You’ll need to make continuous improvements as you see how people engage with it.

4. Adoption: Make sure it’s used

You’ve built it, but will they come? Adoption doesn’t happen automatically. It takes intention and persistence.

Set a good example. Senior leaders should have a strong presence on your intranet. Engaging with employees throughout the organisation will increase adoption and engagement further.

Ask your intranet champions to deliver training sessions. Peer-to-peer learning’s often a successful approach for encouraging user adoption. Put adequate support and learning tools in place. In person training’s great, but online videos and activities really help too.

People need compelling reasons to convert from their current, comfortable habits into new ones. Adoption’s all about behaviour change. Make the intranet the go-to place for getting work done. Show people how the new platform will really make a difference to their day-to-day routines.

Make it personal. Tailor content to departments and individuals. Set up personalised news, alerts and resources based on their needs. Listen to their feedback too. You may be able to make ongoing improvements that will increase employee engagement.

5. Measure: Track and learn

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Establishing the right KPIs will help you show ROI and guide future development. Look back on the problems that you wanted to fix with this intranet. Does it do what you wanted it to do?

Aspects to measure:

• Engagement: Logins, page views and time spent on the intranet.
• Content effectiveness: Which content is most accessed and which is ignored?
• User feedback: Surveys, polls, and comments help capture sentiment.
• Business outcomes: Has employee satisfaction improved? Are teams collaborating more efficiently?

Don’t just measure the data though. Analyse it and use the information to make ongoing improvements. Prove to your people that their feedback matters. Take their input on board and show that you want to help them.

Let us at Fresh help you with successful intranet deployment

Following the five steps outlined in this blog will make a positive difference to your intranet deployment. Plan, build and launch, then make sure it’s adopted and tracked. Keep your people front of mind every step of the way.

At Fresh, we’re here to help you create the best intranet for your business. Whether you’re starting from scratch or upgrading your existing platform, let us make your intranet the digital heartbeat for your organisation. Book a demo or get in touch.