Tactical Intranet Redevelopment

When organisations look to rebuilt their intranets, the obvious tactic - or 'strategic leap' - is to revolutionise design and structure and develop a brand new and improved experience for users. While this is clearly the most impressive approach in terms of demonstrating improvement and change, it is probably the worst way of effecting real improvement and productivity gains for users and the organisation at large.  

Like it or not, users have developed ways of working with your existing imperfect intranet. They may criticise what you already have but equally they have developed their own ways of working with their intranet and no matter how much you like your new design (and even how much your user groups say they like the new design) there will almost certainly be a level of negative reactions to visual change. So why not help your users - and yourself! - by providing a smooth transition? Make your changes incrementally. Replace areas of your intranet section by section. Retain old modes of navigation while you build new ones. Apply this approach to your redesign. Consider morphing your old design rather than changing it overnight.  

Follow the example of incremental software implementation pioneered by Toyota and built into the agile approach. In this way, you'll take your users with you, and open up new and better ways ways of publishing and organising content while retaining familiarity and buy-in. You're more likely to improve the productive use of your intranet and certainly very much more likely to reduce risk. We are currently rebuilding a large intranet in this way and can attest that this can be achieved even while moving to a new underlying platform. Take your time, resist the temptation of the strategic leap and think tactically.