Organizations often make big plans to get users on-board and excited about their new SharePoint intranet after it launches. They have an office pizza party to announce the new intranet, set everyone’s browser to default to the SharePoint site, or run contests on the site and award prizes for those who visit.
While these tactics may work to some degree, the problem is that each one treats user adoption as an afterthought. With many organizations planning to re-launch their SharePoint sites on 2010, or first embarking on a SharePoint project now that 2010 has arrived, it’s time to put user adoption strategies where they belong: at the start of the project. To maximize user adoption of your new intranet, here are the top 8 strategies to consider for your project.
1. Get Input from Across the Organization.
Intranet projects are often owned by the Information Technology (IT) and Human Resources departments—working together, or perhaps with a vendor. Marketing departments sometimes weigh in with their needs, management will establish some requirements, and development begins. This approach can leave many functional and operational requirements out of the intranet design. It is critical to include every area of the organization in the planning phase of your SharePoint deployment. Even if their requirements are “parked” for a subsequent phase of development, these users will feel like they were part of the process, and their needs were heard, thus making them much more likely to use the site when it launches.
2. Analyze Current Usage and Traffic Patterns.
Assess your existing intranet for guidance on the features and content that are important to the users. Even intranets with the lowest traffic usually have a feature or two that users will miss if taken away. So look at your usage reports and make sure to account for popular pages, content, or features in your new SharePoint deployment—or risk alienating users. If you don’t have reports currently available, there are products and services you can use for just a few weeks to get a baseline indication of usage. Additionally, comparisons against old usage reports will be a great way to benchmark the success and adoption of your new SharePoint site down the road.
3. Don’t just Migrate all of your Old Content.
If you are replacing an existing site with SharePoint, think carefully before you migrate all of its content to your new site. There are tools available that automate content migration from older versions of SharePoint as well as other platforms, and they can make the migration easy and very appealing. But it is a worthwhile investment of time to inventory current content and bring over only the relevant materials. Your organization and staff have probably changed in many ways since that old content was created. Think about SharePoint as an opportunity to make a fresh start. Also, consider leaving the old site and its content running in parallel for a period of time, until users have adopted the new intranet, and then the old site can be retired.
4. Give them a Little More.
If your existing intranet is just a one-way communication path, add a team site for collaboration. Even if the users say they don’t need advanced features or tools, use your SharePoint project to whet their appetites for what’s possible. A simple tool like the Note Board feature of SharePoint 2010 will give users an alternative to company-wide email blasts.
5. Brand it for your Organization.
Your organization’s corporate culture must be reflected on your SharePoint site. Use SharePoint Designer to give the site a look and feel that fits your company’s mission and values. People choose to work in a certain job—in part—because of the attitude of the company. Is it a traditional investment bank, a high-tech start-up, or an educational institution? Your site should have a personality that matches the personality of your organization. In concert with the design, give your intranet site a name. Marketing works and giving your new intranet a branded name will help to gain the critical levels of awareness among the users.
6. Personalize the Experience.
Today’s user is accustomed to a web experience that allows them to connect with people they know and meet people they want to know. Incorporating the social collaboration tools in SharePoint 2010 is a great way to mirror this experience for business and boost adoption. “My News Feed,” “Organization Browser,” and enhanced “My Profile” are just some of the tools available to enable personalization.
7. Assume Search will be the Primary Navigation Tool.
Even with the best navigation in place, users will default to using search more often than not to find what they need. Therefore, be sure you are tagging and indexing content properly. This will ensure that search results are accurate and can be filtered using new metadata-driven refinements in SharePoint search. Consistently presenting users with the right search results will keep them coming back.
8. Plan an Official Launch.
In the end, everyone loves pizza. So have an office party or announcement where you present the new SharePoint site and give everyone a brief demo. If you follow the intranet launch strategies outlined here, your users will welcome the new site, and your new SharePoint site will be well on the way to success.