Introduction
Historically, as with a lot of organisations, the intranet at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP (FFW) had been run and led primarily by IT. Recently however, the FFW intranet has undergone a major change. Due for an update, it was replaced with new software, a new look, and a new owner.
Prior to the redesign project, the existing intranet had been up and running in much the same format for about five years. In early 2008, the Knowledge Management (KM) team began to bring forward ideas on how the firm could improve the intranet and benefit from a KM-owned resource. As a result, KM FFW launched a new intranet in November 2008 where the content and structure is controlled and maintained by the Knowledge Management team.
KM as content manager
Why knowledge management?
Looking at our previous intranet, no one could argue that it needed some attention from a content point of view. Departmental content was sadly lacking. Our KM team consists of myself - our Learning & Knowledge Management Director, our Head of Information Services, six information officers and six professional support lawyers. The information services and PSL expertise lay in the information and content. It made sense that our team should lead a project dealing in information. The information officers and professional support lawyers worked closely together anyway, so it was a natural way to look at content development for the intranet.
What would KM do?
The goal of our re-design was to provide the firm with a highly visible, useful, internal information resource. KM also wanted to manage the intranet in a more efficient and transparent way, making it easier for users to access and make use of information.
We planned to achieve our goals by shifting ownership of the departmental content to our information officers and professional support lawyers. The KM team would also advise and support our existing business services content owners. These plans also included the idea of working in conjunction with IT to provide good technology to fulfil this.
Out with the old and in with the new
With the implementation of the new intranet, KM wanted to address a number of issues, correct problems, and keep what was working well. Our old intranet was ageing in design and technology. We also had some issues with its content relating to consistency and organisation. Some departmental areas had content, while others had minimal or no representation. Content editors could choose from a number of colours and layouts, and this led to a disjointed feel overall. Menus on the left-hand side were not entirely controlled by editors either, so some sections had navigation, but others did not.
We also had problems with static content. Information would be placed on the intranet, but not necessarily changed or updated. This was either due to problems with the system used to edit, or with some existing ownership problems that we hoped to overcome with the launch of the new system.
We wanted to move the focus to content and structure by cleaning up menus, making sure all of the departments and business units were represented equally, and creating a standard for content. This would make the intranet more useful. Focusing on content would also overcome ownership problems and confusion about editors. Additionally, the personalisation features we planned to implement would help KM to utilise space more efficiently and present the intranet as a tool for internal communications. Overall, the new intranet would be an update for the firm which would streamline and modernise content.
Project development
Technical details
KM did not remove IT entirely from the project as we realised there was a need for IT expertise and help in implementing the new CMS. We also enlisted the help of IT consultants, who took the ideas which were spinning around and helped make them real.
Shifting ownership
The knowledge and information teams were also essential to shifting ownership. It was important to the success of the project that the information officers and professional support lawyers were on our side and interested in the project. Ideas were constantly being generated and it was important to make sure that these ideas worked well with the rest of the team. Every effort was made to ensure that both teams were kept in the loop and that we planned with them, not against them.
Editor support and management
KM also became the main point of editor support and system management. With the shift of content ownership in departments to KM, there was no more monopolising of content by particular partners or parts of a department. The content is maintained more easily and we can now know instantly who has access and is editing what section of the intranet. Giving people the responsibility for their own content has led to less hassle and less confusion. Everything should be clear and open: there is no longer an aura of mystery surrounding the intranet.
Communications
We needed to provide a space for communications on the intranet and make sure this was taken into consideration. We had plans to work with the marketing and human resources departments, to improve use of the intranet for internal firm-wide messages.
New focus on content
KM performed a content inventory, which identified where content was repeated or where there was no content. We found that in large part our departmental content was lacking. From there, we planned consistent content areas for each section, and began working with content editors to prepare for the new intranet.
We looked at who was editing content and, in some instances, handed over content to new editors who had an interest in the content going onto the intranet. We also sourced new editors where there were no previous editors. For the departments this fell largely to the professional support lawyers, information officers and in some instances business development executives.
Most departments started from scratch, so we met the information officers and professional support lawyers to encourage ideas and to begin planning for fresh content. This made reorganisation easier. We removed the ever-expanding left-hand menu, created new areas where necessary and sorted content into realistic homes. Departments were mostly starting fresh, so it was fairly easy to bring them together. Established sites, such as human resources, finance and IT were more difficult to deal with, as original editors were still in place.
To begin the reorganisation KM planned an exercise to work with each group of editors on their content. We met the professional support lawyer and information officer for each department and discussed the consistent content areas planned; ideas for new content and how they could begin to plan development of their intranet sites. For business services, KM met editors individually and walked through their existing content, discussing migration and change.
By keeping new and old editors in the loop, it was easier overall to reorganise. Those with existing content did not have concerns about losing it, and those without any content had time scales and ideas of what was expected of them. The result of this work was an intranet with much cleaner, clearer content.
Utilising new features
While much of our implementation focused on content, KM also wanted to enhance that content with both items the user would enjoy and which information officers could exploit to their benefit. We wanted to update the working environment that people logged in to every day and show them that it could be dynamic, useful and interesting. This included adding a number of personalisation features, including RSS feeds, what's new options and My Favourites.
The ability to edit the content much more easily enabled the information team to make these features a part of their departmental homepage and essential to their intranet users.
Personalisation
There are three major features of personalisation on the FFW intranet. These are the ability for users to choose their own homepages, RSS feeds, and movable content.
A user may select their own homepage which they would like to open up to every day. An option is available on each page for a user to select that page as their homepage. This means that if a user works in Commerical IP and selects that as their homepage, their PC will open up to the Commercial IP content every day.
PageFlakes, which are similar to the iGoogle functionality, are used to display RSS feeds and can be moved around on the page. All of the RSS feeds on the intranet are available in a PageFlake and can be added to or deleted from a homepage. This allows the user to adjust the homepage layout to suit their needs.
The intranet also offers a My Favourites function. This function allows users to bookmark intranet pages and add them as a homepage item. Often used intranet pages are then only a click away for users.
RSS feeds
RSS feeds now provide a large amount of value added content to our intranet, in both external and internal forms. Current awareness, largely produced by the information officers, is now channelled through the intranet. The information officers create their own RSS feeds for this content. Depending on the business unit, for each email they have sent out, they create a page on the intranet and this content in turn is marked as an RSS feed and displayed on users' home pages.
The information officer or professional support lawyer can select the RSS feeds that appear as default on the departmental homepage. The personalisation features then allow each user to tailor the homepage to their needs. Users can pick and choose what feeds they want. For example, someone in Employment can subscribe to the Employment current awareness, and also subscribe to information that is put out by the Regulatory department.
There is also an archive of all internal current awareness produced and held on the intranet. In some business units, they have moved over to the intranet fully, in some cases email is used, with links to the information on the intranet.
External resource RSS feeds are also available. While these sources are largely recommended by the Information Services team, requests for additional external feeds can be made by individual users. These requests go the KM team and pass through an approval process before appearing on the system.
The intranet has been built as a bespoke RSS reader. RSS feeds, both internal and external, are available to subscribe to on the intranet and controlled centrally by the KM team. Additional external feeds must be requested. Regarding other RSS readers, if another piece of RSS feed reader is available to users, such as IE7, then users would also be able to subscribe to internal feeds via IE7.
What's New
An area for new and updated content is found on each homepage. This information is unique to each business unit, apart from firm-wide content which is posted as a news item. The content that appears here is controlled mainly by the information officer and professional support lawyer of that business unit. The facility is used to announce anything from departmental meetings, to training availability, to new publications and database availability. It can point to internal and external resources.
Editing
Editing has improved with the implementation of a new content management system. The editor now has far more control over what appears on pages. For example, menu items are now controlled by the editor. There are a few required as standard on each departmental page, but then the editor has control. This was not the case previously when an editor had to request a new menu item to be added by IT.
It is now much easier to re-use content by linking to other parts of the intranet and users are encouraged to do this instead of duplicating information. IS content is linked through to the departmental pages instead of being housed there. This allows a browser to access the content from both the departmental page and the IS pages.
Access to edit has also been improved. Information officers have access to both departmental content and content falling on the information services pages. An information officer can quickly update content in both areas.
The intranet has an A-Z index and each editor now has access to add material to this section. Material submitted to the A-Z index is vetted by the KM team before being made live to users.
Overall, the new content management system is easier to deal with. Managing permissions and updating content is simpler. Editors are happier using this rather than the previous content management system. The system manager is located in the knowledge and information team and in this role works closely with the information officers and other authors to develop new solutions and solve problems.
Problems and successes
As with all visible projects, there have been some problems. Content ownership can still create issues. Where there is no clear owner or someone to claim ownership, the KM team will often pick up the responsibility for the content in those areas. However, the bonuses have outweighed the problems encountered.
This project strengthened the relationship of the KM team. Information officers and professional support lawyers worked together before, but their joint efforts on the intranet have encouraged more team work.
Content is now much more dynamic and people notice this. More people want to contribute to our intranet now, as it is seen as a reliable information resource.
The visibility of this project has also raised the profile of Knowledge Management within the firm. With KM in the lead on content management, we have been able to integrate more KM systems into the intranet, allowing easier access to precedents and enterprise search.
Overall, the project has been successful. The intranet is a focal point in the firm, and with this redesign, it is now much more usable. The shift in content ownership has also contributed to a more content rich intranet, and there is a much more visible purpose to it now.
