Keep it simple
Then ask yourself what is relatively easy to achieve. A practical chat tool like Slack for project teams? An up-to-date mug book that is accessible to everyone everywhere? A central place for news, updates and knowledge sharing?
Easy to implement does not only mean technically and organizationally uncomplicated. Also check the security implications: what is the information classification of the content you are going to share? Is information securely available on mobile, for example via the cloud? Does your software supplier meet the security requirements of your organization?
A good way to give users an overview and guidance while you walk through the different steps is to place a social layer over your DW in progress. This can point users to the different apps that together (will) make up your DW. Initially as simple shortcuts in a dashboard, then perhaps as targeted deep links to, for example, information in a document management system (DMS), and eventually perhaps fully integrated.
An example
How does this work in practice? For an internationally operating Dutch company in the financial sector, we jointly defined the following steps for implementation of the Plek platform:
The color codes indicate the increasing complexity, based on input from, among others, the ICT and Information Security departments:
Green: can be implemented immediately, without significant technical, organizational or security implications.
Yellow: medium impact on the organization, some cooperation required from ICT for access and security clearance .
Orange: Major impact on the organization and working methods, substantial collaboration required for integrations and security aspects.
Not always fully integrated
At our client, we use this model to determine per subsidiary which steps can be taken – and with what certainty they will succeed. An important goal here is to make it clear that you do not always have to arrive at a fully integrated solution (step 5) to achieve success.
You can also apply this model more generally to organizations with different starting positions, such as:
The Ministry of the Interior wants to numrat grek communicate more easily, also with external parties. We defined three steps: pilots with different departments and project teams, a growth phase in which we connect support services, and finally a rollout for the line organization. The pilots have now started.
At KPMG, the SharePoint intranet was not sufficient for team communication. In a first phase, our platform (called InsideOut at KPMG) now runs alongside SharePoint with deep links from Plek groups to documents in SharePoint and an InsideOut widget on KPMG's SharePoint homepage. Possible next steps are synchronization of SharePoint documents in InsideOut, editing of InsideOut documents in Office365, and searching in SharePoint files from InsideOut.
Telegraaf Media Groep (TMG) was looking for ways to connect and keep employees in the various business units informed. Step 1 consisted of a mobile app, including company news and a company-wide face book. We then launched a desktop dashboard with newsfeeds and onboarding . In step 3, we then migrated all reference information, such as HR documents, manuals and procedures, from the old intranet and made it smartly searchable.
Taking steps yourself