Tag: Intranet

Intranet Project Names – Some Ideas

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other word would smell as sweet.”

In this famous quote from Act II of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet tells Romeo that a name is an artificial and meaningless convention, and the fact he is a Montague and she a Capulet (warring families) means nothing to their love.

However, there is some strong evidence from the UK’s Cranfield University – and elsewhere – that the name one gives a project does have a marked impact on the behaviour and motivation of the people involved. It may surprise you, but the name you give to your Intranet Project could well be the most important decision you make in the early stages of mobilisation!

The Direct Approach

There is an argument in faour of naming your Intranet Project the – wait for it – “Intranet Project”! Often, so-called “secret squirrel” names (where one has to ferret out from colleagues what Project Banana is all about) serve only to create an unnecessary air of mystique (fit only for secret M&A projects). They can also serve to be divisive, by separating ‘people in the know’ from people outside the immediate project audience.

The functional approach

A functional name focuses on what the intranet does (e.g. search, find, access). This enjoys the same benefits as the direct approach, but affords one a little more poetic license. What about names like “Project Connect” or “Project Gateway”, which serve to signal the core “must have” requirements for the project?

The conceptual approach

There is a problem with the direct or functional approaches; Research from Cranfield has demonstrated that people on projects tend to be very heavily influenced in their actions by the name of the project itself. If you call your project the Intranet project, it is a working intranet (i.e. the technology) that you will get. If your ambition was something much more visionary, such as a wholly new way of working for your people, you are likely to be disappointed!

The conceptual name targets what is achieved by the functionality, rather than the functionality itself. For example, if your company name was BigCo and your purpose was seeking to get everyone in the company working together, you could call the project “Project OneBigCo” or “Project Unity”. For the aforementioned new ways of working objective, you could use “Project Future Workplace”.

The abstract approach

The abstract approach deals with how the project makes people feel. For example, “Project Bliss” (for happiness), “Project Wizard” (for magic) or “Project Pulse” (for fast-pacedness). Although one world usually fails to capture all you are trying to achieve with an Intranet Portal, this approach can prove highly effective (particularly where counter-cultural).

If all else fails

Nothing grabbed you so far? Well there is no saving you, then! I suppose there are always the standard fallback options: names of greek or roman gods, names of planets, names of birds and names of dances. These have the added value that – if you spawn follow-on projects in a sequence – you have ready-made logical follow-on project titles. Incidentally, “Project Mercury” would be my recommendation for planets or gods (as Mercury was the roman god of communications).

For more ideas on project names, why not check out my presentation in chapter 10 of my (free to access) Intranet Portal Guide.

Understanding What a Well-Balanced SharePoint Intranet Solution Can Offer Your Business

Business organizations all over the globe choose to use SharePoint as their major collaboration tool hosting employees’ workplaces and corporate teams. Since great collaboration is the main source of successful business, it is also very important that startup companies use good collaborative tools. A good collaboration tool helps to maintain document management, records management or the web management very easily.

  • In simple language every intranet should offer two major groups that should help the employees to complete their daily tasks easily and enable to carry out the departments and team specific activities smoothly thereby contributing better performance of staffs.
  • Secondly, SharePoint development and intranet solutions often help to support the employee’s social life and make them feel a part of the company and to foster corporate values.

Some benefits from a well-balanced intranet solution and SharePoint development:

As a business organization, if you can manage to get the perfect balance between intranet solution and SharePoint, then you will be able to reach the 4 important goals.

Both formal and informal collaboration on a single platform:

It is true that SharePoint intranets often host work that are related to the content, while the users turn to any third party solutions in order to discuss any upcoming event of the organization. A well balanced intranet helps employees to find a place where both formal and informal collaborates, bringing in at least two major advantages.

  • Saves the time of the employees and prevents them from moving between various solutions and getting distracted.
  • Reduces the risk that employees will manage their working activities in some non-corporate messengers and share sensitive business data in an insecure environment.

Attract some rare visitors:

At times it becomes very difficult for an organization to provide all its users with job specific features of SharePoint. Let us take for example, if your procurement executives work on an ERP system, then they might not need task specific features of SharePoint. But in case they travel a lot, then it is likely that they become a frequent intranet visitor. Such balance often helps your people or team to remain updated with latest business news, updates and conversations.

Benefits from SharePoint capabilities:

Often it is seen that SharePoint is used by companies in a very limited manner like just as a document storage, support only a few collaborative sites or as a project management system for a specific team. But let’s be very clear of the fact that SharePoint is not a cheap solution. So any underuse mean wasting initial investments. Balancing various features will let you open up SharePoint’s full potential, thereby benefiting from your solution at the best.

Develop corporate identity:

Large organizations often struggle with developing the sense of belonging from their people. When the organization becomes too big, the teams often stop feeling a strong sense of place in the company. They often tend to jump for any better opportunity elsewhere and have reduced hunger to improve the business. SharePoint intranet solutions offer the ability to share company news and communications and help to develop a stronger corporate industry.

Managed workflows:

Workflows are the basis of most daily activities of employees. While they may have certain tasks to do without any dependency on others, but there are also activities that needs completion of task before it is passed to the next person. But in most corporations, the workflow often breaks. SharePoint helps here with some added third party tools.

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