Periodically, I write a post on a resource or case that is a personal favorite.  In a way, it’s kind of like a “CEC-Choice Award” or “Best Of” to help direct our members to a helpful piece of content that they might not have yet come across.  Last time I wrote this post about CEC’s Dialogue Assessment Tool.  This time I’d like to showcase the Intranet Strategy Builder, a great tool that has been used by many Communications teams in our network to shape the direction of their companies’ intranets.

So, let’s get right to it.  What do I love about it the Intranet Strategy Builder?  Here are three things:

1. It’s Prescriptive – Whereas many assessments stop at the diagnostic phase, this one takes it a step further and actually tells you what you need to do.  While it is all well and good to know that my existing intranet isn’t up to par, wouldn’t it be so much better to know what to do next — for example “your existing site focuses on featuring content, but actually you need to focus on generating dialogue.”
2. It’s User-Centric – By this, I mean that it’s not about designing an intranet that is best in class.  Why?  Because what is best in class for YOUR intranet depends wholly on the audience who is using it to be more effective at their job.  Different intranets serve totally difference purposes from connecting with colleagues about a project, sharing critical documents, learning about helpful training.  No single format is best, but rather what your employees need to DO should drive how the site is designed and organized.
3. It’s Easy – This strategy builder is a simple one-page document that will require some genuine reflection on your part, but not much more.  We’ve laid out the critical questions that you need to consider.  All you need provide scores to each of the questions and add them up.

I encourage you all to check out this tool.  Also, if there are other fan-favorite CEC tools, we’d love to hear about them and showcase them in the future

CEC Related Resources

• Intranet Strategy Builder
• Intranets Topic Center
• Create a User-Centric Intranet Webinar