I don’t know how many times I’ve walked into the following situation. A client asks us to come in to help solve a relatively straight forward problem they are having on their intranet. The first thing they do when showing us the existing functionality they need fixed or enhanced is to open up to the home page. Click on the menu. Click on the next menu. Click a link on that page.

Client 1 (Let’s call him Chuck) says, “Oh wait sorry that was the wrong link. Bob am I in the right place?”

Bob chuckles, “No I think you wanted to click on ‘Job Metrics’ on the last menu not ‘Job Tracking’.”

Chuck backs up and clicks on “Job Metrics”, then clicks the link on the page. “Here we go.” The client looks me straight in the eye and says in all seriousness, “So this is critical to how we manage the company.”

Wow…A critical piece of functionality for running the business and not only is it hidden three clicks down, but even the client got confused as to where it was. It would be funny if I didn’t see it so much. Now to be fair it isn’t 100% their fault. Companies get their hands on a rich portal and collaboration platform, and before they know it they have an intranet. The parts department sees it and says, “Hey IT, can we have a team site?” A blog here. A wiki there. Anyone for forums? The next thing they know they’ve got a tangled mess where no one can find anything and documents are outdated with no one updating content because they didn’t plan for on-going maintenance so there’s no budget for it, and IT is trying to figure out if that site that accounting had them set up is still being used or if can be deleted, but Marge that asked for it retired last month so nobody is sure, and the whole thing just keeps going on and on gaining momentum like a run-on sentence out of control. (Whew! ) I think you get the point.

So why do I bring this up now? I was just reviewing a brief write-up I did for just such a client. After discussing how to solve their immediate problem, I wrote a quick recommendation in order to facilitate a dialogue about the larger issue. The gist of the recommendation follows with the sincerest hopes that this helps anyone struggling to find critical information on their own intranets. The names, of course have been changed to protect the innocent.

We would also like to recommend that Company X seriously consider investing in a Discovery/Information Architecture project. This can help in two ways. First a discovery exorcise can provide a roadmap for building out the future phases of the Company X portal, at the same time providing an initial Information Architecture that can guide current and future efforts.

As Company X expands the usage of their intranet, it is worth keeping in mind that the primary reason that intranets fail is that information is too difficult to find. Often times when corporate portals are implemented they are grown organically without planning. Information becomes hard to find and it is often the case that old information is left on the server for users to discover, thus adding to user frustrations due to the site providing incorrect information. Many companies tend to feel that since they bought a product that can deliver the rich features that they need, they are done. Remember, any tool exists to be misused.

Investing in a Discovery/IA project at the point where groups are discovering the power of a portal solution can be critical not only to planning out a successful intranet, but also to putting together a plan for growth of a corporate presence. For global companies with multiple locations and subsidiaries, conducting a discovery/IA phase can be the key to promoting a corporate and brand presence throughout the company while allowing local offices to maintain a cultural identity of their own. We all interact with multiple communities every day depending on the task at hand. A well thought out IA can facilitate this multiplicity while a portal that has been put together haphazardly can provide a fractured experience that leads to frustration and the inevitable “going around the system” to get work done.