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How Long Does an Intranet Project Take?
Are you wondering how long would it take to complate an intranet project?
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Overview
The length of an intranet project depends on different factors such as the scope of the project, mode of deployment, amount of content, and many other factors that we will also mention in this article. No two projects are the same and the needs of each organisation vary.
Sure, you already have a concrete plan and idea of how your intranet will look and the types of content to put in it. But, in reality, building your intranet can take longer than you expected, unless you have lots of time and a large team of experts working for you. Then again, it depends on the situation and the mode of deployment and the tool you decide to use.
Before you start your intranet project, you need to consider how you can manage your intranet and if you have all the resources you need to support this. Most importantly, you need to meet the standards of your employees to have a successful intranet project.
What activities are included in an intranet project?
Planning the overall intranet project is crucial. Here are the most common activities in an intranet project:
Developing and designing pages
Determining project scope and intranet strategy
Determining intranet structure
Researching the needs of your organisation
Obtain funding
Deciding on content directory
Cleaning and migrating content
Selecting new technologies
Testing the intranet with staff
The mentioned activities can be time-consuming or not, depending on the needs of your company. It’s best to develop a concrete plan to help determine how long it will take to complete the said project.
On average, it takes about 4-6 weeks for an intranet project to be completed. But, for some, it could even take longer like 6-12 months for a large organisation with a complicated tool which may impact many systems (e.g. Lumapps). As long as you have all the resources you need to successfully deploy your intranet, it will go on smoothly.
Factors that Affect the Timing of Your Intranet Project
There are lots of factors and activities that are involved in building an intranet and it’s almost impossible to predict how much time it would take to build one. Each intranet project is different. Each company is different.
But, to help you out in planning and scheduling your intranet project timeline, here are some of the factors that greatly affect the time it takes to complete an intranet project.
Here are the three factors that will affect how long your intranet project would take:
People - How many are going to be involved in making and using it and whether data will be crowd-sourced from your users
Processs - modern agile alternative methods vs a more traditional method
Technology - some technologies naturally require much more planning upfront, for example, Internet tools like Microsoft SharePoint, Lumapps, Happeo, lend themselves to more planning because they are complex and because they're expensive whereas Google sites can be implemented more quickly.
People
Who will be Involved in the project?
How many staff are in charge of developing your intranet and what is their workload? If you have less than 10 people on your team, it would be more difficult for them to focus on their tasks, which can affect the length of the project.
Launching an intranet may require specific skills, depending on your intranet's needs. Some human resources you companies hire are:
Software Developer
Graphic designer
IA designer for navigation and content
Trainer
People in the Company
Who is going to use your intranet? What do your employees need? How will an intranet help your employees with their daily tasks?
Before creating an intranet, you need to understand the needs of your employees and how they can utilize an intranet for their day-to-day tasks. Some companies create an intranet to improve internal communications, while others use it to streamline processes. It would best to consult your staff about what data or information they want to see in the intranet.
A successful intranet needs to be able to support your employees on a day-to-day basis.
Process
Working Out Business Case
A business case is used to justify the resource requirements and costs. It is one of the most powerful tools when it comes to investing, building, or re-designing an intranet. A business case that is delivered effectively will:
outline the scope, timing, costs, and resources
Defines the company's needs and opportunities
Consider options and recommendations
it should also highlight how an intranet can be a powerful tool for supporting employee experience, how it impacts employee collaboration, what is its purpose, and its long-term vision.
Mode of Deployment
Are you building a self-hosted or cloud-hosted intranet? A cloud-hosted intranet just like Springboard by Steegle takes a few days to be "built" in a pre-alpha format Additionally, you can easily customise your intranet with your own branding colours and logo. The only thing left to do is to add users and content.
On the other hand, self-hosted intranets can take 6-9 months on average to be deployed. Even though you can easily install the software, there are cases where users experience software and hardware incompatibility.
Amount of Content
To begin with, have you already decided on the amount of content you want to upload to your intranet? The amount of content will significantly affect the time it takes to complete your intranet project. For instance, if you need to put more than one hundred documents in your intranet, it would take longer to finish compared to a company that only needs a few documents to upload.
This is also true for workflows and e-forms you want to set up on your intranet. Think about it, each workflow and e-form needs to be created and then tested before you launch your intranet.
Technology
Choice of Intranet Platform
They say that to have a successful intranet project, you should never underestimate user experience. You need to have the right tools and platforms that your staff access on a daily basis. You also need to incorporate your company culture on your intranet to increase employee engagement and satisfaction.
If you’re not planning to have a cloud-based intranet, it may take longer if your intranet needs a lot of customization such as making massive changes in the CSS, setting up user logins, and connecting external sites—all of these will make intranet deployment difficult and longer.
Document Management
Organising content on your intranet also affects the time of deployment. If you have a large company and lots of content, it’s better to get things straight and plan ahead of time. Consider how users will easily find information, how users can connect with each other, how frequently content needs updating, and start from there. Most probably, it will take you some time to get everything right at first. But, starting with something will lead you somewhere.
A tool like Steegle Share (part of Steegle Springboard intranet) means that you can speed up the process very significantly as it sits on your Google Drive.
Why is it faster to build an intranet on Google Sites?
Creating your intranet in Google Sites is faster compared to other platforms. The best part? Google Sites is free for Google Workspace users!
Using another platform like SharePoint or LumApps, can take 3 to 6 months because of the complicated process. Moreover, their tools don't work as agile as with Google Sites.
The overall process of creating a Google-based intranet is simplified by using tools created by Steegle. Believe it or not, your intranet can be up and running in about 2 to 3 weeks!
How can Steegle tools help you in creating your Google-based intranet?
Steegle News - Google Sites does not offer a news tool. By using Steegle News, you can easily create and post news on your intranet.
Steegle People - create an automatic directory and org chart with advanced search features
Steegle Share - displays a shared Google Drive on your intranet that comes with search capabilities
Remember, your intranet project doesn’t END after the launch. You need to constantly update your intranet to keep it up and running. You will need year-round support to manage all content and it’s also important to upload new content constantly.
So… how do you create a Google Sites intranet?
Great question! Steegle is a Google Cloud Partner and has been using Google Sites since 2008. We have developed intranets for large and small organisations with a friendly team using built-in powerful robust and scalable Google Technology as well as our own specially adapted software widgets to make the intranet fly - become a hub of activity where people will want to come back to for years to come.
We can get basic sites customised exactly to your brand and house style within 5-days. You can use our templates for page structures that make sense (being based on the Nielsen Norman ideals of an effective Intranet) as a starting point for your organisation without the need for complex wireframes or project planning. We’ll also be by your side as you start the big task of populating the system and setting it up to fit your company’s culture, and you can get user feedback on your draft site to quickly adapt and change it to meet their needs.
Step one is to get in touch with us so that we can give you a walkthrough of our system. Book a demo to kickstart the process!
Article by Maria Gabrielle
Looking for a customized intranet solution for your organization?
Since 2008, we here at Steegle.com have been delivering intranet development solutions and ongoing support and maintenance for organizations including hospitals and medical institutions. As a certified Google Cloud Partner, we specialize in Google Workspace- based solutions. Give us a call at US ✆ +1 (302) 672 3007 UK ✆ +44 (207) 871 502 or contact us today to view a demo of our intranet solutions, and see how it can help increase employee productivity and save time and money. Click below to learn more about the Springboard Intranet solution.
Sales Hotlines
US ✆ +1 (302) 672 3007
UK ✆ +44 (207) 871 5021
UK ✆ +44 (207) 871 5021
