Since April 1st, 5215 intranet end users from 16 organisations have participated in the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC). Organisations that have participated so far are:
- Adecco Group (Australia) - a leader in HR solutions
- ArcelorMittal - world's number one steel company
- Delaware North (Australia) - hospitality, food service, lodging
- Delta Dental of Michigan, Ohio, & Indiana - dental plan administrators
- Ernst & Young - assurance, tax, transaction & advisory services
- European Space Agency - Europe's gateway to space
- Ferring Pharmaceuticals - a research-driven bio-pharmaceutical company
- Lloyds Register - works to enhance safety at sea, on land & in the air
- Lonely Planet Publications - publishes travel information
- March of Dimes - non-profit organization for pregnancy & baby health
- Philadelphia Fed - formulates and implement monetary policy
- St. Luke's Episcopal Health System - provides health care services
- Statistics Estonia - provides statistical information about trends in Estonia
- WOLF THEISS - a leading law firm in Central & Eastern & South Eastern Europe
- Wyeth - world leader in the R & D of innovative, high-quality health care products
- Wyeth MENA - Dubai based office of Wyeth
Analysing WIC responses
The WIC asks 44 generic questions about the intranet. Each question has 4 or 5 possible responses. Using filtering, it's possible to determine the effect that the different responses have on overall intranet satisfaction.
For example, Question 10 asks, 'In general, I would rate the intranet as:' - the possible responses are - Business critical, Very useful, Useful, Neutral or indifferent, and Not at all useful. If we assign values to these responses (ie. 4 for Business Critical, 0 for Not at all useful), we can derive an overall number that indicates the value of the intranet as perceived by the end users. Using this information, we can then isolate a particular response and see what affect this has on this perceived value.
WIC findings to date
Using this filtering approach we can make the following interesting observations:
- The overall average perception of intranet value is: 2.77 out of 4 (69.0%)
- If we only look at those responses where people:
- Complete common work tasks such as applying for leave or booking travel more than once a day, the average value increases to 3.06 (76.5%)
- Spend less than 1 minute a day on the intranet: 1.54 (38.5%)
- Spend between 1-2 hours each day on the intranet: 3.13 (78.3%)
- Strongly agree with the statement 'I can find the information I need on the intranet' 3.24 (81.0%)
- Use the intranet to publish content more than once a day: 3.07 (76.8%)
- Disagree with the statement 'Pages on the intranet load quickly': 2.61 (65.3%)
How to make my intranet more valuable?
Some conclusions from the above: if you want your intranet to be perceived as being more valuable, ensure common work tasks can be completed on the intranet, put content and applications on there that people want to read or use, encourage people to contribute content and make sure your pages load quickly.
How to filter your WIC responses?
The filtering of responses is something that all WIC participants can do with their own data using the WIC survey tool. If you are a WIC participant and are interested in filtering your results to view the impact of different variables on your overall level of end user satisfaction, view the how to filter your WIC results video on YouTube (3.5MB, 1.25min). You can filter on more than one variable which allows you to analyse your feedback using a range of combinations (eg. people who can't find information but spend a long time on the intranet).
Note: CIBA Solutions offers an analysis of your WIC feedback if you are interested. Contact me if you would like more information.
How to become involved in the WIC?
If you would like to become involved in the WIC and obtain feedback from your own intranet users, feel free to register for the Worldwide Intranet Challenge. There is no cost to participate. The first 30 organisations who participate in the WIC will receive a complementary 12 month subscription to the WIC (valued at $495 US). This subscription will allow you to:
- Benchmark your intranet from an end user viewpoint at any time over the Web
- View your organisation's feedback & compare this with other organisations at any time
- Receive the Annual WIC Report analysing the current state of intranets (valued at $290 US)
- Receive a complimentary invitation to a best practice intranets seminar/webinar (Valued at 495 US)
- View a database of the best intranets in a range of categories as determined by the end users
Please contact me if you would like more information.
regards
Andrew
