14 Governance Guidelines To Consider for Your Intranet

By Stacy Wilson

Here are 14 intranet guidelines to consider providing for users and owners as part of your governance model. I also provide more examples in Your Digital Workplace: Why Governance is Not Just Software and Hardware.

1. Blog use: Examples of how to use a blog, how to respond to comments, how to redirect inappropriate comments, how to use images and video
2. Community management: What constitutes a community, managing permissions and content, how to evolve the community over time, how to direct community dialogue
3. Customization: What can be customized, what cannot be customized, why customization is limited (if it is), tips for site owners on how to customize, resources for site owners to help them plan
4. Moderation: When moderation is required versus preferred, different types of moderation and when to use them, how to moderate effectively
5. Delivering relevant content: How to determine if content is relevant for a site’s users, what questions help determine relevancy
6. Using personal profile sites (My Sites): What types of images to use for the profile image, best practices for profile content, use of the personal blog and status update (reference these separate guidelines)
7. Relocating content: Why and when content should be relocated, best practices for relocating content, examples of when to relocate (e.g., defunct project site)
8. Wiki use: Examples of how to use a wiki, how to manage wiki growth, how to direct wiki users, reference naming convention guideline
9. What content goes where: What content is appropriate for team sites versus My Site versus community sites versus publishing sites
10. Site audits: When audits must be done, how the audit process works, who to go to with questions about conducting an audit, tools and resources for auditors, what happens to the audit results, examples of resulting improvements
11. Naming convention: Use version control to limit use of version in document names, convention for report dates, convention for department names, reason for the conventions, reference taxonomy guideline
12. Site owner planning: Sample plans, planning tools, what planning is required versus expected/preferred, what should be included in a site plan, how often site plans should be reviewed/revised
13. Status update use: Examples of how to use the status update, tips on how to write briefly, how to integrate status updates with other communication methods
14. Taxonomy use and suggestions: How to use the taxonomy effectively, how to decide which tags to use, how to provide suggestions for improvements to taxonomy, using search results to improve taxonomy, taxonomy section owner special guidelines

RELATED: Your Digital Workplace: Why Governance is Not Just Software and Hardware

Stacy Wilson, ABC, Eloquor Consulting, helps companies communicate more effectively with employees in the digital workplace. Her specialty is supporting governance, usability and content improvement for digital workplaces/intranets, along with change communication for technology change such as ERP implementations. Connect with her at LinkedIn or on Twitter.