Why Neither IT Nor Communications Should Own the Intranet

Intranet management evolution - independence for intranet teams: Ownership of a organization’s intranet is usually a battle between two groups: IT and Communications.

Back in the day, it was IT’s baby, since it involved servers and code. But for the last five years or so, there’s been a big trend to move responsibility for the intranet to Communications instead, since the servers and the code are just incidental – intranets are about communication.

Here’s a new argument: neither group should own it.

Some arguments against IT:

IT think everyone else are Luddites […] IT sometimes confuse online terminology (still) Information architecture? “Yes we have a Microsoft IIS server box cabled to a Oracle db […]”

Arguments against Communications:

Communications and marketing are poor usability people […] Silo-ed business groups do not care about other units […] Communications and other units think IT are business unfriendly […] Without true governance pet schemes can go ridiculous

The solution? An independent team in the middle.

The optimal solution is an intranet team that is independent of the direct line management of either of the two.

[…] In organisations that have already done this I have seen a much more robust , professional and user focused approach to the intranet which for end users means a true organisational intranet not an organisational one with a specific business unit bias.

I agree with this in theory, but it would be hard to pull off in practice. To make an intranet project work, you need management sponsorship, and if your team has no department – no big stick to wield – then who is fighting for you at the management level?