Client Problem

Established in 1959, the Heart Foundation of Australia is dedicated to reducing the effects of the number of people living with, or dying from heart, stroke and blood vessel disease. The Heart Foundation funds world-class cardiovascular research, supports health professionals in their practice, develops health promotion activities, informs and educates the public, and assists people with cardiovascular disease.

The Heart Foundation identified a number of fundamental issues with their existing intranet. Content was not structured logically to enhance usability and the authoring technology lacked the functionality to devolve content control to authors across the organisation. A key driver for the organisation for the development of an intranet portal was the desire to increase collaboration between geographically dispersed groups coordinating research and fund raising efforts for the organisation.

SMS Approach

SMS were engaged to deliver a collaborative intranet portal to support the varied activities of the organisation.

SMS recommended the use of a proven intranet management framework. The framework ensured that adequate time was allocated to the development of detailed information architecture before the technical implementation commenced.

SMS proposed a long term road map for the deployment of Microsoft® SharePoint™ functionality. The road map complemented the change management approach, which recommended that functionality be deployed in several stages, increasing the likelihood of user adoption. SMS also engaged with key stakeholders throughout the project to highlight the core aspects of the new intranet portal, building a core group of ‘portal champions’.

Core functionality was defined during a series of workshops and interviews with key stakeholders. SMS took a highly collaborative approach to compiling both the business requirements and the subsequent information architecture.

Recommendation

The key aspects of the approach taken to the intranet refresh project at the Heart Foundation of Australia are outlined below:

• Collaborative approach to capturing business requirements and building the information architecture, using methods such as card sorting and workshops. 
• Iterative development methodology allowed requirements to be refined during the development process, with core functionality deployed to the live environment at an early stage.
• Knowledge transfer activities to ensure that the intranet would be supported in the long term by internal resources.
• Change management approach supported the adoption of the new intranet across the organisation by introducing key aspects of SharePoint to selected ‘portal champions’.
• Best practice approach to SharePoint development, based on the Microsoft lifecycle approach, combined with the SMS intranet framework.   

Outcome

• Successful launch of a new intranet portal, entitled ‘The Beat’, across all offices and regions.
• A single intranet platform to help users collaborate more easily.
• Increased operational efficiency achieved by devolving content authoring to users across the organisation.
• Commitment to a long term road map for the development of the intranet portal.   
• Information classification model, developed by SMS, to reflect current and future content, allowing for themed grouping of content and enhanced usability.