Martyn Green 21 July 2015 5 min read

Top Tips for Intranet Stakeholder Interviews

Martyn Green Intranet Consultant at SORCE

Stakeholder interviews enable you to build upon the results of your intranet end user survey. They are a great way of sense checking your survey results and identifying requirements.

I’m currently working with a client to plan and undertake stakeholder interviews to understand their intranet needs. A key part of reviewing your intranet is to meet with end users and understand their needs and how the current intranet does or doesn’t meet them.

Whenever I conduct a stakeholder interview, it’s not just a set of questions that I prepare in advance. Based on prior experiences, I thought I’d share my thoughts on what other factors I take into consideration as you might find these useful when undertaking your own.

Who should you select to conduct your interviews? If possible I find it’s always a good idea to select a third party. This has two real benefits for the quality of information that you are capturing. First it helps to remove bias from the interviewer as they should be objective and have no political agenda. Second the interviewee is more likely to be open with their answers and help point out the real issues.

Before you start any interview, explain to your interviewee the purpose behind the exercise. Explaining how the collected information will be used helps to put staff at ease.

NEVER discuss functionality. This will only stray from the key objective of the exercise, understanding what staff need to perform their job roles more effectively. Functionality should only be considered once you fully understand what the requirements of your staff are.

Don’t worry if you can’t get through all your questions. The number of questions you ask is irrelevant, the quality of the information that you collect is.

Now my final point may seem obvious but it’s something that’s often overlooked. Don’t schedule back to back interviews. Give yourself time to read back through your notes, ensure they are legible and that they make sense to you.

If you keep all these factors in mind, I’m sure your interviews will capture all the information you require. You can then convert this knowledge into tangible requirements for your corporate intranet.

If you want more information on how you can use Stakeholder Interviews within your intranet project download our Stakeholder Interview learning guide.

About me:

Over the last 16 years I have helped people understand what they need from an intranet, the majority of which was successful, but I have always been looking to learn and improve.

Consolidating my knowledge and experiences from helping to deploy or relaunch 250+ intranets Worldwide, 4 years ago, I created the Intranet Journey. As far as I could see at the time, this was one of the first complete Intranet success methodologies…

The success of this has led me to work with some very hard working intranet managers, sponsors and of course users. I have learnt an awful lot and continue to do so from real people with real problems.

If after reading this you would like to get in touch to see how SORCE intranet can help you then please call 01635 551777.

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Martyn Green

Martyn is our Intranet Success Director, his intranet knowledge is extensive, having worked with hundreds of clients, he helps understand what your intranet needs are and supports you in creating your intranet structure and content requirements.