Only One Opportunity To Do It Right?
By Brian Walsh
Begin all projects with the end in mind. Use this mantra to keep your efforts focused and directed. However, it seems that a casual audit of the practices that go into corporate intranets illustrates that we still haven't learned many of the lessons client/server taught us. Steven Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, writes: "It's
a principle that all things are created twice, but not all creations are by conscious design." Many intranet sites out there don't seem to have the luxury of doing it right from the start. The need to deliver solutions ASAP is the busy work that prevents us from stepping back and assessing what we're building.
 In the Beginning
I bet I know how it all started for you. Your Web development began when everyone said it was cool. More than likely, you selected a host server for your site based on availability (no one else seemed to be using it). You selected Web server software based on what was free or already installed, and you felt really lucky when you discovered that it already had a legal IP address on it. Your security plan consisted of sending your security administrator into a fit whenever necessary, by saying things like "Whaddaya mean you can't punch a hole through the firewall for native DBMS traffic?!"
Content management was performed by pointing individual authors at particular directories: "Place your HTML files in here, but please don't override or delete anybody else's stuff, OK? OK." Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programs and integration with the database and legacy systems were coded on an "as-needed" basis using tools fami
liar to the programmers. Your users probably still are focused in a particular department/campus/region rather than with a companywide intranet. Lacking real requirements, they critiqued the pages. More than likely, no one outside the firewall had access to any
of the sites.
Yet, you have found that the time-consuming cycle of building, maintaining and constantly upgrading a production Web server is both tedious and rewarding work: Even with all the bumps and bruises you've suffered, the system has basically been able to maintain a 24x7 schedule.
The funny thing is (most likely) you're successful. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of pages in the Web servers described here. Users consider those pages mission critical. They can probably point with confidence to real customer-driven problems that your sites help them address quickly and more accurately than before. In fact, the number of users has increased dramatically. Your sites have been up for nearly a year, and you've seen the user p
opulation double every month or two.
Remember that old joke about projects and the claim nonparticipants have on the project's success? Well, after management has finally discovered your intranet, it comes up with some directives: "The IS department is tasked with the procurement/development of a suite of intranet sites to support the rollout of [insert the most important product your company is considering here] by the [insert any unrealistic date here]. The systems are to support the planned growth of our organization to [insert any really large dollar value]. In addition, these systems will help us gain market share and allow us to deliver [insert any general and noncommittal term for all the things we haven't thought of yet]."
Boy, you barely survived splitting the Web server on a box different than your database. Now you're carrying water for the entire company.
What's Your Mission?
Gulp. Sound familiar? Is this the end you had in mind? Have today's quick-fix and from-the-hip choice
s become cast in concrete? Take a page from Management 101. Agree on a mission statement. That is, get everyone on the project to agree on one. And remember, writing one by yourself and reading it into the mirror every morning doesn't count.
Sure, it sounds corny, b
ut consider for a moment what a mission statement for your intranet as a whole, or for each given site, would look like. For example, "the intranet for Company X is to create and encourage a corporate ethic based on the customer, to enable decision-making authority in the groups charged with implementation, to support employees in our widespread regions and to create dynamic relationships with partners." I know it's a mouthful, but once said, it directs the entire effort.
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