Intranet as Groupware

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Summary: A handy guide and reference book for Intranet managers.
Review: "The problem with groupware is that it's been very expensive and difficult to implement. With the introduction of cheap and easy-to-construct Intranets, that's no longer the case," begins Melanie Hills in her new book, "Intranets as Groupware." Intranets and groupware can help employees communicate more effectively, capture and share their knowledge, and learn and innovate.

Melanie Hills is an Internet technologies consultant for Fortune 500 companies, and a founder of consulting firm Knowledgies. In this material, she builds on her earlier book - "Intranet Business Strategies" - and goes beyond basic Intranet installation to address building groupware capabilities into Intranets. Case studies are drawn from Intranet implementations in AT&T, Texas Instruments (TI), J.C. Penney, and EDS.

The material is well-presented, and includes checklists for choosing Intranet products, implementing groupware, and appointing Intranet facilitation consultants. 11 chapters cover a wide range of issues including advantages and disadvantages of Intranets, groupware product reviews, implementation paths and challenges, and the impact of groupware on workflow.

Some of the first organisations to create internal Webs included Lockheed, Hughes and SAS Institute. According to some estimates from International Data Corporation, there may be 4.7 million Intranet servers in existence by the year 2000, and the revenues for collaborative software will reach $6.6 billion that year.

Factors leading to the necessity of Intranets include worldwide acceleration of user expectations due to globalisation and spread of the Internet, and increasing needs for improving internal communication and knowledge worker productivity. Intranets can be fast, easy and cheap to implement, scalable, and flexible; they can capture and share expertise, create new business opportunities, and help leverage Extranets for purposes like EDI.

Possible disadvantages of Intranets include the potential for chaos, security risks, management fears, business culture clash, information overload, wasted productivity, and hidden or unknown costs.

Intranets have already been successfully deployed in numerous companies. EDS has acquired the right to place the U.S. Patent Information Services database on its Intranet; it also provides its employees with a customised news report service called infoAlert via PointCast, and uses chat as part of its Global Communicators Network and IRC for a CIO weekly chat. Bell Atlantic's Intranet saves several hundred thousand dollars through consolidation and reduced printing. Silicon Graphics has reported savings in processing requisitions via its Intranet, Silicon Junction.

J.C. Penney's Intranet, jWeb, helps cut costs in communicating between its offices in 37 countries. AT&T uses its Intranet as a virtual meeting place. Booz Allen says its Intranet has helped leverage its intellectual capital by recording its expertise and providing contact information for its consultants. Some such case studies are also available online, as in "How Sun Saves Money, Improves Service Using Internet Technologies."

Some companies even obtain additional revenues on Intranet sites by letting vendors advertise to their employees.

Groupware products help create an organisation memory, and boost communication, coordination and collaboration. They include functions like calendaring, scheduling, voice conferencing, videoconferencing, electronic meeting systems, data whiteboards, discussion and live chat. Due to the impact of the Intranet, costs of groupware are coming down, and they are becoming increasingly Web-enabled.

According to Peter Sange, author of "The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation," the only sustainable competitive advantage comes from an organisation's ability to learn. This will require the use of trained personnel as "social systems analysts," according to Tom Davenport, author of "Process Innovation: Reengineering Work Through Information Technology" (in his piece called "Software as Socialware," published in "CIO" magazine).

A 50-page review covers groupware products like Lotus Notes and Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Outlook, Novell Groupwise, NetManage Chameleon, Oracle InterOffice, RadNet WebShare, Netscape Navigator and CoolTalk, Collabra, White Pine Enhanced Cu-SeeMe, Galacticomm Worldgroup Internet Server, Forefront RoundTable, Allaire Forums, and O'Reilly WebBoard.

Hills provides case studies of how such tools have actually helped collaboration for engineering product development, support human resources processes, conduct interviews and training across the Internet, manage financial reports, create document repositories, schedule team meetings, share resources like presentation materials, initiate trouble tickets, and provide version control for revised documents.

So how does a business figure out which tools - or suite of groupware - to choose? Hills provides a useful set of criteria for evaluation: the openness of the platform, its ease of use, basic and training costs, installation path, vendor support, ability to use it over the Internet, migration paths from other tools, and offline use.

Some proprietary groupware, such as Lotus Notes, requires "an army of highly trained programmers and systems administrators." Eric Hahn of Netscape strongly advocates the use of open standards, due to the "wonderful synergy when the same technology is used inside the corporation and on a planetary scale between corporations."

"Certainly the most talked-about advantage of Intranet groupware is the low cost," says Hills. Security is a concern for some Web-enabled products, though the situation should improve with developments like Secure Socket Layer. Some proprietary interfaces tend to be much richer in multimedia presentation and interactivity.

Four chapters cover actual implementation of Intranet groupware, and ways of calculating ROI (such as assessing the total costs of updating and reprinting manuals frequently for all employees in an organisation, and comparing this with the costs of setting up an Intranet and publishing the manuals online).

A good strategy for growing an Intranet is in much the same way as the Internet itself: a decentralised, grassroots, but sometimes chaotic manner. It helps if the CIO catches the vision of the Intranet and becomes the champion, says Hills. An outside consultant can help facilitate the process by identifying sources of information, forming an Intranet team, and helping them get focused. Infrastructure assistance from an ISP should be evaluated with respect to criteria like serving remote locations and mobile users, business service orientation, and points of presence.

Key points to remember include the need to build enthusiasm, create demos, address people issues and not just technical issues, use facilitators, and plan capacity ahead of demand.

Challenges lie in the dynamics of working in teams. "Groupware depends on sharing, which is an alien concept in most corporations today. The first step, long before you think about the technology, is to figure out how to get people to share all the things they've accumulated over the years and become so good at hoarding," Hills cautions. "You have to get people working together and cooperating before groupware will work."

This may be a problem in organisations where there is an entrenched hierarchy, lots of competition between employees, and lack of participatory discourse. "Successful implementations are usually bottom-up, grassroots efforts. It's most effective if groups want groupware," Hills observes. Successful Intranet groupware implementation gives employees the information they need, improves productivity, trust and creativity, and creates a flexible and adaptable organisation. "What differentiates a high-performing learning community from any corporate community is that the former has the 'knowledge ecology:' a dynamic and living web of computer-linked people with their experience, ideas, and expertise, that interact, feed and grow upon each other," according to George Por, author of "Corporate Knowledge Networks."

Future groupware developments include the increasing use of intelligent agents, Hills predicts. "Because of the effect of the learning curve, those who lag behind in adopting Intranet groupware and workflow may never catch up. Now's the time to start," Hills concludes.

In sum, "Intranet as Groupware" is a handy guide and reference for organisations evaluating the importance of Intranets and groupware; the checklists and case studies, along with the cited literature and online resources, round off the material perfectly. An online companion with updates and information about new products would have been a welcome addition.

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Summary: I go back to this book for insights again and again
Review: With so much hype about intranets and groupware, it was amazing to find a book on these topics whose author: 1) writes from experience; 2) isn't a biased booster; and 3) balances technology issues with a first-rate understanding of the needs of people and organizations.If you want a hands-on, practical, step-by-step guide to understanding groupware and using an intranet to create it, I don't think you will be disappointed with this book. I recommend it highly and happily.