Where do you start?

by Steve Blass

January 3, 2001 —

I'm the sole provider of network, database administration, hardware/software troubleshooting and all-around computer help for a social work department at a university. I was given the project of building an intranet for our faculty. I have an idea of how it operates and why we need one, but I have no clue where to begin. We have a Windows NT Server 4.0 with Windows 9X workstations, and approximately 20 faculty members who will use the intranet.

Start with your business goals. Survey the prospective user base. Find out what people would expect to find and do if the department has an outstanding intranet. Seed the interviews with questions about what kind of course and committee scheduling needs the team faces. Find out whether departmental publishing or interactive Web-based training and testing tools are envisioned. Will the department use online collaboration tools to support distance education? Will you create a portal to external online resources? Determine if the information and capabilities to meet your vision exist. Decide what application systems and data formats you have to work with. Identify the barriers to achieve these goals. Can you see technology solutions for individual barriers yet? Boil the departmental intranet problem down into solvable component problems, and solve those at the technology level.

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