The client
THE CLIENT: Glasgow-based S3 is an umbrella organisation for around 11 international recruitment brands, all specialising in high value markets such as IT security.
THE CHALLENGE FOR THE CLIENT: S3PLC is undergoing rapid change and growth , and made a decision to relocate its corporate headquarters to Glasgow. An early adopter of Office365, its implementation came at a time of flux and it also recognised a need to improve its use of a SharePoint based intranet in order to increase the business benefits from the investment made in the MS stack.
The Challenge for Me
This was a short engagement to assist with an intranet restructure, and to provide some consultancy on ways of maximising value from O365. Scope and budget management were important, as was building a quick rapport with different divisions within S3PLC, such as communications and IT. The work was funded by IT but inspired by Communications.
Outcomes
WHAT DID I DO?: I managed the project to its successful conclusion, going live to quality expectations, within the agreed budget and to the agreed timescale. This involved co-ordinating: two technical specialists, client side contacts including IT , a full design process including two feedback stages and the implementation of a new intranet theme and high level design. In addition, our consultancy provided S3PLC with a blueprint for their future work in exploiting O365 functionality.
THE COSTS: This was a short engagement costing less than 20,000 GBP.
THE OUTCOMES: Higher levels of staff engagement with the S3PLC intranet and a commitment to explore further joint working around Teams and other MS workloads.
Lessons Learned
What were the lessons learned?
1>Often IT and communications stakeholders in organisations do not know each other already, and part of the job can be bringing these units together to get a common view and understanding of each other.
2>Staff turnover can be a challenge on projects, with new people taking some time to be bought into initiatives started before their arrival at organisations.
