Empowering Users For Better Decisions, Efficiency

Many contracts, commercial and legal groups struggle with the challenge of ‘user ineptitiude’ They complain about the lack of understanding and ‘irresponsible’ behavior that is common within business units and Sales organizations.

For some, that translates to a need for stronger controls and more resources. For others, there is an understanding that the best way forward is to improve the quality of information, knowledge and decision-making – but how? Providing regular training classess is not only time-absorbing, but of questionable effect. Developing an intranet is another approach – but while it is useful in some smaller or relatively simple businesses, it can be challenging in a large and complex business. For example, the time it takes for a user to navigate and find the information relevant to their specific need is often too long – so they still pick up the phone or use ‘system inadequacies’ as an excuse for doing their own thing.

This background has resulted in occcasional dialogue on the IACCM website, where members ask about ‘good practices’ when it comes to building an intranet site for their practitioner and user community. Therefore I was interested to see an article on Rees Morrison’s Law Department Management blog touching on this subject and highlighting how today’s intranet can customize content delivery to the needs of individual users, ensuring far simpler navigation and massively improved useability. A useful read for anyone who really cares about the effectiveness and efficiency of their service delivery. See it at http://www.lawdepartmentmanagementblog.com/law_department_management/2011/01/personalize-the-intranet-site-each-client-sees-so-that-they-learn-and-can-handle-more-on-their-own.html