Through hundreds of engagements, LDS has been able to distill a number of best practices that help ensure a balanced Portal Strategy.

Our experience shows that, in many instances, what seem to be tactical challenges can be traced to gaps in, or absence of, an effective Portal Strategy. Portals deployed without consideration to strategic goals often become difficult to manage. In these cases, the portal's value is reduced as employees find it increasingly difficult to find information and features that are relevant to their tasks and goals.

Include Strategy in Your Overall Plan

This may seem obvious, but in a rush to get started, the formal Portal Strategy is sometimes discarded. Given the critical role of strategy in the extended portal lifecycle, it's important to integrate a strategy phase into a portal Project Plan so that expectations are set early for a disciplined and collaborative path to completion.

Align the Portal with the Business Strategy

Perhaps the greatest underlying cause of a portal's failure is poor alignment to the business' overall goals and objectives. Therefore, it is imperative to inform the portal strategy perspective with the views of a variety of stakeholders to gain as holistic a perspective as possible.

Get Everyone to the Table

Ensure that the key perspectives, from senior management, business management, technology and employees, are all properly represented to ensure that the strategy represents a true balance.

Drive Technology with The Strategy

It's common to find that the technology platform in use becomes the primary driver for the portal's features and presentation; however, the platform is but one component of the portal. It's important to critically evaluate the technology platform as early as possible to determine the viability of the intended platform.

Broadly Socialize The Strategy

The most successful strategies are those that are understood and accepted by a broad base of stakeholders and senior management. Therefore, it is necessary to socialize the strategy by presenting to the broadest audience possible (even those who are not directly involved but may become stakeholders later). By doing so, the strategy can be fine-tuned and validated to gain the necessary support required to stay focused throughout the portal's lifecycle.

Understand the Employee’s Perspective

Some clients have asked us to help when their employees have refused, or are unable, to productively use portal-based services. It's an enormous drain on an organization to have a large-scale project fail because the user perspective was missing at the outset. Focusing on the dynamics and needs of the people who will be using the portal on a daily basis is a one of the most critical best practices in enterprise portal projects.