| Stage 1 – Communication & Information-Sharing Intranets | Stage 2 – Self-Service Intranets | Stage 3 – Collaborative-drive intranets | Stage 4 – Enterprise Information Portals | Stage 5 – Digital Dashboards | Stage 6 – The Consolidated Workplace Interface | |
| Sponsorship | Department/team level; lacks formal sponsorship | Corporate-level HR; secondary level may include Finance and Legal departments | Business-unit implementation; shared funding from cap exp. | Executive-level signoff due to significant development costs | CEO or CIO, useful to cascade key performance indicators throughout organization | CEO; prototype with most innovative, or technologically lagging units, or units with most pressing needs |
| Governance | Informal | Formalized | Centrally managed | Managed by employees from all levels within the enterprise | New governance models not needed | Requires general redefinition since this stage is not restricted to “intranet” systems |
| User Needs | Most basic | Information & Services for management of personal & work lives | Push intranets; data used to inform decisions | Prioritization & aggregation of data possible | Real-time reports with pre-established targets, often involves confidential data | Responsive to the way tasks are accomplished in the complex workplace |
| Experience Design | Information architecture, visual design, usability, accessibility not usually developed | Optimization of usability through task studies | Info Architecture driven | Interface customizations limited according to capabilities of portal design | Mission-Critical information is assimilated into a single interface; extremely well designed | Interfaces incorporate simplicity and some degree of artificial intelligence |
| Technologies | Basic content management systems, lack of corporate technology standards | From content management systems for publishing content to “portlet” platforms that incorporate functionality of enterprise HR systems | Varied, with increasing movement towards social software solutions | From few major portal software developers with stronger user interface and implementation of social media functionality | Related to 3 general types of technology: 1) Business intelligence software, 2) Portal software or platform, 3) Extract transformation load | Examples include: VoIP, guided navigation, enterprise IM, semantic web, visualization, content analysis, mobile, RIA, AJAX and context aware portal software |
| Training | Limited training | User guides, contextual help screens | Easy training, narrow targeted audience | Extensive training required for mission critical applications | Dependent on size of audience, not always formalized | Dependent on the degree of technological interface and technical savviness of users |
| Adoption | Slow, usually not marketed effectively, lacks executive support | Quick adoption | Very slow | Very slow | Uniquely suited to audiences’ precise needs | To be determined |
| ROI Metrics | Rarely performed; not a major concern due to limited investment | Easily measured by comparing offline processes to migration and support costs, comparison of time savings involved | Measurements for application are standardized; collaborative success is allusive | Costs are monitored very closely; extensive metrics in place to control investment | Demonstrable based on popularity of use, timeliness of reports and consequences of data quality | Based on increased employee productivity and timely task completion |