Information Architecture Playbook

If the term “information architecture” is new to you, think of it as the navigation structure on your intranet. Effective information architecture makes it easy for employees to find what they’re looking for. 

This playbook is designed to help you understand your intranet’s current information architecture and make improvements as needed. We’ve broken this process into 5 steps, some of which will be completed by Knowledge Architecture, and others that will be completed by your team. Each step is described in detail below. We look forward to partnering with you on your new information architecture.

Step 1: Review your Current State

When you're ready to get started, your Knowledge Architecture team will generate a snapshot of the current state of your intranet’s information architecture. This reference point will empower you and your team to take what works from your existing information architecture, and leave what doesn’t behind.

We’ll provide your current state snapshot to you in an interactive outline hosted on Dynalist. It will contain your intranet’s Tier 1, 2, and 3 navigation items.

• Tier 1 items are the items visible on your intranet’s top navigation. (e.g. Home, People, Projects, etc.)

• Tier 2 & 3 items are typically the headers and links on the left navigation of your intranet, but may also include content that appears on the community landing page or wiki pages on your intranet. We do not recommend going more than 3 layers deep at this stage. 

Here is a section from a current state information architecture draft with Tier 1, 2, and 3 items identified.

Your Knowledge Architecture team will share this snapshot with you, answer questions, and support you in revising it if needed.

Contact your Client Success Manager or support@knowledge-architecture.com to get started.

Step 2: Review IA Templates

If your intranet transition will be a “Lift and Shift” of your current information architecture, skip Steps 2 and 3 and move on to Step 4.

Some intranet teams would like to use the transition to Synthesis 6 as an opportunity to address navigation pain points, reorganize the intranet completely, or something in between. If this is the case, then you have important decisions to make:

• Is your current information architecture the right starting place, or do you need a completely different structure? 

• If you do need a completely different structure, what should that structure be?

It can be hard to know what good looks like for an information architecture because different people find information in different ways. A navigation structure that works for one set of users may not work for another, which can leave intranet teams in a difficult place when it comes to reorganizing content. However, if we look across enough users, patterns tend to emerge. Surfacing these patterns allows information architecture conversations to be less about one person being right or wrong and more about what works for the majority of users. Of course, this requires research. 

Knowledge Architecture has completed quantitative and qualitative information architecture research with 600+ AEC users to identify navigation paths that get users to critical information quickly. We’ve combined this research with our experience supporting 130+ AEC intranets to create two information architecture templates. These information architectures were tested with architects, engineers, new employees, and seasoned professionals on a mock Synthesis 6 intranet, which means the research subjects were able to interact with mega menus and other new user-interface elements that didn’t exist in previous versions of Synthesis. 

In this step you’ll review these templates to determine if either is a good fit to use as the starting point for your intranet’s new information architecture. If neither are a good fit, then we will use your current state as the starting point and inject best practices from Knowledge Architecture’s templates when applicable.

Template 1: Essentials

The Essentials information architecture is simple, complete, and flexible. It is a strong foundation that can be added to over time.

Essentials is designed for a firm with one or two primary offices and one or two primary disciplines. For example, an architecture firm that also provides planning and interior design with headquarters in Chicago and a handful of satellite offices across Illinois and Wisconsin.

Template 2: Essentials Plus

The Essentials Plus information architecture supports users who need company wide information, regional information, and information specific to their discipline.

Essentials Plus is designed for a firm with many offices and many disciplines. For example, a firm that provides architecture, engineering, and surveying with offices in Chicago, Denver, Austin, Raleigh, and Albany and a dozen satellite offices. 

Step 3: Pick your Starting Point

Which of these three options (Essentials, Essentials Plus, or your current state) would you like to use as the starting point for your new intranet’s information architecture?

Once you’ve answered this question, your Knowledge Architecture team will provide you with a Dynalist version of your starting point information architecture for you to develop into your future state.

Step 4: Design your Future State

In this step you’ll adjust your starting point information architecture to meet your organization's needs. You’ll adapt your starting point information architecture in Dynalist by:

1. Removing content that doesn’t need to be migrated because it is redundant, outdated, trivial, or irrelevant (ROTI).

• Redundant - Content that is listed in multiple places. Each piece of content should only appear in one location on the information architecture initially. This will be it’s primary location. If needed, additional links to this content will be added in the next step.

• Outdated - Content that has been superseded

• Trivial - Content that is not worth the investment to maintain

• Irrelevant - Content that doesn’t apply to your organization’s current structure or needs

2. Adding content that is missing. 

• If you are working with one of Knowledge Architecture’s templates, cross reference the template against your current state. Copy items from your current state that aren’t ROTI to an appropriate location in the template.

• If high priority essential content is missing from your information architecture, now is the time to add it. If you are working with your current state as your starting place, explore the Knowledge Architecture templates. You may find helpful navigation structures for your missing essential content there.

3. Identifying Private Communities. If there are communities that will have secure content that only a fraction of employees should have access to, identify these communities as “Private.” An example of a Private community might be a Leadership community containing sensitive content.

4. Identifying content that needs to be referenced in multiple places. There are times when it is helpful for content to appear in two areas of the information architecture. When this is the case, add links to that content in the information architecture and label these secondary locations as “Link”.

5. Ensuring important Tier 1 items will be visible to users. With Synthesis 6’s out of the box fonts and font size, you will generally be able to view seven to eight Tier 1 items across the top of your intranet. Here is an example of an information architecture with seven items in Synthesis 6:

However, you may lose real estate if you intend to:

• Increase the font size

• Have long Tier 1 names

If there are too many Tier 1 items to display, the additional items will be accessible via an ellipsis at the far right of the navigation. Private communities will only be visible to users who have permission to see them.

6. Evaluating the quantity of Tier 2 items do you have in each Tier 1 category. With Synthesis 6’s out of the box fonts and font size, you will generally be able to view five Tier 2 items in one mega menu. The HR + Office example below is a Tier 1 category that has with five Tier 2 items:

If there are too many Tier 2 items to display, the additional items will be accessible via an ellipsis at the far right of the navigation. While most Tier 2 items will be pages, which don’t have unique permissions, communities can be Tier 2 items as well. Private communities will only be visible in navigation to users who have permission to see them.

7. Evaluating the quantity of Tier 3 items do you have in each Tier 2 category? The number of Tier 3 items you'll be able to see will vary based on the height of your browser window. The taller the window, the more items you'll be able to see. That said, you will generally be able to view twelve Tier 3 items in one mega menu with Synthesis 6’s out of the box font, font size, and a browser sized for full screen on a laptop. To see additional items, the user will be able to scroll down.

The Design Technology category below is an example of a Tier 2 category with more than twelve Tier 3 items:

Step 5: Build and Revise

When your Synthesis 6 environment is deployed, you or your Knowledge Architecture team will build out your intranet’s shell based on the information architecture you’ve created in Dynalist.

Once you see your information architecture in the context of Synthesis 6, you may want to make adjustments to item titles, item order, etc. The content outliner allows you to quickly rename pages and drag and drop content, so it will be easy to revise your information architecture as needed in Synthesis 6.

When you’re comfortable with the information architecture as it appears in the shell, it’s time to invite end users to see the shell and react. Your Knowledge Architecture team can advise you on methods for collecting feedback based on your firm’s needs and your information architecture’s complexity.

Wrap Up

We look forward to partnering with you on your new information architecture. Contact your Client Success Manager or support@knowledge-architecture.com to get started.

Intranet Best Practices: Research Findings from Nielsen Norman Group and Knowledge Architecture

Featured Guests

Kathryn Whitenton, Director of Digital Strategy at Nielsen Norman Group
Page Laubheimer, Senior User Experience Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group

Webinar Summary

In this month’s Office Hours, Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) and Knowledge Architecture share insights based on our recent study of over 120 Synthesis intranets. We discuss patterns and pitfalls of intranet navigation, share best practices for building effective and intuitive intranet navigation, and introduce you to a process for validating proposed changes to intranet navigation.

Webinar Timeline

00:18 Introductions
00:18 Common Intranet Navigation Questions from KA Clients
03:32 Introduction to the Research Project & Team

08:36 Intranet Navigation Best Practices
09:08 Introduction to NN/g
10:40 Information Architecture (IA) 101: Mental Models
12:07 Intranet IA: Most Common Problems
13:10 User-Centered Design
14:16 Example: Department vs. User Centered Intranet Design
16:00 Mental Expectations are not Logical Taxonomies
17:30 Asymmetric Structure is OK 
19:18 Polyhierarchy is OK

20:24 Overview: Navigation Best Practices
20:45 1. High Visibility for Key Categories
21:36 … Example: Common Tier 1 Categories
22:05 2. Distinct Categories
22:52 … Example: Codes vs Standards
23:44 3. Familiar, Clear Terminology
24:35 … Example: [Firmname] University
25:06 4. Short, Front-Loaded Labels
26:05 … Example: Professional Licensure vs Licensure

26:38 Tree Testing
27:30 Accordion Menu and User Tasks
29:22 The Research Process: Live Sessions & Data Collection
30:38 IA Trees Assessed
32:10 … Tree A — Broad
34:08 … Tree B — Narrow
35:24 … Tree C — Medium-Broad
36:28 … Tree D — Broad with alternate working
36:46 Video: Tree Testing Task

37:33 Answers to Key Questions
37:50 HR, Marketing & IT 
39:58 Administrative Category / Office
42:13 General Resources vs by Discipline
45:25 Filters and Cross References
46:11 Where Users Looked for Learning Content
47:30 Learning Content
49:40 First Click Data for Learning Content Task
50:46 Overlap & Over-Specificity in Tier 3
52:08 Broad vs Narrow Tier 1
54:40 Q: How broad is too broad?
57:20 Q: Was there a difference between the two broad options?

58:20 Recommendations
58:55 1. Organize content by topic
59:28 2. Call your administrative category “Office”
1:00:21 3. Clarity over brevity/cleverness for category names
1:01:38 4. Go with a broad and shallow architecture
1:02:10 5. Don’t get overly specific in lower levels
1:02:53 Recommended Default Navigation
1:01:04 … Projects & Practice Category
01:07:27 … Office, About Us, Learning
1:09:04 Label Names to Avoid
1:09:11 … Firmwide
1:10:01 … Design Technology
1:10:32 … Project Delivery
1:10:58 … Practice Groups
1:11:20 … Business Services

1:12:08 Research Protocol
1:12:38 Optimal Workshop & Treejack
1:13:04 Create User Tasks
1:14:47 Find 50+ Participants Per Task
1:15:14 11 Tasks Used by NN/g
1:15:27 Analysis of Results
1:16:09 Visualization: Overall Metrics 
1:17:06 Visualization: Pie Tree 
1:17:46 Matrix: Where Users Looked 

Q+A
1:18:55 Q: Where does “accounting” (forms, etc) fit in best?
1:21:12 Q: Any recommendations on where to put design conversations and inspiration?
1:23:44 Q: Is there a best practice with regard to how often you can/should make changes to your intranet navigation?
1:26:15 Q: Any thoughts on where programs and conversations related to professional development can be organized?

Read the Collaborative Notes

Members of our team and the KA Advance community took collaborative notes during this webinar using Google Docs. Collaborative note-taking helped us summarize key takeaways, collect related links, and will provide us with a quick reference when we return to this topic in the future. We've found the notes quite useful so far and hope you will as well.

Review the Session Slides

Want to take a closer look at NN/g’s presentation slides? Check them out here.

About Office Hours

Office Hours is 60 minutes of news, stories, and Q+A with Susan, Sarah, Chris, Zucu, and special guests from the KA Advance community. You can watch recordings of past Office Hours webinars here.

More Office Hours Webinars

Register for our next Office Hours Webinar

Planning for Essential Content Maintenance

Essential Content comprises the policies, procedures, templates, forms, standards, documentation, how-tos, and FAQs you need to run your AEC firm. Your corporate operating system, if you will.

Getting your essential content on the intranet is a huge feat and generally happens during your implementation process. Keeping your essential content up-to-date is just as important. It is critical that your end users can trust that the content on the intranet reflects the way your firm does business today, not how it did business at some point in the past. “Trust” is the operative word here. Building trust in the quality of your essential content will lay the foundation required to leverage the intranet for a multitude of strategic initiatives outlined on the Intranet Maturity Model.

In this Quick Reference Guide, we offer a systematic approach for ensuring your essential content is always relevant and up-to-date.

Step 1 - Pick Your Promise

You build trust in the intranet when you can confidently tell employees and leadership that the intranet’s content has been reviewed within the last 6 or 12 months. So, step one is to pick which promise you are making: 6 or 12 months?

Step 2 - Set a Rotation Schedule

Maintenance has to be sustainable. That is why the key to this program is pacing yourself. Instead of reviewing all content every 6 or 12 months, we recommend reviewing 1-2 content areas a month.

You may find it helpful to create a schedule by dividing the number of communities on your intranet by your promise. For example, if you promised that content will be reviewed within the last 6 months, and you have 6 communities, then you will review one community a month.

Note: If you have some communities with multiple content owners, you may want to review each content area individually. For example, your “HR + Office Community” may have two content owners (HR and Accounting), which means two spots on your rotation schedule.

You can quickly visualize your plan by completing a table like the one below:

Month

Community

January, July

Home

February, August

Projects + Practice

March, September

HR + Office: HR Content

April, October

HR + Office: Accounting Content

May, November

Marketing

June, December

Technology

You may want to consider launching the program with one of your “lighter” communities. This approach allows you an opportunity to “beta” the program and work out any kinks before reaching out to some of your heftier communities.

Step 3 - Schedule Meetings for the Year

First, map out who you need to meet with in each community. Next, use the table above as your guide for scheduling recurring reminders for yourself regarding when to reach out to each content owner. If you intend to meet with your HR content owner in March, we recommend scheduling the meeting the month prior. Before you schedule the first meeting, it may be helpful to reach out to each content owner with a brief explanation of the program.

Step 4 - Essential Content Reviews

Before the Essential Content Review (ECR), you may want to email the content owner some relevant analytics. Providing analytics in advance gives the content owner time to digest some of the key material, which can lead to rich questions and conversation. You can use the agenda below as a guide for which analytics will best drive the conversation. One easy way to prepare analytics in advance is to compile screenshots from Synthesis’ analytics dashboards into a few powerpoint slides.

For the meeting itself, the objective is for the intranet champion to partner with the content owner in a fruitful conversation about the content owner’s vision. Analytics will enable you to ask probing questions and support you both in coming to new insights about what is working and where there is an opportunity to better serve the needs of your employees.

We recommend a 3-part agenda:

• Content

  • Analytics

  • Findability

• Posts

  • Analytics

• Action Items

Agenda Item #1: Content

Analytics

Start by reviewing Content Optimization. Some questions you may want to answer together include:

• Which content should be deleted …?

  • … because the content is out of date (ex: 2023 Holiday List)

  • … because the content is not providing value (ex: a document that has zero views in the last 6 months)

• Which content should updated …?

  • … because some of the content is out-of-date (ex: a page about a procedure that has been updated)

• Which content should be created …?

  • … because the new content will replace the old (ex: creating the 2025 Holiday List)

  • … because new procedures and tools have been implemented (ex: create new page about your new commuter benefit)

  • … because there are items on the essential content checklist that we would like to add

• Which content needs a new strategy …?

  • … because the content is important, but is not getting enough traffic (ex: documents in the project management template library only has 2 views in the last 6 months)

  • … because the content is important, and is not getting the right traffic (ex: documents in the project management template library is being used by the Boston office, but not the Philadelphia office)

Findability

Now that you have a sense of usage, it is time to examine whether the community’s current wayfinding methods seem to be driving the right results. Some questions you may want to consider:

• Community Navigation

  • Are there too many options? Too few options? Or just the right amount?

  • Is the community navigation logically ordered? Do the titles resonate with what end users are looking for?

• Right Column

  • How are you using the right column on the community’s homepage?

  • How are you using landing pages?

• Search Optimization

  • Are there search terms that are relevant to this community? How are those search terms performing?

  • Should any Best Bets or Synonyms be added to improve the performance of those search terms?

Agenda Item #2: Posts

Analytics

Start by reviewing Post Analytics. Some questions you may want to answer together include:

• Given this community’s audience, are the performance statistics at, above, or below expectations?

• Are there any posts that performed exceptionally well? Exceptionally poorly?

  • What attributes may have contributed to the post’s performance?

• How are #hashtag campaigns performing?

• Are there any old posts with outdated/inaccurate information that should be deleted or edited?

• What are your internal communication goals for the coming period?

  • If you are interested in learning more about best practices for internal communications, we invite you to reach out to your Client Success Manager at support@knowledge-architecture.com.

Agenda Item #3: Action Items

As you work through the agenda, we recommend that you build a list of action items in real-time. When assigning ownership to the action items, the general rule of thumb is that anything content related should be owned by the content owner, whereas you should own anything related to intranet administration.

Before you close, schedule an ECR follow-up meeting with the content owner.

Step 5 - ECR Follow-Up

The ECR Follow-Up meeting serves two purposes:

• It is an opportunity for you to report back to the content owner that your tasks are complete, and

• It is an opportunity for the content owner to share what action items s/he has completed and collaborate with you real-time on any obstacles encountered.

If the content owner has not completed his/her tasks, just having the meeting serves as a gentle reminder of what is outstanding.

Final Thoughts

We hope this process will support you in keeping a systematic approach to essential content maintenance. If you are following this process (or have your own), we would love to hear how it is going for you. You can reach out to your dedicated Client Success Manager by emailing support@knowledge-architecture.com.

The Essential Content Review was first crafted at AKF Group and then beta tested by fellow community members. We would like to extend our gratitude to: Shannon Kaplan, AKF Group; Shelly VandeWege, GMB; Tony Balistreri, GRAEF; Laurie Anderson, HGA; Devin Campbell, OZ Architecture; Krystal Modigell, RS&H; Zirah McGrath, RS&H.

Internal Communications for Practice Area, Department, and Firmwide Initiative Leaders

Is improving internal communications by practice area, department, and/or firmwide initiative leaders a priority for your AEC firm? Great! This page is for you.

Our clients told us that firm leaders would like some examples to help visualize the art of the possible. We answered this call by researching three questions:

1. What are leaders posting about?

2. What are some best-in-class post examples?

3. What makes these posts so great?

Our research culminated in the creation of three slide decks. Each slide deck targets a specific type of leader (practice area, department, or firmwide initiative), and shares common topics, along with example posts and tips for creating great posts. You can find each slide deck below.

---

Practice Leaders

---

Department Leaders

---

Initiative Leaders

---

Want to learn more?

Of course, there is a lot more to supporting internal communications than sharing a few examples. In fact, our Client Success team has devised an entire playbook that shares best practices that have worked at other AEC firms. If you are not already partnering with your Client Success Manager on your internal communications efforts, we encourage you to reach out by emailing support@knowledge-architecture.com.

Streamline Your Operations with the Essential Content Checklist

Clients often ask us, “what content is essential to a successful intranet?”

Because we have built over 120 intranets for architecture, engineering, and construction firms over the last seven years using Synthesis, Knowledge Architecture is uniquely positioned to answer this question.

We find that this question typically arises when a firm is either:

1. Preparing for the launch of a new intranet, or

2. Conducting a content audit of an existing intranet

Both of these events provide an opportunity to step back and evaluate how your intranet can give employees what they need, when they need it. Our Essential Content Checklist will help you do just that.

What is Essential Content?

We designed the Essential Content Checklist to answer the question: “what intranet content will help streamline operations, thus saving time and creating a better employee experience?”

Essential Content comprises the policies, procedures, templates, forms, standards, documentation, how-tos, and FAQs you need to run your AEC firm. Your corporate operating system, if you will.

Essential Content is content that every employee should have access to, regardless of their role. The departments that manage essential content typically include marketing, human resources, finance/accounting, operations, and information technology.

By placing this content on the intranet, you streamline operations and empower employees to self-service.

Ready to Start Streamlining Operations?

#1: Decide Which Checklist to Use

Essential Content Checklist: Intranet Implementation Edition

Essential Content Checklist: Intranet Audit Edition

#2: Customize the List

The checklist represents a master list of content often found on AEC intranets. The list serves as a starting place. We chose the excel format, so you can easily add or delete rows, based on your firm’s unique needs.

#3: Start Executing

Intranet Implementation:
a) Migrate essential content to your new intranet.
b) Track updates in the Essential Content Checklist.

Intranet Audit:
a) Test the findability of the content on the checklist. Audit Tip: Enlist user(s) without deep knowledge of your intranet content to do some testing for best results.
b) Improve the essential content on your intranet.

#4: Don’t Do It Alone

Like all change initiatives, we recommend collaborating closely with your Intranet Sponsor, Community Managers, and end users, so the final product represents a shared vision that will best serve your firm.

Please feel free to contact us at support@knowledge-architecture.com if you are embarking on an audit. We’d love to talk through best practices that ensure your users have essential content at their fingertips.

Want to learn more?

Of course, there is a lot more to supporting essential content than creating a checklist. In fact, our Client Success team has devised an entire playbook that shares best practices that have worked at other AEC firms. If you are not already partnering with your Client Success Manager on your essential content efforts, we encourage you to reach out by emailing support@knowledge-architecture.com.

Establishing a Firmwide Q+A Program Using Synthesis

In this article you’ll learn…

5 Benefits of a Q+A Program
3 Key Roles in a Q+A Program
9 Steps to Roll Out a Q+A Program at Your Firm

“If you can teach people to help themselves you get an additive effect: they not only help each other; they grow themselves as experts. Essentially, you have little experts pop up left and right and they sort of grow on their own. Over time, you raise people up from basic competency towards expert level.” — Jack Chaffin, LMN Architects.

Four years ago LMN Architects hired Jack Chaffin to lead the firm’s transition from CAD-based MicroStation to Revit. They knew they had an expert to guide the process because he’d led similar transitions twice before. Jack’s expertise met such a critical need that after a short while, Jack found that “help desk issues were taking up an increasingly larger portion of [his] energy; taking focus away from other strategic activities” related to the transition.

When it comes to this problem, LMN is not alone. According to research published by Rob Cross, Reb Rebele, and Adam Grant in HBR, “up to a third of value-added collaborations [in any organization] come from only 3% to 5% of employees.” As a result, often the people who are most in demand (those with the answers) are becoming increasingly over-taxed by the burden of responding to requests for their expertise. The really scary thing is that in most organizations leadership doesn’t even know who their top collaborators are. As many as 50% of an organization’s top collaborators can’t even be identified by the organization.

Enter a Q+A program. Increasingly, we’re seeing more and more firms successfully implement formal Q+A programs inside Synthesis to identify and activate subject matter experts. We’ve learned from firms like LMN, brainstormed what this looks like at previous Synthesis Workshops, and shared some successful programs through our Office Hours webinar series. In this article we’re going to share the benefits of a Q+A program along with some of the roles and steps necessary to roll one out in your firm.

5 Benefits of a Q+A Program

We’ve identified 5 business reasons to establish a Q+A program in Synthesis:

1. Questions and answers become more visible to the entire organization.Instead of having a question get answered over and over again dozens of times, it has the potential to be answered once and made visible to everyone.

2. Improve knowledge flow. Improving the flow of knowledge between knowledge seekers and knowledge providers is a fundamental objective of every AEC Knowledge Management Program.

3. Identify latent experts. When employees answer questions online they provide clues about expertise they’ve built which their colleagues may not otherwise be aware of.

4. Better answers. Crowdsourcing improves answers. After all, everyone knows more than anyone. An online Q+A program exposes questions to a broader audience and invites other knowledgeable experts into the conversation.

5. Prevent expert burnout. Reduce information burden on the top collaborators by encouraging any employee with expertise to participate in the Q+A process.
 

3 Key Roles in a Q+A Program

In our experience, the most successful Q+A Programs establish three pivotal roles within their firm:

1. Intranet Champion. The Intranet Champion is responsible for managing the plan to introduce the Q+A Program, recruiting key players, and dividing up the work. After roll out, the Intranet Champion is responsible for evolving the program’s guidelines and Service Level Agreement (SLA) in response to organizational changes.

2. First Responder. First Responders are both subject matter experts and knowledge brokers. If they don’t know the answer, they usually know who does and will connect the Asker to the appropriate resource. The First Responder(s) are responsible for making sure that the Q+A Program’s SLA is met. They will subscribe to email notifications for new posts to the Question Hashtag so that they’re proactively notified when questions are asked.

3. Asker. Askers are the keystone to every successful Q+A Program. They are responsible for using the program’s guidelines to ask questions in such a way that Answerers (including, but not limited to, First Responders) will be able to assist them as quickly as possible. Through their well-formed questions, Askers are the folks who activate the firm’s knowledge.

9 Steps to Roll Out a Q+A Program at Your Firm

With a little help from the KA Advance community, we’ve identified nine key steps to successfully roll out a Q+A program. Let’s take a look at each one:

1. Identify Topics
The most successful programs start with a tangible topic that’s not too broad nor too narrow. We’ve seen successful Q+A programs built around the following topics:

• Professional Practice. Questions about Constructability, Detailing, Materials, Codes, etc.

• Design Technology. Questions about software like Revit, Rhino, Grasshopper, Civil3D, ArcGIS, etc.

• General Business Operations. Questions about Standards, Policies, Benefits, Go-To People, Vendors, Consultants, etc.

2. Establish Question Hashtag(s)
Many Question Hashtags are formatted as #Ask followed by the subject, or the #Subject followed by the word “Help.” For example, #AskRevit or #RevitHelp.

Many broadly defined or open-ended topics are formatted as #Ask followed by the name of your Intranet or #Ask followed by the name of your company. For example, #AskFinch (where Finch is the Intranet’s name) or #AskShepleyBulfinch (where Shepley Bulfinch is the company’s name).

3. Identify First Responders
After selecting the right topic, the most critical step towards success is selecting the right First Responders.

Referring to the role responsibilities above, look for subject matter experts who have an interest in sharing their experience, growing their knowledge, or facilitating knowledge flow on a particular topic. These experts are generally already unofficial knowledge brokers in your organization and will likely benefit personally and professionally from a more formalized role as a First Responder.

The most successful First Responders are those who care deeply about building organization knowledge in their professional practice area. These First Responders will make sure questions get answered because they’re personally invested in increasing the accessibility of this knowledge in your organization.

4. Establish Question Guidelines
Essentially, in this step you’re establishing the rules for the road. How will you activate questions and answers within the community? While this process is best done in collaboration with your First Responders, here are some example guidelines you can use to get started:

• Search first. The answer may already be out there.

• Ask questions on the Intranet. You build your firm’s knowledge base by making questions visible to everyone.

• Ask in the form of a question. Encourage everyone to get their Alex Trebek on by structuring subject lines as questions. For example, the subject line “Do we have a Fume Hood Revit Family?” works a whole lot better than “Fume Hood”.

• Subject lines matter. Make sure questions are clear and concise. Use keywords in the subject line to make them more scannable in the activity stream, easier to read in email notifications, and more discoverable via search.

• Use “Q:”. Use a simple prompt as a subject line lead-in is an effective way to make it easy for scanners to find questions. For example,“Q: Do you have boilerplate language for improving IAQ in Lab Buildings?”.

• Write for scanners, not readers. Structure your post by putting the ask up front, then provide the details. You don’t want folks to have to read four paragraphs to understand what exactly you are asking for.

• Be specific. Consider using a simple structure like this one, “I need ____ from _____ within ____ so I can ____.”.

• Use @Mentions in answers. This will help bring relevant people into the conversation.

• Anyone can ask or answer. Make sure everyone knows the Q+A program is a place for everyone to participate, not just subject matter experts.

• Close the loop. Ensure that Askers understand that it’s their responsibility to close the loop on their question, even if the answer was found offline.

5. Establish a Service Level Agreement (SLA)

In this step, you want to make sure that your First Responders have clarity on what’s expected of them. Ideally, you’ll develop your SLA together. Here is an example SLA used by several KA Advance members:

• Timely responses. At least one response to each question within 12 business hours.

• No orphaned posts. At least one answer for every question (even if it’s incomplete).

6. Prepare Synthesis for Rollout
There are a couple things you should do to prepare your Intranet for the Q+A program rollout:

• Retag existing posts. Search the Intranet and find any existing questions you can use as models for the behavior you’re looking to have adopted and tag them with your Question Hashtag via a comment or in Stream Administration.

• Use a soft launch. Start using the Question Hashtag with early adopters who will quickly catch on to what you’re doing and socialize it across the firm on your behalf.

7. Create a Communications Plan
You need to have a clear plan in place to communicate your new Q+A program across the firm. Here are some typical elements of an effective communications plan for a Q+A program:

• Announce the new Question Hashtag. Clarify the goals of your program with this first announcement.

• Communicate the role of First Responders. Make sure your First Responders know exactly what’s expected of them to make the Q+A program successful.

• Communicate Question Guidelines. Use the Question Guidelines you developed in Step 4 to provide examples of what effective questions look like in Synthesis.

• Communicate your Service Level Agreement. Make sure both your First Responders’ and Askers’ expectations are aligned.

8. Train First Responders
Before you launch the Q+A program you’ll want to reaffirm exactly what’s expected of the initiative’s key players and give them the tools to be successful. You should meet with your First Responders to:

• Reaffirm program goals.

• Review Question Guidelines.

• Review your Service Level Agreement.

• Review your Communications Plan.

• Guide First Responders through subscribing to email notifications for the Question Hashtag.

• Advise First Responders to redirect Askers to ask questions on the Intranet when possible.

9. Rollout
With all the difficult planning work behind you, you’re ready to launch your Q+A Program! All that’s left now is to:

• Execute your Communications Plan.

• Monitor the stream. Keep an eye out for orphaned posts and open questions; essentially you’re monitoring how your First Responders are performing.

• Tag new questions. If Askers forget to use the Question Hashtag, take the time to post a reminder in the Comments. If the problem persists, schedule training (be it 1:1 or in a group if the behavior is widespread).

• Decommission alternate channels. Rake away access to alternate Q+A channels like email distribution groups.

Want to learn more?

Of course, there is a lot more to supporting a Q+A program than reading a blog post. In fact, our Client Success team has devised an entire playbook that shares best practices that have worked at other AEC firms. If you are not already partnering with your Client Success Manager on your Q+A program efforts, we encourage you to reach out by emailing support@knowledge-architecture.com.