Hopefully one of your considerations in building an intranet takes the company’s collaboration, communication and documentation maturity level into consideration so you can adjust the complexity level and adoption plan accordingly.

A great way to do this, is to look at the company’s telephone list.

Check out the formatting, consistency, accuracy; ask how it’s compiled and disseminated.  It’s an almost faultless way to pick up how complex you can make their system.  The more of a mess it is, the easier you have to go on them.

Sound too simple to be true?  Test the theory… 🙂