How do you handle internal systems development?

Question

We regularly convince our clients of the values of having a good quality intranet and systems, but within my organisation it doesn't seem that we're "eating our own dogfood".

We have really lacklustre intranet systems - a hastily thrown together sharepoint install that no one really oversees. An additional cobbled-together legacy intranet system that's been dragged "into" sharepoint by loading it in frames.

The general approach is that the senior developers are "too valuable" to waste on internal development, so responsibility for these systems falls to the least qualified, the work experience guys, etc. At least until they're found more lucrative work, and shipped off to a client. Hence the cobbled-together nature of our systems.

It's very much a case of the mechanic driving a shoddy car.

So how do you handle it? How can I convince management to spend effort on our internal systems?

Or is it actually that within a tech company that it's not worth it? Are high-quality systems only required for non-technical users?

Answer 1

The best choice is adopting common Internet structures, such as blogs and wikis. Wikis, in particular, are very effective.

Having some kind of karma system can also be useful. Many people will do for status what they wouldn't do for money.

Answer 2

Do it the same way that you convince the clients. Show the business value of the investment. If that can't be done, then it would be a waste of resources.