The Bridgespan Group Intranet Project

Matt Medak (medak@mit.edu 617-437-7795) and Jae Kim (suprman@mit.edu 617-225-9624)

The Bridgespan Group is a not-for-profit strategic consulting firm whose clients are nonprofit organizations. The new intranet provides a single online location where Bridgespan consultants can share knowledge about their cases and ideas. Unlike their previous tool, which was a hard-to-navigate document repository, this site provides easy access to case-related information and allows consultants to easily share their knowledge online. The Bridgespan Group Intranet brings together the consultants and their knowledge in an online community that increases the efficiency of knowledge sharing.

Feature: Cases

The core feature of this site is the case management system. Users can use several methods to find the cases they are looking for. They can browse for cases based on program area, organizational form, issues addressed, and analyses. Cases can also be found by searching for any word that appears in the case memo.

Cases are displayed in an easy to read manner. Basic information about the cases is listed on top while the longer sections of the case memo are presented at the click of a button. Team members also have the option of attaching documents such as powerpoint presentations to the case memo. These documents are immediatly indexed and are included in the full-text search.

Feature: Discussion

The discussion area gives users an online channel through which they can share knowledge and seek it of others. Users can post questions in one of several topic areas or they can respond to previous questions and ideas. The discussion area is fully searchable allowing users to easily find questions of interest.

Other Features

Search: A search box is visible on every page in the menu bar. It provides full-text searching of all discussions and case memos, along with all documents attached to case memos.
Current Events: There is a list of current events on the front page which the site administrator can use to notify users of upcoming events.
Office Documents: There is a list of important office documents on the front page of the site.
People: The people page provides a directory of all users with their contact information.
My User Info: The My User Info page provides information about a single user, including what cases the person has been on and what discussion items they have posted.

Administrator Experience

The administrator is in charge of maintaining the site and can do so in five different ways:

Users: The administrator can add new users and edit the information of existing users.
Cases: The adminstrator is in charge of adding new case memos and is able to edit and delete existing case memos.
Discussion: The administrator can add new discussion topics, delete questions and responses, and view users posting history.
Search: The administrator can view the current statistics about the search index and rebuild it if necessary. He/She can also monitor which search terms are the most popular and which search terms have returned zero results.
Front Page: The administrator can add current events and documents to the front page of the site.