Creating a terrible intranet seems to be a goal for some organizations. In fact, I’ve experienced so many awful intranets that I’ve decided to share a few ways that some businesses have completely ruined theirs.

If for some reason you decide to create a really good intranet, simply do the exact opposite of all this.

1. Make it content heavy. Forget about people, if you want to destroy your intranet, add layers and layers of heavy documentation. Don’t include any photos either; especially of employees.

2. Make it impossible to use. Don’t use any content management tools, but instead rely on complicated coding to edit or add information.

3. Build it internally. Ignore those turnkey cloud platforms. If you want to ruin your intranet, be sure to start first with a costly in-house build.

4. Dismiss it. If you really want to destroy your intranet complain to anyone who will listen that your intranet is just “one more tool that gets in the way of productivity.” Tell others that like a fax machine, the intranet is just a phase.

5. Make navigation as frustrating as possible. Break the back button with every link and use complicated file paths.

6. Never update it. Keep those Christmas pictures up till at least April and be sure the last update on quarterly sales figures is from last year.

7. Continue to use other outdated tools. That old file sharing tool worked well for many years, so continue to take items like phone lists off of there. When another employee asks for a phone list, send them the link to this tool to keep it alive.

8. Exclude half your employees. Those quiet introverted people in Accounting don’t have people skills, so surely they don’t even want to be included in any collaborative activities. And those outdoor city workers have never even visited head office, so why give them access?

9. Make it overly social. Let it interfere with getting your work done. Use your intranet to share innappropriate jokes and to rant about about how much you despised yesterday’s marketing meeting.

10. Don’t tell anyone it is there. Finally, if you really want to ensure your intranet is ruined, don’t tell anyone it is there. Don’t bring it up in meetings, and don’t mention it the next time someone complains that they don’t understand what’s going on in the company, or that they don’t know who does what.