The Chamber of Skilled Crafts South Westphalia is establishing a modern SharePoint-based intranet.

Initial situation: diversity of information without structure

As the central representative body for around 13.000 craft businesses in South Westphalia, the South Westphalia Chamber of Crafts combines a modern administration with a comprehensive vocational training center in Arnsberg. This organizational structure placed special demands on internal communication, because while the administrative staff were already confidently navigating the Microsoft 365 environment, many employees at the vocational training center previously had little digital involvement in this regard.
In reality, this meant communication via email, file sharing via file servers, and coordination by telephone. This resulted in a high level of effort, redundant document versions, and a lack of transparency in the flow of information.

From initial contact to structured project acceptance

The project began with a requirements workshop, which helped to flesh out the details. The project was implemented in two sprints: Kai Gräwe took the lead in the first sprint, handling change management and technical responsibilities. In the second sprint, Eilin Mersch, project manager at noventum, moderated the project and Fatih Kavuncu served as the technical contact. Both worked together as consultants and implementation partners for the South Westphalia Chamber of Crafts. The SWC project team consisted of IT manager Florian Fröhlich, HR officer Julia Schrade, Christin Schmitz from the “Marketing & Communication” department, and Fabian Bräutigam as part of the management team. These representatives from IT, HR, marketing, management, and the staff council worked with noventum consultants to define the initial requirements for SharePoint integration. The approach was based on agile principles: user stories were developed, personas were created, and a common vision for the new platform was outlined – taking into account the heterogeneous user groups within the organization. According to Eilin Mersch, project manager at noventum, “the genuine willingness of the SWC team to embrace change – openly, constructively, and with the firm goal of creating an intranet for everyone – supported the project and contributed significantly to the quick and successful go-live.”

Project approach: Participation on equal terms

The project was supported internally by a team of three key functions: Florian Fröhlich (IT management), Julia Schrade (human resources), and Christin Schmitz (marketing & communications) took on operational responsibility for implementation in consultation with the management. They coordinated project communication, participated in content design, and supported the introduction of the new system in the various organizational units.
To systematically involve employees, personas were developed that reflected different levels of experience and knowledge in using digital tools. These ranged from experienced administrative staff to skilled tradespeople at the training center. The results served as a basis for realistically identifying requirements and implementing them in a way that was appropriate for the target group.

Internal implementation, role clarity, and structural anchoring of the change process

A key factor in the success of the project was the early involvement of key users. These were selected from various areas of the Chamber of Crafts and received intensive support throughout both phases of the project. This enabled a decentralized responsibility structure to be established: the key users were to act as the first point of contact in their respective departments, clarify questions, and be able to take on simple editorial tasks independently. This created an important basis for anchoring the new intranet in the organization in the long term, not only as an IT project, but also as a collaborative system for internal corporate communication.

In a series of individual sessions, the key users were trained by the noventum consulting team directly on the system. The focus was not only on technical functions, but also on typical use cases from the respective work environment. This practical approach helped to reduce reservations and strengthen the confidence in the new system.
To provide guidance for editorial work, noventum developed a standardized page template in consultation with the HWC, which serves as a design and functional framework for all intranet areas. The template was presented on the basis of concrete customer examples – some from the noventum showroom, some from our own projects. This allowed the HWK project team to draw directly on proven layouts and navigation structures, which were then slightly adapted in terms of design and tailored to their own corporate identity.

Technical implementation and innovations summarized at a glance

The project resulted in:

• Area-specific intranet pages with uniform templates
• A central news section for the latest information
• Structured document libraries with metadata
• An AI-supported chatbot that helps employees navigate the system, answers questions, and links directly to relevant content
• Training materials and technical instructions for independent maintenance by key users

The intranet was launched under the name “Kam.IN”. This creative wordplay combines “Kammer-Intranet” (chamber intranet), “Come in,” and “Kamin” (fireplace) and was developed through an internal naming competition and presented via video communication.

Efficient, consistent, future-proof

The Chamber of Crafts went live with the intranet just five weeks after the project started, and it was well received by the organizational units. The solution was officially presented at two go-live events, both in the administrative area and in the vocational training center.

Kam.IN has since brought noticeable benefits:

• Significantly reduced email communication
• Clear, uniform information structures
• High user-friendliness thanks to recognition effects
• Departmental responsibility for content
• Innovative power through the integration of AI elements

Today, the intranet is a central source of information, a working tool, and, for both the Chamber of Crafts and us, an expression of a modern organizational culture. It is used by the entire workforce.