When should you "do" the home page?

Interesting discussion on Peter Van Dijck's Guide to Ease blog where Peter, in reaction to an article by Iain Barker on James Robertsons's (StepTwo) blog says "starting with the homepage is the fast lane to political-hell." Here's Iain's full article.

My two cents:
1. The home page can't be redesigned on its own, nor can it be the starting point since it's the culmination of the rest.

2. The type of home page needed (i.e. balance between news; navigational stuff - links, primary navigation, quick links; strategic stuff; space allocated for customisation; space allocated for personalisation; and so on) depends on where the organisation is at ....

• culturally (e.g. is it trying to consolidate a shared vision after acquisitions or is the company culture strong and fairly unified?)
• strategically (e.g. has top management decided to strongly decentralise responsibility and budgets or are they moving towards more central control?)
• technically (e.g. is it possible to let users personalise on an individual basis? an it be customised for identified groups of users? can users be identified at log-in and get a country-specific page? does local IT determine the default home page?)

I was delighted to see that Iain's article triggered so much discussion - thanks Peter and James!
As an external consultant, I might add that "starting with the homepage is the fast lane to losing your job!" because it's real dynamite in most organisations - you've got to know your way around before you'll know how to best deal with the homepage.

I don't mean you should base your recommendations on what the organisation wants or thinks, but you'll know what arguments to use when presenting your recommendations. As the French would say, you'll know which "angles d'attaque" will work best.

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