What it actually takes to make enterprise search work in your organization
By Nicholas LuiWhat it actually takes to make enterprise search work in your organization
Enterprise search rollouts fail when the system works, but behavior never changes.
Teams connect a few sources, announce a launch, and expect adoption to follow. Months later, people still ask the same questions in chat, reuse stale docs, and recreate work.
Plan for two tracks from day one:
Technology:
connectors, indexing, relevance tuning, and permission enforcement.
Operations:
scope, ownership, onboarding, and governance.
Set expectations early
A rollout has three milestones:
Launch:
people can access search, and permissions are correct.
Usefulness:
common questions return current, clear results.
Adoption:
search becomes the default way to find answers.
If leadership expects immediate value, define what “good” looks like in week one and month one. Make the timeline about trust, not completion.
Step 1: Audit your information architecture before you connect everything
Search will surface what already exists, including duplicates and outdated “final” files.
Start by mapping where knowledge lives and who owns it. Document what each source contains, who maintains it, and the failure modes you already see—duplicates, unclear titles, stale content. Then, fix the high-impact gaps before they become top results.
Step 2: Connect the surfaces that matter most
Notion's strength is pulling context from everywhere—docs, communications, work tracking—all in one search result.
Don't start by limiting. Start by connecting the three surfaces your teams depend on:
A primary docs surface.
A communication surface where context and links show up.
A system that tracks work status.
When these are wired together, search becomes intelligence, enabling faster iteration cycles.
Step 3: Prove permissions with tests
Permission leaks destroy trust.
Test with real role-based accounts and edge cases like private channels, link-shared files, and group shares. Confirm that the same query returns different results for different roles.
Step 4: Set governance before the first broad announcement
Define the operating model:
Who can add sources.
Who owns relevance feedback.
Who archives duplicates and marks a source of truth.
Search quality is a content ownership problem as much as a technical one.
Step 5: Pilot with the right people
A pilot should include:
Power users who know the current system.
Newer teammates who do not.
One or two high-stakes teams where wrong answers have real consequences.
Measure success with a simple question: “Can people answer common questions without a follow-up ping?”
Step 6: Treat onboarding as product work
Most people will not “discover” search.
Ship a short quick start with example queries. Provide one place to report quality issues. Repeat the basics after launch, when usage typically drops.
Step 7: Operate search like a system
Search quality drifts when content owners change, titles drift, and duplicates accumulate.
Set a recurring review of top queries and low-satisfaction queries. Fix the issues that block trust.
The practical takeaway
Enterprise search is an internal product rollout.
When ownership and governance are clear, the technology has a chance to matter. Visualize having information at your fingertips.
