While seemingly the obvious candidate for the structure of the intranet, an organizational chart actually works against the collaboration the intranet is meant to foster. An organizational chart can't help employees from the marketing and legal departments collaborate on bringing a document through the approval process. It won't allow employees from marketing and research and development to work together to create a new product. Thinking of the intranet as a tool means understanding the intranet as more than a collection of documents. While important, documents are usually a means to an end.
People use documents to complete tasks.
Tasks include fulfilling orders, looking up a customer's billing history, or collaborating on a research document. To complete these tasks, people need to have related documents and tools close at hand. The principal of organizing by task can be demonstrated by the example of working at a desk. Similarly, on the corporate intranet, the tasks of the users rather than the classification of documents or tools, should dictate the organization of the intranet. Organizing documents within the context of tasks also focuses employees on the function of the documents they are working with.