Just a rough sketch
- choose applications: discussions, announcements, manage info, manage documents
choose server: Like MSIIS WebProgramming
- choose database, SQL Server is a good choice
- generate content: Using Front Page works well, Python XML libraries, libraries to generate HTML
generate navigation buttons: GraphicsAndImages
- test: urllib, htmllib, xmlrpc
- use Python to automate deployment, testing, documentation
- ????
- Profit!
Well, the above looks like been written by and for "Microsoft people".
A potentially more stable and definitely more free way to build an intranet is like that:
- choose applications: discussions, announcements, manage info, manage documents
- choose server and OS: Apache on Linux
generate content: use a wiki engine like MoinMoin (it is like that thing you are looking at right now)
teach yourself and people to do it the WikiWay
- just use it - you will see that you can do LOTS of things with that setup without needing to extend it.