Knowledge Management - what it is and how & why you should do it

[Tommy SN Sahlin]

Hi friends,

a while back I wrote an article on LinkedIn about Knowledge Management and KCS. I would really appreciate your feedback, both positive and negative!

thanks in advance  /Tommy

Knowledge Management - what it is and how & why you should do it

According to Gartner, there are around 1.5 billion computers in use in the world today.

There are no statistics (that I am aware of) regarding how many things may go wrong with each of these machines, or how many potential issues each user may need support for. Imagine if IT support staff had to start from scratch every single time somebody needed help – how many support analysts would that require, worldwide?

With a structured and ongoing Knowledge Management approach, this can be decimated by enormous degrees, by sharing, reusing and refining knowledge.

This article attempts to cover some basic Knowledge Management definitions, concepts and practices.

What is Knowledge Management, anyway?

According to Wikipedia, Knowledge Management (KM) is “the process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization” (and if anyone should know what Knowledge Management is all about, I guess it’s Wikipedia).

KCS® (Knowledge-Centered Service) is the recognized best practice methodology for Knowledge Management. Development began in 1992 by the Consortium for Service Innovation, a non-profit alliance of service organizations. KCS is intended to go hand in hand with ITIL, which doesn’t mention Knowledge Management very much. 

Olof's Black Books – KM for cavemen

My dad Olof worked as a DBA (look it up) in the IT division of a large industrial organization from the late 60's until his retirement in the mid-90's. Everything he did way back then in the IT stone age - data modeling, enhancements, incident handling, problem solving, workarounds, tricks - he wrote down in pencil in an expanding series of black notebooks that lived in the department bookshelf and were referred to as "Olof's Black Books". When asked why he devoted so much effort to documenting what he did, he answered "I might get hit by a bus or decide to become a photographer".

Whenever someone new was hired, or someone in their vast department was technically stumped or hit a dead-end, they were advised to leaf through "Olof's Black Books". This was way before communities, forums, searchable knowledge bases etc. existed. Hell, it was way before the Internet existed. But in essence, it was a Knowledge Management initiative that saved their department countless (and never counted) hours.

Recycling is all the craze

We are all constantly, in every aspect of society, trying to recycle everything.

The same should certainly go for knowledge. Recycling and refining information, and transforming it into reusable and available knowledge, is what Knowledge Management is all about.

The Knowledge Management journey IS the destination

At the heart of any KCS-driven Knowledge Management initiative is the UFFA culture (Use it, Flag it, Fix it, Add it), which drives the "Solve and Evolve" loop:

• Use it: if a Knowledge Article is used to resolve an issue, it should be linked to the issue. Every time.
• Flag it: If something is incorrect, outdated or unclear with a Knowledge Article, it should be flagged. Every time.
• Fix it: If a Knowledge Article has been flagged, it should promptly be fixed by the appropriate person. Every time.
• Add it: if an issue gives no search results, a new Knowledge Article should be added to the Knowledge Base. Every time.

Mindset: Knowledge is organically created and refined as a by-product of solving issues.

The flagstones of your Knowledge Management initiative should be: easy to contribute, easy to find, easy to use, easy to update.

A healthy Knowledge Management initiative and culture will result in a living, breathing Knowledge Base that evolves over time. An unhealthy one won't. Technology is a cornerstone and an enabler, but is much less important than culture.

Just-in-time over Just-in-case

Create Knowledge based on actual need. Don't waste resources premeditating.

Many times, FAQ doesn't mean "Frequently Asked Questions", it means "Favorite Asked Questions". Creation and review should instead be demand-driven, based on KCS principles.

Don't spend loads of resources and time creating tons of knowledge articles for a new service release - with the exception of UAT (User Acceptance Testing) - capture all feedback during user testing and turn it into knowledge articles. These are going to be the same questions asked by the end users when the service goes into production.

Usability over Presentability

It doesn't have to be fancy and perfectly structured - it just has to be “good enough” – in other words be understandable, available, and solve the issue. In a healthy Knowledge Management culture, structure and clarity will evolve over time.

•  First, capture and share.
• Then, refine and optimize.
• Thereafter, expand delivery and exposure.

Keep it fresh

Treat your Knowledge Base like you (hopefully) treat your refrigerator. Keep it freshly stocked with what you need, use and reuse what’s in there, and if it gets too old and unusable then get rid of it before (or when) it gets rotten.

• Add everything that is new and useful.
• Update knowledge on the fly as reality changes.
• Consolidate similar or duplicate knowledge.
• Retire junk.
• Actively and promptly handle any feedback and flagged articles.
• Refine, simplify and clarify existing knowledge as it is consumed - great information is useless if it is not understood by the receiver.

People come, people go

New employees typically have tons of things they need to learn in order to get up to speed and become productive, regardless of what their new job function consists of. A good, clear knowledge base is one of the best tools they can hope for to be able to hit the ground running.

Your onboarding process should also actively encourage new employees to document initial questions, feedback and impressions in your Knowledge Base. New eyes will see and notice things that older eyes won't.

Furthermore, more experienced employees have a tendency to switch positions, leave, die, retire or stop caring. In any of these cases, the organization loses their tacit knowledge unless it is captured, documented and made searchable and useable.

Searching is important, finding is importanter

Promote active searching. Introduce and enforce the mandatory mantra “always search, every time”. Discourage the creation and usage of link hubs and saved bookmarks, which will go stale in no time, and will keep your users from searching and finding new knowledge – there might be new solutions for old problems.

Define your KM content standard in a way that maps to the processes it supports, and/or places demands on adjustments within those processes. For example, if Incident Description is used as search criteria, your Knowledge Article Titles should be written and formulated in the same way, based on the same content standard. Your content standard should be your Bible regarding how your business processes should interact with your Knowledge Management process.

Likewise, ensure that the categorization methods for your knowledge base are in alignment with the processes it supports, so that your users are “looking in the right place”. Think of what happens in a library if you take a random book off a shelf, and stick it somewhere in the opposite shelf – that book will most likely never be found again; it is lost forever.

Make sure you have processes, tools and routines in place that let you know if your users aren't finding what they're looking for. Regularly investigate and analyze search behavior and patterns, as a basis for tweaking search engine functionality and optimization, knowledge article titles, keywords, synonyms, categorizations etc. to ensure that everything is consistent, up to date and relevant.

If you want it to grow, someone has to water it

When a Knowledge Management program is implemented, everyone in the organization needs to contribute and participate. However, once the initial rollout is completed, the process must be actively maintained in order to continue to evolve and not go stale. If everyone is responsible, no one is responsible. A dedicated KM team is essential in leveraging, monitoring and maintaining the usage and evolution of your Knowledge Management initiative.

Artificial Intelligence needs intelligence to be intelligent

What do you think makes AI intelligent? It all comes back to predictions and assumptions, based on - you guessed it - a constantly evolving Knowledge Base. Your AI, chatbots and Virtual Support Agents will never be smarter than the Knowledge Base they leverage, regardless of the flashy technology. You won't be able to provide better answers by buying a snazzier suit. The core component is still the content.

Shift Left - Shift Out

 Shift Left is the concept of transferring knowledge from Backline to Frontline.

Shift Out is the concept of transferring knowledge from Frontline to the End User.

This is a journey, evolution, maturity path, that happens in a number of gradual steps:

• Evolution Step 1: Frontline share Knowledge amongst themselves, Backline share Knowledge amongst themselves.
• Evolution Step 2: Appropriate Knowledge moves from Backline to Frontline.
• Evolution Step 3: Knowledge needs are communicated from Frontline to Backline, and are responded to.
• Evolution Step 4: Appropriate Knowledge moves from Frontline to End User.
• Evolution Step 5: Knowledge needs are communicated from End User to Frontline, and are responded to.
• Evolution Step 6: Let the End Users help each other.
• Evolution Step 7: Automate the End User’s Knowledge and Resolution needs.

When to go Self-service

A simple Knowledge Management rule of thumb says: When 50% of your internal Knowledge Base solves 50% of your incidents, you are about ready to start considering sharing appropriate knowledge directly with your end users. Do not go Self-service with Knowledge Bases too soon. End users are like hummingbirds - if you lead them to your service portal and they can't find their way around and/or can't find what they're looking for, they will dislike the experience and never return.

Watch out for the KPIs

Almost every organization rewards volume of created articles. Don’t do that. Don't reward volume of created articles. Find other incentives that focus on knowledge usage and coverage. It's all about the usage and the coverage.

If you have aggressive Self-Service KPIs, be aware that the outcome of these will affect other KPIs, such as the traditional FCR (First Call Resolution) percentage. If Self-Service goes up, FCR will go down, since the end users will now be solving more of the quick & easy issues themselves. You need to evaluate your KPIs in context with each other.

What's the pay-off?

Recognizing Knowledge Management ROI can be volatile, since KM is not a pay-off in itself. The benefits will however show up in all the other processes it supports.

It's easier to identify costs than to identify savings. Knowledge Management is often described as the process of getting the right information to the right people at the right time in order to make the right decisions, which perhaps does not sound like something that can be easily measured.

There are however several tangible areas that can (and should) be measured or at least anticipated. Onboarding is one, time spent searching is another - according to an analysis by McKinsey, employees spend at least 20% of their time looking for information they need to do their jobs. Average resolution times will decrease, incident deflection will increase, as will customer satisfaction ratings. Measure them - measure them all, before and after the implementation of your KM initiative. You’ll see the difference.

Is Knowledge Management what your organization even wants?

Without genuine executive sponsorship, a long-term roadmap, trickle-down, recognition and follow-up, any Knowledge Management initiative will fail. The KM champions will become disillusioned and leave the organization. The remaining employees will then care less than they did before. Establishing, maintaining and developing a knowledge-sharing culture is a top-down initiative, which must be encouraged and prioritized on all levels.

Finally: it ain’t easy, it ain’t quick, it ain’t ever done – and it’s worth it

To summarize, KCS-driven Knowledge Management requires a cross-organizational commitment, a willingness to adopt a long-term initiative with both initial and ongoing investments in time, effort and budget, and a cultural mindset change at all organizational levels.

The benefits, however, are enormous, and on so many different levels – increased effectiveness and efficiency, consistency, automation, deflection, customer and employee satisfaction, and on and on. A successful Knowledge Management initiative will also enhance the general organizational quality and culture of sharing, whether it is realized via a full-blown KM application platform interacting with all other organizational processes, or via creating and reading penciled notes in some black books living in the department bookshelf.

[David Kay]

Nice work, Tommy!  You speak with the voice of experience. --David

[jaimehonaker]

LOVE LOVE LOVE reading things like this! Thanks Tommy! 

[shannont]

Love the simplicity you used in explaining the entertaining topic areas! Thanks for sharing.

[TristelleKervel]

Simple, efficient, and clear. Definitely useful! Thanks a lot for sharing!

[Lucas Vieites]

I absolutely agree with all your points, and that rarely occurs. Thank you for writing this article; I will be using it as a source of short pearls of wisdom to throw into my KM conversations from now on.

Thank you,

Lucas Vieites

[Pam Calvey]

Great article. A fresh way of describing the basics. 

[Tommy SN Sahlin]

Thanks very much @David Kay 🙂

[Tommy SN Sahlin]

Thanks very much @jaimehonaker 🙂

[Tommy SN Sahlin]

Thanks very much @shannont 🙂

[Tommy SN Sahlin]

Thanks very much @Tristelle Kervel 🙂

[Tommy SN Sahlin]

Thanks very much @Lucas Vieites 🙂 Yes, it is indeed very unusual that someone agrees with all my points! 😉

[Tommy SN Sahlin]

Thanks very much @Pam Calvey 🙂

[thomashansson]

I read your article on Linkedin, think it was in 2019. Reading it now again I observe in myself it works as a kind of checklist on what is working and what we need to improve in our KCS program. Thanks.

[Tommy SN Sahlin]

Thanks very much @thomashansson ! 🙂