Knowledge Management - best practices for structure of KBs

[lisawalbrid]

We are just setting up Knowledge on our instance and how we have implemented in DEV so far is that we have four KBs: Self-help, Policies and Procedures, Tech Knowledge, and Training. All functional areas will have categories that feed into these KBs. This was done intentionally to reduce the silos that the organization is working to break down. However, everyone I talked to so far in ServiceNow has said that we should set up Knowledge with functional area KBs instead (HR, IT, etc.) and have self-help, policies, training, etc. be the categories. 

Our knowledge manager feels that setting it up to integrate our functions will be better for AI Search and will be better when we begin to use generative AI down the line. She said that we can control permissions at the category level and all the way to the article level if we want. 

I asked this question at Knowledge this past week and I was told that setting it up this way can be done, but it's not best practice because the permissions can put a strain on the system.

What are your experiences, thoughts, feedback on how we are setting it up? We are thinking of redoing what we implemented and setting it up by Functional Area KB like everyone is telling us is the 'right/best' way to do it. 

I couldn't find a Knowledge board or anything close, so I just picked one...

[Its_Azar]

Hi there @lisawalbrid 

I’ve seen both ways work, but in most KBs by functional area (HR, IT, Finance, etc.) tend to scale and govern better long term.

Your knowledge manager is right that integrated content helps AI Search/GenAI, but relying on category/article-level permissions can become difficult to maintain over time.

What usually works best:

• KBs by functional ownership/security boundary
• Categories for content type/topic
• Strong tagging/metadata for search and AI

but I’d be careful about using complex category-level permissions as the primary design strategy.

[lisawalbrid]

Thank you, Azar!

I'm curious why KBs by functional area scale better. Could you expand on that?

Lisa

[Tanushree Maiti]

Hi @lisawalbrid 

Refer this post: Do you have Best Practices for Structuring Knowledge Bases at Scale in Large, Complex Organizations 

Knowledge Base Best Practice 

[Vishal Jaswal · Accepted solution]

Hello @lisawalbrid 

I believe with a good amount of market research and analysis, ServiceNow recommendation is based upon simiplicity (simple and self understood names),  clear understanding and avoiding complexity.

The important point to notice here is that no one mentioned your model is unsupported or wrong rather in a way highlighted that it requires a strong governance. For example all of these Knowledge Bases you have created need a Knowledge Ownership group with specified group members who can be held accountable for it's governance and authenticity of all categories and KB Articles within.

In my point of view, you are heading to the right direction.