Knowledge Management Is Not Just About Document Repositories

When I ask people how they acquire the knowledge they need to do their jobs they describe a huge variety of approaches that work for them, including working with other people, attending training, reading books and blogs, watching videos, trial and error, being mentored and more.

When I ask IT management what tools and techniques they use in their knowledge management programs they often just describe tools that are used for managing and sharing documents. If our knowledge management efforts are focussed on this very limited view then we will never equip our people with the knowledge they need to be effective and efficient.

If we remember that knowledge only has value when it is available to someone, either because they remember it or because they are guided towards it at the time they need it, then that can help us to understand what knowledge management needs to achieve. It’s much more than just storing documents in a repository.

When you create a knowledge management programme, you should focus on achievable outcomes that will generate some short term value that you can then build on. Don’t start with an enormous over-arching programme that will take years to implement and even longer to create value. It’s good to think about the entire scope of where you may want to be in the long term, but make sure that you have manageable steps to get there and that each step has measureable ROI.

One place that many organizations start to implement knowledge management is at the service desk. If your service desk people have the right knowledge then they can work more efficiently, and they can also deliver more value to your users. This great combination of improved efficiency and greater quality is a common result of good knowledge management.

So what is needed to improve the knowledge of your service desk people? Maybe you could start by talking to them. Understand what they find difficult, what kinds of mistakes they make, what knowledge they think would be useful to them. Make sure you think about things beyond technical knowledge. What do they know about how the business works and what the users do? Is this enough to help them communicate well? Research how other organizations do knowledge management, at a minimum you should investigate

Think about all the different tools and techniques you could use to help your people develop the knowledge they need. Some of the things that you might consider include:

• A known error database integrated with your service desk tool
• A document repository such as SharePoint
• Face-to-face or online training
• Webinars, podcast, YouTube videos and other on-demand media
• Forums and social media that can be used to ask and answer questions – in-house or external
• Mentoring or coaching
• Directory of subject matter experts to enable people to find someone that can help when needed
• Newsletters, emails and other mass communication channels
• Access to “sandpit” environments where they can experiment with the software and hardware that the users have – this is especially useful if there is a planned change so they can familiarize themselves before the users get new or updated applications

Once you have understood what knowledge is needed you should be able to identify one or more of the above tools and techniques to make this knowledge available when and where it is needed. Remember that different people learn in different ways and you shouldn’t force everyone to use the same approach.

It is important to think about how you can measure the effectiveness of your knowledge management efforts, and how you can use these measurements to facilitate continual improvement of knowledge management – both the process and the actual content. Then when you have created effective knowledge management for your service desk you can identify the next area of IT that could benefit from this approach.

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