Knowledge Management

ITIL defines Knowledge Management as the one central process responsible for providing knowledge to all other IT Service Management processes. The process overview of ITIL Knowledge Management (see figure below) shows the key information flows.

The main purpose of the knowledge management process in ITIL is to share different ideas, perspectives, experiences, and information. It also has to ensure that these are available at the right place and at the right time in order to allow informed decisions to be made. It helps to improve efficiency by decreasing the necessity to rediscover knowledge.

Knowledge Management is a process inside the service transition stage of the service lifecycle, with its purpose being to:

• share information, ideas and experience
• make knowledge of the organization available to those who need it, when they need it, in order to support decision making
• eliminate the need to rediscover the knowledge

source: IT Process Maps

Basic Concepts of Knowledge Management

• Data: It is a set of discrete facts
• Information: It arises from providing context to the data.
• Knowledge: It is composed of experience, values, ideas, insights, values, and judgements of an individual.
• Wisdom: It makes use of knowledge to create value through correct and well informed decisions.

Implementing Knowledge Management As in implementing Service Management practices, such as ITIL, the vast majority of organizations start with implementing Incident Management first. It’s the perfect place to start implementing Knowledge Management as well. Operational staff gathers and produces an enormous amount of data every day.

But, the data they gather is not useful in and of itself, and operational staff usually don’t understand the importance of the data they handle, or in rare cases they do – they record it in their own, personal notebooks. In order to make use of that data, you should understand the DIKW model shown in Figure above; data is just a set of facts, information is data within context, knowledge is information processed by human experience and understanding, and wisdom is when you can make informed decisions.

Based on this information, now we know that Incident Management is a great place for data and even information gathering. This information has to be collected in an organized and structured manner, processed before it can be processed. This is where Problem Management kicks in (you may want to read some of our great articles about it: ITIL Problem Management: getting rid of problems, ITIL and ISO 20000 Problem Management – Organizing for problem resolution, and ITIL Reactive and Proactive Problem Management: two sides of the same coin).

Problem Management takes information about past incidents and events, vendor information, industry best practices and other information, and uses it in order to find and eliminate incident root causes, or to implement workarounds. This process transforms data into information, and then into knowledge, which is only the first step. Now we need to pass back that knowledge to the ones who need it, in order to make use of it. We need to make it available.

While this is just an example, please understand that the Known Error Database (KEDB) produced by Problem Management is not the Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS) itself, but only a part of it.

Knowledge Management Activities

Below are the core activities that a knowledge manager must engage to achieve their goal of enabling knowledge-sharing throughout the organization.

• Knowledge Management Strategy: Knowledge Management begins with data capture, and any effort to capture data requires strategic planning to determine what data will be collected, how that will be achieved, and the expected business benefit. Organizations should establish a Knowledge Management strategy that describes the kinds of information they would like to capture and how they expect the organization to benefit.
• Knowledge Transfer: The ideal knowledge manager can proactively identify knowledge gaps within the company, which occur when a person or department needs some kind of knowledge or wisdom that they do not have access to. Knowledge managers may develop a communication or transfer plan to communicate the knowledge where it is needed, or they might simply make the resources available for persons in the department to access the knowledge when required.
• Information Management: Information management is a significant portion of the role of any knowledge manager. Knowledge managers must collect data, define the architecture of the SKMS that will develop that data into something usable, and continually improve the processes and procedures for the use of the SKMS.
• The Function of the SKMS: The effectiveness of the SKMS is the ultimate measure of the effectiveness of a knowledge manager. When customers require tech support at a time of the day when the service desk is not available, the SKMS should serve as a reliable knowledge base where they can access any documented information the organization has collected that might pertain to the issue. Knowledge managers control the development of the SKMS and try to make it user-friendly for customers.

The Benefits of Knowledge Management

By implementing knowledge management practices in the workplace, IT managers can improve their teams and provide better service. Consider these benefits:

• Decreases the amount of time that must be spent on training employees. Since your team will constantly receive accurate and up-to-date information, they will require fewer formal training sessions to continue to meet and exceed performance expectations.
• Reduces the number of errors that are made by team members. If your team has the knowledge that they need to make decisions, they are far less likely to make mistakes.
• Reduces the need to complete steps in the service process more than once. When everyone is informed about the process, it is less likely that a step will be performed incorrectly. By implementing knowledge management, you give your team the power to reduce service process time by eliminating the need to repeat steps.
• Allows IT professionals to respond to customer needs faster and more effectively. Your employees will know how to answer customer questions more often, so you will not have to intervene or respond to negative feedback about team members’ lack of knowledge.