Augmenting Knowledge-Centered Support with Proactive Knowledge Management Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) is recognized as the set of knowledge management.

Augmenting Knowledge-Centered Support with Proactive Knowledge Management
Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) is recognized as the set of knowledge management (KM) best practices within service management. KCS complements ITIL by integrating knowledge management into incident management and problem management processes. While KCS success stories are growing in number, KCS is reactive knowledge management and should be augmented with proactive knowledge management. In this session, we will discover how to integrate knowledge management more deeply into problem and release management, learn how to augment KCS with proactive knowledge management, and identify ways to leverage the KCS foundation to implement proactive knowledge management. Rick will also share tips for selecting the knowledge that should be developed and creating troubleshooting trees. Session 803: Augmenting Knowledge-Centered Support with Proactive Knowledge Management

Rick Joslin HDI Executive Director, Certification & Training
Augmenting Knowledge-Centered Support with Proactive Knowledge Management Rick Joslin HDI Executive Director, Certification & Training Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.
The History of KCS Proprietor: Consortium for Service Innovation Non-profit alliance of customer service organizations focused on innovative ideas through collective thinking and experience Board of Directors have included support executives from Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Novell, and Oracle. KCS principles have evolved from work that began in 1992 Originated with a simple premise: to capture, structure, and reuse knowledge Evangelizer: HDI CSI partnered with HDI in 2003—the world's largest membership association for the service and support industry Made knowledge management best practices available through certification and training As the scope of services supported continues to grow in most organizations, the role and functions of the support center becomes increasingly complex. Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) is transforming the way in which support organizations do business. It is a methodology based on knowledge management best practices designed to enhance and evolve the support process. Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) has been developed by the Consortium for Service Innovation. The Consortium for Service Innovation is a non-profit organization of support executives from a number of companies. They meet regularly to explore new ways to enhance service management. They discuss ideas, share experiences, and work together to test theories. The Consortium’s work integrates academic research and emerging business trends with the members’ operational perspectives. The result is innovative operational models that improve the customers’ support experience. In 1992 they began working on a how to capture, structure, and reuse knowledge within the support center, also known as Knowledge Management. When these same executives were surveyed on how much they have invested in this pursuit, the numbers demonstrated a large ROI. In response to the needs of their membership, HDI began to search for best practices in Knowledge Management. In 2003, they discovered the results of the Consortium for Service Innovation. After evaluating the KCS methodology, HDI partnered with the Consortium for Service Innovation. They both endorse KCS and have produced a 3-day workshop on the subject. Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Knowledge-Centered Support (KCSSM) Practices
Leadership & Communications Performance Assessment Process Integration Content Health Evolve Capture Structure Reuse Improve Solve Knowledge Articles KCS is a service mark of the Consortium for Service Innovation Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Release and Deployment Management
Knowledge Management Reactive Proactive Your Knowledge Base Incident Management Release and Deployment Management Event Management Problem Management Request Fulfillment Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Reactive Knowledge Management
Promotes capturing an article at the time it is created and making the article available for reuse An article is created in response to a problem already occurring and being reported to the support center. Reactive knowledge management is also referred to as solution-centered support or knowledge-centered support. The Consortium for Service Innovation ( first introduced these terms in an attempt to educate support managers on the value of capturing and utilizing knowledge in the contact center. Reactive knowledge management promotes capturing a solution at the time it is created and making that solution available to the support center it won’t have to be re-created. We call this reactive because a solution is created in response to a problem already occurring and being reported to the support center. Let’s walk through the process in a little more detail. A customer contacts the support center asking how to insert a table in a Word document. The support analyst is unfamiliar with this feature and does not find an existing solution in the knowledge base. After researching the question, the analyst finds the answer, informs the customer and closes the case. Normally the analyst would then be available to take another call. Unfortunately the work—researching and developing a solution—would have been used once and then discarded. In reactive knowledge management, the analyst realizes that they have created a new solution—a company asset—and documents the new knowledge. Once the question and solution is documented, it becomes available for other analysts to reuse. Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Integrating Knowledge into Incident Management
Create Incident Search KB Solution Found? Solution Correct? USE IT Close Incident Research or Escalate FLAG IT / FIX IT ADD IT Yes No Solve It Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Release & Deployment Management
Building knowledge prior to its need Useful when a depth of knowledge is needed Forecast potential questions and problems before they occur and build a knowledge base of answers and resolutions in advance Think “IT Service Continuity Management” Invest now, just in case Minimize impact if it occurs An insurance policy Highlight proactive knowledge management is used to develop a knowledge base based on expected need. Sometimes depth of knowledge is desirable, such as for a new product launch where the questions could vary widely. This is where proactive knowledge management can provide value. The goal is to forecast the potential questions and problems before they occur and build the knowledge base of answers and solutions in advance. Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Leverage Your KCS Practices
Building new knowledge articles using: Content Standard Style Guide Knowledge Templates Quality Criteria Knowledge Monitoring KCS Competency Model Use Reactive Knowledge Management processes to enhance knowledge articles built through Proactive Knowledge Management Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Remember the Audience Learning Objective: Remember the Audience – the Golden Rule Classroom Discussion: Why is this so important? You should always remember who your audience is. This will help you determine the level of detail to include and the language that you can use. You should not tell a customer to “reinstall Windows” without providing the steps to accomplish this task. You may need to add screen shots or hypertext to provide more detail or to accommodate a less knowledgeable audience. Remember to keep screen shots small because of Internet performance. Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

How does it differ? Proactive Reactive Just in Case IT Context Developers, Knowledge Engineers, SMEs, Tech Writers Validated Published Just in Time Customer Context Support Center Analysts, Level 2 and Level 3 Support Technicians Experience Real time Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Reactive & Proactive Knowledge Management
Low cost of ownership Immediately Accessible Flexible Costs Learning Objective: Both reactive and proactive knowledge management methodologies add value and need to be utilized in your knowledge management practice. As with any new practice, you can choose to be either reactive or proactive. Both reactive and proactive knowledge management methodologies add value and need to be utilized in your knowledge management practice. By understanding how each methodology adds value, you can successfully implement the practices in your support center. After the project is implemented and the support center starts receiving cases, the reactive knowledge management process will be introduced to add new knowledge to the existing knowledge base. The new knowledge added should be directed to the knowledge engineers to validate the solutions and ensure consistent assembly of knowledge, prior to the introduction for production access. Combining reactive and proactive knowledge management processes will allow your support center to achieve and maintain a quality knowledge base. High Quality Reusable Manageable Quality Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Release & Deployment Management
Design Forecast and research Develop Test the accuracy of the solutions—validation Enlist a knowledge engineer Deliver Knowledge base is ready to be coordinated with the release of a new product or service The methodology follows a process similar to that of software development and includes three major phases: design, develop and deliver. In the design phase, you develop the requirements for the knowledge base and determine how the knowledge will be organized. It is during this phase that you forecast what questions or problems will need to be answered. Researching the type of problems encountered with similar products or previous versions can provide a wealth of questions. Once you start authoring answers to these questions, you are in the development phase. During this phase you will test the accuracy of the solutions, which is referred to as validation. By enlisting a knowledge engineer in the process, you can ensure that the standards and writing formats can be achieved. The delivery of the knowledge base can then be coordinated with the release of a new product or service. Imagine that your support center is about to rollout a new release of Microsoft Windows along with a proprietary application. To minimize the impact on the support center, the company has decided to release a knowledge base for both products on the company’s intranet site. Proactive knowledge management will be used to develop the knowledge base. The knowledge engineers will work closely with the software developers, quality assurance analysts and documentation team to design and develop the knowledge base. Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Forecast Common Problems
Consider all of the possible problems which can occur which result in a call to the support center. Focus on the 80/20 rule. What 20% of problems generate 80% of your calls? How can we identify these? Learning Objective: The 80/20 rule applies to knowledge management There are many problems that can be captured and their solutions added to the knowledge base. Knowing when to do this is important for controlling the cost of knowledge management. The first thing to remember is that not all problems generate calls to the support center. The second thing to remember is to follow the 80/20 rule. That is what 20% of all problems are generating 80% of the calls to the support center. When you make the knowledge base available to your customers and analysts, you want to insure the likelihood of their success. If they continue to not find a solution in the knowledge base, then they will stop using it. You will never claim to provide solutions to every problem in your knowledge base. But you do want the customers to find solutions more than 50% of the time. By focusing on the 80/20 rule, your investment in the knowledge base will enhance the success rate of finding a solution. Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Quality Assurance Testing
BUGS Known Problems Known Errors UI Issues Confusing Tasks Unexpected Results Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

What Knowledge to Include?
Learning Objectives: Not all knowledge should be captured The ROI for a particular piece of knowledge depends on reuse Classroom Discussion: Why would we not invest in the first quadrant? What Knowledge should be included in your knowledge base? If you reward your staff for developing new knowledge, they will quickly populate your knowledge base. But will this investment have a return? If they author solutions to simple problems that they never or rarely receive a call on, then the return will not exist. This will have been a bad investment. Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Define the Scope of Your Knowledge Base
Learning Objective: Define the scope of your knowledge base It is important to define the scope of your knowledge base and communicate that scope properly. If you have a knowledge base related to Windows 2000 Printing, don’t advertise it as a Windows 2000 knowledge base. When using proactive knowledge management, you must decide what the area of coverage will be for your knowledge base. You may decide to develop knowledge for three areas such as printing, installing, and managing devices. Then after you release the knowledge base, you may elect to add other areas such as filing and personalization. The areas that you elect not to cover during the proactive knowledge management phase will be populated by reactive knowledge management. Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Sample Knowledge Engineering Workflow
Submit Articles Validate Article Create Best Resolution Classify Problems Edit for Audience Proof Read Publish the Knowledge Developer SME Tech Writer Learning Objective: To understand how a workflow process may be implemented in a support center You may recall that in a reactive KM process the knowledge is captured in response to a problem being reported to the Support Center. The support analyst who resolves the problem has just created a new solution. He/She creates the first draft of the knowledge by recording information about the problem and the solutions, including as much pertinent information as possible, like the version of the software and the symptoms resulting from the problem. It is not important to include who reported the problem or any information about the customer; only information related to the actual problem. A subject-matter expert (SME) then validates the problem and solution. The SME is most likely a Level 2 or Level 3 support analyst with specific knowledge of the domain to which the knowledge belongs. It is the SME’s responsibility to make sure the solution is correct and that all of the necessary information was collected. SMEs may also classify or categorize the knowledge in the knowledge base for quick access and easier management. It is also their task to eliminate redundancy. A knowledge engineer will then verify the knowledge for grammar, spelling, writing style and presentation format so that the agreed-to standards are followed. While the SME ensured content accuracy, the knowledge engineer makes sure the information is comprehensible. The knowledge engineer may also add information such as definition, hypertext, screen shots or examples to help clarify the knowledge. The knowledge is now ready to be published. The knowledge manager or knowledge engineer defines the rules for when new knowledge can be shared with customers. Depending on the technology used, they may need to actually publish a copy of the knowledge and move it to the Internet site. In a reactive knowledge management process, the task of capturing new knowledge becomes part of the case-management practice—that is, new knowledge is captured when a case is closed. The review of the knowledge by a subject-matter expert and a knowledge engineer increases the quality of the knowledge. Publisher You have Knowledge! Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Proactive Problem Management
Enhancing knowledge based on analysis High reuse articles High impact problems Building knowledge based on analysis Diagnostics for problems with similar symptoms Gaps identified in self-service usage Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

High Reuse or High Impact
Identify Root Cause Change from Problem to Known Error Update the Knowledge Base Include steps to validate the cause Identify Best Workaround Identify Permanent Fix Submit Change Request Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Engineer Diagnostics Learning Objective: Customers don’t know their problem, you have to help them find it. Sometimes customers are not able to describe a problem with sufficient detail for you to be able to provide an answer. In these cases, you need to ask additional questions to determine what the real problem is. Once you understand the problem, you can provide the answer. Ask questions that can be confirmed by the customer, providing the steps necessary to answer the question. For example, if you ask the customer how much disk space is left, include an explanation of how he/she would obtain this information. Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Tips for Engineering Diagnostics
Gather Data: Identify the possible end results Evaluate existing knowledge with common symptoms Brainstorm possible causes to the problem. A Fishbone Diagram is another name for the Ishikawa Diagram or Cause and Effect Diagram. Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Ask questions that will eliminate several possible causes / problems all at once. Printers: Is this a network printer or a local printer? Connectivity: Are you in a company office, a remote facility, home office, or other location such as a hotel? Benefits: Is the benefit relate to you or a family member? Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Eliminate common causes / problems early Printers: Is the printer out of paper? Connectivity: Did the VPN connect successfully? Benefits: Was the doctor in-network? Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Evaluate the likelihood of causes or problems and prioritize the order of testing for them Printer is out of paper Printer has a bad power supply Printer is offline Printer is not turned on Printer is out of ink Printer was not configured on the PC Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Consider the cost of the question. Is the printer plugged in? Is there paper in the printer? Does the printer display an error message? Is the power supply working properly? Can you replace the printer to see if we can rule out the server and network? What is the status of the printer in your control panel? Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Help the user answer the question. Provide the steps the user needs to determine the answer. Add a test to validate the cause. How to check the status of a printer using the control panel These could be steps in the knowledge document Or a link to another knowledge document Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Never end a diagnostic with “I don’t know”. Always provide guidance. Usually this is a place in the diagnostic to advise how to get assisted service or to escalate the issue. Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

It’s Time to Exercise Break into small groups Develop a diagnostic for the question What fruit is it? You may only ask questions that can be answered by a Yes or a No The next slide will be your possible answers to the customer’s question. You will be given time to test your diagnostic Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

The “Fruit” Tree Pineapple Green Grapes Yellow Apple Cherries Kiwi Cantaloupe Watermelon Red Apple Pear Banana Strawberry Orange Grapefruit Red Grapes Learning Objective: How to create a diagnostic tree Workshop: Create a diagnostic tree to determine what kind of fruit the customer has? Copyright © 2011 HDI - All Rights Reserved.

Thank you for attending this session
Thank you for attending this session. Don’t forget to complete the evaluation! Session: 803 Rick Joslin HDI Executive Director, Certification & Training (E) (C)

Augmenting Knowledge-Centered Support with Proactive Knowledge Management Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) is recognized as the set of knowledge management.

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Augmenting Knowledge-Centered Support with Proactive Knowledge Management Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) is recognized as the set of knowledge management.

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Presentation on theme: "Augmenting Knowledge-Centered Support with Proactive Knowledge Management Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) is recognized as the set of knowledge management."— Presentation transcript:

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