Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Service Requests, Self Service tend to be the focus of most implementations. Few implementations truly focus on Knowledge Management.

Knowledge Centered Services - Knowledge Management - ISM - Ivanti Service Manager - Developer - Consultant - ITIL Process - former Kifinti Consultant- Toronto — ITIL Service Desk Process
aka Nirvana
**Note: There are better & simpler Knowledge processes!**

Don’t get me wrong, Knowledge Management often is on the scope of work, solution design document, and frequently discussed. Too frequently. Without resolution.

Here-in lies the bottle-neck. Most Service Desks are too busy “working in the business than ON the business”. That is, too busy fighting the fight from the trenches rather than forming a strategy with the help of the General (Service Desk Manager) and Subject Matter Expert (Knowledge Manager).

You see, it’s easy to get caught up in discussing Knowledge and to get overwhelmed by the gargantuan task of Knowledge Management. Meeting after meeting, everyone agrees that Knowledge is important and needed. Not unlike home-improvements, weight-loss, fitness, self development, that many spend more time thinking and worrying about, only to release it starts with one small step. A trip to the hardware store, a strategic grocery list, a trip to the gym, and what else, more lists.

Once it’s written, it’s real. Is one of my favorite sayings. Lets face it, it’s all just talk otherwise without any concrete plan. And I’m not talking about a cockroach killer solution design document that most use as a door stop only to realize it’s outdated by the time it’s actually approved.

What I’m talking about is…

Helpdesk 101

Since HEAT for Windows 2.0 (somewhere around 1996, now Ivanti Service Manager aka ISM) there has been a built in Knowledge Base (KB) called FLS (First Level Support) with a very basic search capability.

The concept of Knowledge Centered Services has been around for a long long time. Like many other things, technical concepts and solutions, it’s just a re-branding of the same basic concept.

Knowledge Management 101

Knowledge is key and there is quite a bit we can do to automate and ease that process, some of it is OOTB (Out-of-the-box) and other enhancements are quick wins that can easily be added on to ISM.

Self Service

Self Service plays a huge role these days, once you have the knowledge, you can make (some of) it available to the self service portal which can be used to provide self service users potential solutions (object matching) when they log an issue and of course knowledge readily available for searches.

AI (Artificial Intelligence)

The next big thing that seems to be a buzz word, AI, is nothing more than a fancy way of doing object matching. Rather than a user logging an issue, a user types in the issue “subject” as a “question” which then searches the KB (object matching) and offers possible solutions. This is where the self service chat will start playing a role.

Structure

Key is putting the structure in place (triage, 2nd level, 3rd level support > knowledge manager), having someone dedicated (Knowledge Manager) to oversee the process (Knowledge “over-watch”), and having the right tools to i) Populate Knowledge ii) Search Knowledge iii) Suggest Knowledge iv) Maintain Knowledge. GIGO at its finest.

Knowledge Centered Service Success

80% of Service Desks Knowledge Implementations fail or rank poorly with their implementation of Knowledge. That is, IF the service desk has actually gone past over-analyzing and over-thinking and over-discussing knowledge, and made it past approving a long-winded solution design document, countless meetings, and started implementing a solution that meets business & technical requirements with culture and user adaption in mind.

This is where I’m here to help to provide you with some best practices, strategies, processes, workflows, and tools to bring your Knowledge Management to the next level.

Implement simple Self Service Request Offerings

Make forms easy and simple to use by requesting and requiring only absolutely essential information such as a unique identifiers, such as email address, reference number, booking code, asset tag, etc. as well as contact information (again email address) and phone number, or shipping location.

Use dropdowns or radio buttons to identify the type of inquiry or better direct the inquiry. This is very powerful if you create a generic request form and then have options to better channel those requests. Think workflow, tasks assignment, approvals, which can be configured based on cases.

Going back to my example with Air Asia, I was prompted for my Booking Reference #, Last Name, travel origin, and type of request (rebook, credit). Upon providing all the information I was provided a credit to my account for my flight.

To implement the same functionality within Self Service you would create a request offering, with anonymous login if your target audience does not have logins, with all the above mentioned information, along with requester contact email address, and then in your workflow configure the path based on the type of request and forward to the corresponding team or notify the corresponding department to process the request. Upon completion Ivanti Service Manager can be configured to send out the corresponding closure notification to the requester.

What are ITSM, ITIL, and Ivanti?

ITSM began with the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), which provides best practice guidance and an extensive set of processes and policies for improving IT service delivery and customer satisfaction.