Overview
This document will serve as the official Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) Enterprise Service Management (ESM) Knowledge Management service portal. This document presents the Process Framework and documents the workflow, roles, procedures, and policies needed to implement a high-quality process and ensure that the processes are effective in supporting the university.
Scope
The scope of this document is to define the Knowledge Management Process, and process inputs form, and outputs to, other process areas. Other service management areas are detailed in separate documentation.
In this article:
Keywords and Definitions
The following provides definitions for terms, acronyms, and jargon used within this article.
| Keyword |
Definition |
| Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS) |
- Presents, categorizes, and coordinates the approval/publication workflow of knowledge records in a knowledge base (KB)
|
| Audience |
- The various stakeholder who may require visibility to specific knowledge records
- Each record can be assigned to one or more audiences, defined as roles
|
| Knowledge Record (KR) |
- A knowledge entry in the Knowledge Base (SKMS)
- Contains relevant information
- May provide process execution, or collection details (e.g. symptoms, workarounds, etc.)
- Linkages to other process records
|
| Knowledge Manager (KM) |
- The individual responsible for approving, publishing, and removing knowledge, as well as ensuring it is accessible to the intended audience(s).
|
| Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed (RACI) |
- A Knowledge Management RACI chart documents all the processes/steps undertaken within an organization set against the various roles associated with consuming, and maintaining the knowledge base.
|
Knowledge Management Overview
Definition
The primary purpose of ESM Knowledge Management is to ensure that the right information is available to the right people at the right time. Knowledge Management enables UAA to be more efficient and improve quality of service, increase customer satisfaction, and reduce the cost of service support and delivery.
Objectives
- During routine course of business, detected issues will be recorded, and analyzed, and the knowledge associated with their existence, impacts, and workarounds will be documented within the Knowledge Management system as either internal, or public articles.
- Knowledge Management is tightly linked to Problem Management and can include, but not limited to, known errors, workarounds, FAQs.
Why is Knowledge Management Important?
The goal of knowledge Management is to enable organizations to improve the quality of management decision making by ensuring that reliable information and data is available throughout the service lifecycle. This also facilitates the following:
- Increase customer satisfaction, and perception
- More efficient usage of resources (provides relevant information to aid in complex scenarios)
- Improve consistency of service delivery (e.g. standard changes are executed the same way every time, collecting the same predefined criteria)
- Improved reporting
Policies
- Knowledge statistics will be reviewed monthly by the Knowledge Manager to verify knowledge usefulness.
- All knowledge articles will be reviewed for accuracy once a year by the owning group.
- There will be one Knowledge Management process.
- Knowledge articles will be reviewed and updated as required by Service Owner, or other authorized KB author.
- A knowledge article cannot be combined to solve or answer a question for more than one service, category or issue.
- Knowledge articles should be linked to all applicable tickets.
- Knowledge is to be created on demand through a customer request or internally identified need.
- Knowledge articles will adhere to the defined template and style guide.
- Knowledge roles and responsibilities shall be followed as defined.
- A search for an existing article precedes the creation of any new article.
- A knowledge article will be created by the Responsible party on the ticket or task if no article exists.
Procedures
| Step |
Activities |
| 1.0 Identify Knowledge |
The need for knowledge to be documented is identified through a variety of sources. |
| 2.0 Author / Update Knowledge |
Once the need for new or updated knowledge is identified, a Knowledge Author completes all the appropriate material to enable the knowledge to be available to the right audience. For example, some knowledge, such as FAQs, can be made available to end users and require certain fields of information and written in a certain tone, whereas Knowledge Records that are to be available to Tier 1 Support Resources to resolve incidents using documented workarounds.
Where knowledge records are intended to be available for Incident resolution, part of authoring knowledge is establishing the standard Incident coding to enable pre- population of Incidents that are associated to the knowledge record. These are populated in an incident “template” which is associated to the knowledge record.
|
| 3.0 Review and Update Knowledge |
The knowledge author can work with SMEs as required for input and to review the content. A review is required prior to progressing to the approval stage and ultimately publishing. |
| 4.0 Publish Knowledge |
The Knowledge Manager is responsible to approve the knowledge and upon approving it, the knowledge can be published to the appropriate audience. The knowledge manager may add additional details as required. |
| 5.0 Use Knowledge & Provide Feedback (if required) |
The individual uses the knowledge that is available and may identify areas requiring clarity or improvement. |
| 6.0 Identify Knowledge for Removal |
Knowledge may be in use and at any time there may be a need to remove the knowledge as it may not be relevant any longer. This may because a Problem has been resolved and the workaround is no longer required, etc. |
| 7.0 Remove Knowledge |
The Knowledge Manager authorizes the removal of the knowledge, and removes it from publication. |
Knowledge Management State Model
A state model allows for the capture of key process milestones. Each milestone represents an important point in time within the process that needs to be captured, often for performance measurement purposes.
Knowledge Management Process Flowchart
Roles and Responsibility
The following roles have been identified within the Knowledge Management Process.
| Role |
Responsibility |
| Knowledge Management Team |
- Owns the process end-to-end, including the RACI, process & procedural steps, roles & definitions
- Accountable for maturing and evolving the process, based on monthly/quarterly/yearly review of process KPIs
- Adjusts the process to address performance, or changing business needs
|
| Knowledge User |
- The individual who uses the knowledge to perform their activities
|
| Knowledge Candidate |
- The individual responsible for authoring the knowledge and ensuring it contains all the relevant information
|
| Knowledge Contributor |
- The individual responsible for reviewing the authored knowledge and submitting it for approval; usually the content Subject Matter Expert (SME).
|
| Knowledge Publisher |
- The individual responsible for approving, publishing, and removing knowledge ensuring it is accessible to the intended audience(s)
|
| Knowledge Domain Expert |
- Role identified as process matures
|
Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed (RACI)
The following responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed (RACI) matrix describes the participation by various roles in the Knowledge Management process.
Role Distinction
- Responsible (R): Those who do the work to in creating, and editing knowledge articles
- Accountable (A): The individual(s) answerable for ensuring the information provided within a Knowledge Record, within their sphere of knowledge, is correct and accurate.
- Consulted (C): The individual(s) whose knowledge and opinions are sought, typically these are subject-matter experts, and service owners; however, it can also be Knowledge User providing feedback on Knowledge Records as well as knowledge management process.
- Informed (I): Individual(s) who are kept up-to-date on knowledge management process, and/or additions/changes to Knowledge Record(s).
| Process Step |
Knowledge User |
Knowledge Author |
Knowledge Reviewer
(Content SME) |
Knowledge Manager |
Knowledge Management Process Team |
| 1.0 Identify Knowledge |
|
A, R |
|
|
|
| 2.0 Author / Update Knowledge |
|
A, R |
R |
|
|
| 3.0 Review and Update Knowledge |
|
C |
R |
A, R |
|
| 4.0 Publish Knowledge |
I |
I |
I |
A, R |
|
| 5.0 Use Knowledge & Provide Feedback (if required) |
A, R |
I |
I |
I |
|
| 6.0 Identify Knowledge for Removal |
|
A, R |
|
|
|
| 7.0 Remove Knowledge |
|
I |
|
A, R |
|
| 8.0 Process Maturity and Evolution |
C, I |
R |
R |
R |
A |
Knowledge Management Metrics
Define which metrics will be used to determine the effectiveness/usefulness of KB articles. All metric definitions must include how the metric is to be calculated.
| Metric Name |
Description |
Method of Calculation |
Unit of Measure |
Benchmark |
Target |
| Related Knowledge |
Measures how often each KR is being associated to other process records (e.g. Service Request, Incident, Change, etc.) |
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| Knowledge Use |
The number of times a non-process linked KR has been flagged as “helpful” |
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| Knowledge Searches |
Frequency the SKMS is searched |
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| Knowledge Records Created |
Volume of KRs created |
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| Knowledge Records Updated |
Volume of KRs updated |
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| Stale Knowledge Records |
Percentage of KRs beyond their valid date |
Total number (count) of KRs in a published state, and not archived, where last modified date is older than Next Review Date |
% |
10.0% |
5.00% |
| Systemic Knowledge |
Number of KRs in Knowledge Base |
Total number (count) of KRs in a published state, and not archived |
Count |
|
|
| Operational Knowledge |
Number of times KR is linked to Ticket (Incident, Service Request, or Change) |
Total number (count) of Tickets that KR is linked to |
|
|
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| Average "Scored" Knowledge Ranking |
For knowledge records that have a Was this helpful value – the average score |
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| Knowledge use by customers for self-help |
Tier “0” leveraged help that was used for self-help |
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| Knowledge search by customers for self-help |
The volume of searches provided by customers for self-help |
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| Participation Rate |
How often knowledge is used to resolve an issue. (#,%) |
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Change Process
From time to time it is necessary to review the Knowledge Management SOP. This review should be initiated by the Knowledge Process Manager and involve representatives from each team maintaining articles within the ESM Service Portal. If any revisions are necessary this document should be updated, and submitted to the Change Advisory Board (CAB) for approval. No revisions to this document are official until approved by CAB.
References
The following documentation, and industry best practices were used in developing UAA ESM Knowledge Management SOP.