A Case for Knowledge Management

The above graph plots calls to a University Help Desk by category. When categorized- the calls follow a mathematical distribution known as a Power Curve. (You may remember this from the book – The Long Tail by Chris Anderson).

This power curve has some implications for managing a Support Function. One is that there are some areas that result in the majority of support requests. It makes sense to identify and work on standardizing those to the left of this curve first. They are the initial candidates to be subject to the standardizing efforts of the Knowledge Management process. Determine the best, standard responses to the questions that are occupying the left side of the curve. Document them in a Knowledge Base. Consistency can be enforced by auditing the Incident tickets that are closed in those categories. Are they closed according to the documented procedure?

Once this becomes embedded in the organization it may have implications for the organization of the Service Desk itself. Some of the categories to the right of the distribution may nevertheless be important even if less frequent. They may also demand more creative and knowledgeable analysis.

 If you have documented your common closure codes- two benefits may accrue.

 The first is that you may be able to encourage end-users to search for answers in the Knowledge Base themselves. The holy grail of self-service; so often discussed, so seldom achieved. But, if it is achieved- even in part- it potentially frees staff resources to begin to work on Problems, or on the more esoteric but still important issues to the right of the curve.

A second benefit may come from how staff resources can now be utilized. Experience argues that between 1 and 10 to 1 in 5 questions to the Service Desk can be answered by less experienced staff. Examples are Requests for Information and Service Requests. If the left side of the curve can be attacked, and the most common Incident symptoms and workarounds can be documented in a reliable and easy to use Knowledge Base, it is reasonable to increase this number to around 2 of 5 (40%). This would also allow more experienced and knowledgeable staff to work on more esoteric Incidents or in the Problem process.