Establishing data and information management procedures

When the requirement s and architecture have been set up, data and information management to support Knowledge Management can be established. The key steps required involve setting up mechanisms to:

• Identify the service lifecycle data and information to be collected
• Define the procedure required to maintain the data and information and make it available to those requiring it
• Store and retrieve
• Establish authority and responsibility for all required items of information
• Define and publicize rights, obligations and commitments regarding the retention of, transmission of and access to information and data items based on applicable requirement s and protecting its security, integrity and consistency
• Establish adequate backup and recovery of data and information; this should address reinstating the ability to make constructive use of information, not just the re-establishment of a database
• Identify the requirements to review, in the light of changing technology, organizational requirements, evolving policy and legislation (and if necessary to adapt to) changes in:
• information system infrastructure in the light of evolving hardware and software technology
• security, Service Continuity, storage and capacity
• Deal with collection and retention requirements.

When the procedure s are designed, promulgated and accepted the organization can:

• Implement mechanisms to capture, store and retrieve the identified data from the relevant sources
• Manage the data and information storage and movement, especially in line with appropriate legislation.
• Archive designated information, in accordance with the data and information management plan including safely disposing of unwanted, invalid or unverifiable information according to the organization policy.

Evaluation and improvement

As with all processes, the capture and usage of data and information to support Knowledge Management and decision making requires attention to ongoing improvement, and the service improvement plan will take as relevant input:

• Measurement of the use made of the data and information management–data transaction s
• Evaluation of the usefulness of the data and information – identified by relevance of reports produced
• Identification of any data or information or registered user s that no longer seem relevant to the organization ’s knowledge requirement s.

Using the service knowledge management system

Providing services to customers across time zones, work cycles, and geographies requires good knowledge sharing across all locations and time periods of Service Operation s. A service provider must first establish a service knowledge management system that can be shared, updated and used by its operating entities, partners, and customers. Figure 4.39 shows an example of the architecture for such a system.

Implementation of a service knowledge management system helps reduce the costs of maintaining and managing the services, both by increasing the efficiency of operational management procedure s and by reducing the risks that arise from the lack of proper mechanisms.

Case study

Current situation An organization analysed that at least 75% of the cost of delivering support comes from resolving customer issues. It was using point technologies such as a service desk workflow tool, search engines, scripting tools or simple knowledge base s. These systems generally focused parts of the resolution process and they were not very effective. This contributed to dissatisfied customers, resulted in an ineffective service desk and caused integration issues for IT.

Solution A comprehensive SKMS was implemented to help to address these obstacles by combining intelligent search and Knowledge Management with Service Management and business process support, authoring workflows and comprehensive self-service facilities.

The SKMS was supported by the Problem Management and Change Management process.

The experience of end user s who come to the website for help was dramatically improved. Instead of an empty search box followed by no results or far too many, the application leads the user through a structured set of steps. Based on the specifics of the incident or request and the customer, web screens will guide users to specific answers, follow-up questions, escalation options, opportunities to drill down or just highly relevant search results. The following improvements were achieved:

• Increased agent productivity
• Reduced aversion to web self-service
• Fewer escalations.

Over time the web workflows were tuned to deliver more and more optimize d experiences. Good experiences helped to add value to the product and services and this resulted in greater loyalty that in turn increased profits.

Conclusion A wealth of information exists in most organizations that is not initially thought to contribute to the decision process, but, when used as supplemental to traditional configuration data, can bring the lessons of history into sharp focus. Often this information is in an informal fashion. Marketing, sales, customer and staff information is a commonly overlooked source of valuable trend data that, along with traditional configuration, can paint a larger, more meaningful picture of the landscape and uncover the right ‘ course corrections ’ to bring a Service Transition or operational support for a service back on track and keep an organization travelling towards its objective s. Without this clear picture, the effectiveness diminishes and efficiency will decay. By recognizing that this is in place, organizations can more easily justify the resource costs of establishing and maintaining the data, processes, knowledge and skills needed to make it as effective as possible and maximize the benefits.

All training and knowledge material needs to be aligned to the business perspective. Materials that can be included are:

• The business language and terminology and how IT terminology is translated
• The business process es and where IT underpins them
• Any SLAs, and supporting agreement s and contract s that would change as a result of the new Service Transition – this is especially important for the service desk analysts whose target at support transition will be to sustain service; if classification s are accurate this will facilitate the whole process.

For those in the Service Transition process a good way of consolidating understanding is to either spend time in the development areas, taking part in some of the testing processes, or to spend time in the business at the receiving end of the Service Transition to understand the process from the business perspective.

Useful materials include:

• Process maps to understand all the integrated activities
• Any known error logs and the workaround s – again particularly important for the service desk
• Business and other public calendars.

Technology for service desks and customer service needs to make it easier for customers, user s and service desk agents. Some minimal progress has been made with generic Knowledge Management tools and there are significant developments in the Service Management industry to develop mature, process-oriented business application s supported by comprehensive knowledge base s. Examples of potential benefits are:

Дата добавления: 2015-10-29