Implementing Knowledge Management: Key Planning Considerations

Discussion of the three questions every project lead should answer before embarking upon a knowledge management implementation.

Today’s consumers expect fast and convenient online self-service, and they demand knowledgeable, responsive support from contact center agents—anything less and today’s consumers are perfectly willing to take their business elsewhere. An organization’s knowledge management (KM) capabilities are front and center in almost every customer interaction, and have a direct impact on how customers experience and regard the organization. Rewarding Web self-service experiences often depend upon a customer’s ability to find and retrieve information from the knowledgebase. Agent productivity in the contact center, too, is largely a function of the company’s knowledgebase and its effectiveness in helping agents resolve customer problems. An organization’s KM platform delivers a vital feedback loop with customers and is instrumental in establishing the customer service metrics that assess how well the company is meeting customer needs.

Traditionally, KM initiatives have been driven primarily by internal considerations: how to make call agents more productive, how to align different departments’ processes, etc. And while such considerations are important, for companies to succeed in an environment where customers are less patient and more demanding, they must adopt a broader, more external perspective when planning and scoping their KM initiatives.

In this article, we will explore three key questions that should be addressed during the planning stage of every KM implementation. First, we will consider the merits of three different implementation models. Then we will discuss the critical issue of content acquisition, which can drive up both the cost and duration of a KM implementation when done incorrectly. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we will examine the vital role user experience needs to play in planning a KM implementation.

1. Which implementation model is most appropriate for your organization?
One of the first considerations for plotting a successful KM initiative is to decide which implementation model to follow. Project leads need to be clear about the merits and risks of each approach, and ensure the company’s strategy is consistent with business objectives and achievable given the realities of the organization. Here are three different implementation approaches and their respective implications on a KM initiative:

• "Big bang." In this scenario, knowledge management is rolled out across the enterprise as part of one large, coordinated effort. Done correctly, benefits and ROI can be quickly realized. A word of caution, though—a "big bang" implementation is comprehensive, resource-intensive, complex and difficult to scope accurately. If the change management function is not handled effectively, some of the many stakeholders involved, whether customers, agents or partners, can reject the changes and result in low adoption of the KM platform.
• "Follow the leader." In this case, one internal division pioneers a KM initiative, and once that implementation is complete, other groups can determine how to most effectively leverage the implementation. By narrowing the initial implementation to a specific division or product line, scoping the resources and time commitments tends to be more straightforward. Companies that follow this model must be careful not to alienate the divisions not included in the initial implementation. If the implemented platform was not designed with enough flexibility to meet the business requirement of subsequent groups, adoption may suffer.
• "Pilot and campaign." Here organizations roll out a test program to demonstrate the ROI of an initiative, and—if anticipated results are realized—broaden the implementation scope. In this
  approach, organizations can more easily constrain and gauge the scope of the pilot phase and apply the lessons from the pilot in future plans. The implementation horizon for this model tends to be lengthier than both the "big bang" and "follow the leader" strategies.

The implementation approach will have significant impact on the internal scope of the initiative—helping determine the number of divisions, the number of products and services, the number of call center applications and the number of content sources that must be integrated in the initial implementation. Further, organizations need to analyze existing KM processes and determine if they will be rolled into the new initiative. Merging multiple existing KM processes into a single initiative can present a significant implementation hurdle. Such a move may be essential to the initiative, but from a scoping standpoint, organizations need to be clear on the organizational and cultural implications of merging multiple KM processes, and ensure the time and resources required are well understood.

Finally, as part of initial implementation planning, organizations need to clearly define use cases. Will call center agents be the only end users, or will customers and partners ultimately use the solution as well? What kind of collaboration and participation methodologies will need to be employed? Will promotion and marketing efforts need to be integrated? What kinds of services will be offered?

Regardless of which implementation approach is employed, organizations need to plan for the long term. Knowledge management initiatives are journeys that evolve over time as companies, and their customers, change. Often the real value of a KM initiative is not realized upon initial deployment, but rather after the processes in place start to yield accurate insights into what is really happening. It is when those insights are used to drive future refinements, whether that is refining processes, developing new content, or broadening the implementation, that KM delivers the biggest ROI. Resources and plans need to be managed accordingly.