Modeling, animation, collaboration
Regardless of the company's sector of activity, the choice of a structured approach to the knowledge base is first and foremost a governance issue. The objective is to centralize data - for example, industrial standards or processes, customer request processing procedures, documentation on products or services - whose quality is certified and ensured over time by authorized bodies within the organization: quality department, business experts, marketing department, etc.
However, data quality is not the only issue that a structured approach seeks to address. This goes hand in hand with efficiency issues in terms of speed of access to immediately operationally relevant data, ease of knowledge appropriation and information dissemination dynamics.
All these aspects require, in the establishment of a knowledge base, specific content management functions.
Modeling
A structured approach starts with the ability to categorize information to establish a classification scheme that will facilitate navigation through the knowledge by allowing it to be filtered. Ergonomically, this filtering can take the form of a diagnostic tree where, by answering questions, the user moves from one knowledge to another in a path logic and can, if necessary, move on to other paths without starting from scratch in the diagnostic tree. Secondarily, this information qualification and filtering can also be based on more transversal keywords, which do not fit into the logic of the classification plan.
Beyond the problem of navigation in knowledge, the modeling of knowledge raises the question of its formatting, in order to make it easily consumable by all. Depending on the operational objectives and the nature of the knowledge, it should be able to be presented in the form of a sheet, image, video, document or even quiz with a view to training or monitoring its appropriation over time.
In addition, simplifying access to knowledge can also involve fine-tuning user rights management, in a personalization logic that gives users a limited view of the database, depending for example on the levels or themes of problems they have to deal with.
Animate
A structured approach to knowledge is not limited to issues of classification and information retrieval. It must be animated. The implications are of course organisational. In La Redoute's customer service department, for example, a team is responsible for keeping the knowledge base up to date on a daily basis by updating it and ensuring operational communication for users. In terms of content management, this animation is illustrated through the knowledge base home page, from which users can be directly informed of developments via a space listing the latest changes made, the highlighting of important information or, again, an alert system by notification. To promote or strengthen the appropriation of knowledge, the facilitators of a knowledge base must also be able to offer users, or some of them, the opportunity to carry out a quiz on a specific knowledge. A space providing training materials can also be considered, as is the case at Maisons du Monde or La Redoute.
In addition, the animation of a knowledge base can also take advantage of customization mechanisms, by notifying a user when content he or she has already read is modified, or even social mechanisms, by recommending information that he or she has not yet read but that colleagues have found useful or consulted a lot.
Collaborate
A structured approach to knowledge is not limited to issues of classification and information retrieval. It must be animated. The implications are of course organisational. In La Redoute's customer service department, for example, a team is responsible for keeping the knowledge base up to date on a daily basis by updating it and ensuring operational communication for users. In terms of content management, this animation is illustrated through the knowledge base home page, from which users can be directly informed of developments via a space listing the latest changes made, the highlighting of important information or, again, an alert system by notification. To promote or strengthen the appropriation of knowledge, the facilitators of a knowledge base must also be able to offer users, or some of them, the opportunity to carry out a quiz on a specific knowledge. A space providing training materials can also be considered, as is the case at Maisons du Monde or La Redoute.
In addition, the animation of a knowledge base can also take advantage of customization mechanisms, by notifying a user when content he has already read is modified, or even social mechanisms, by recommending information he has not yet read but that his colleagues have found useful or consulted a lot.
Source: article from our white paper "Knowledge base and communities: 2 hidden faces of knowledge management", p6-7, edition 2017, produced in partnership with Collaboratif-Info
