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Consortium for Service Innovation

Building the KCS Skills

There are numerous activities involved in building the KCS Center of Excellence. These activities are best done as part of the initial planning for adoption and as the organization prepares to start Wave I.  The goal is to enable the KCS Center of Excellence to support the ongoing adoption activities beyond Wave I.

KCS Introduction and Overview

KCS represents a dramatic shift in how we think about and manage support. While KCS is based on Consortium Members’ experiences, much of it is not intuitive and many of the proven practices challenge traditional thinking about knowledge, people, process measures, and organizational structures.  It is common to hear:

"I had attended a KCS workshop before and I was surprised how much more I got out of the second one!"

The KCS Introduction and Overview is an important first step in people embracing the KCS practices. It is often done with different audiences: executives, line management, and knowledge workers.  The sessions vary in length from one hour briefings for the senior executives to two to three hour overviews for knowledge workers.

These sessions often happen over a period of time and before the KCS Center of Excellence resources have been identified.  

Preliminary Adoption Planning

  • Attendees: Program Manager, Business Analyst, Center of Excellence staff if they have been identified
  • Duration: 1-2 day working session
  • Objectives:
    • Conduct a planning session to review the organizational demographics (structure, locations, and processes)
    • Develop the high level Adoption Road Map: develop initial plan for waves of adoption and timing. Identifying the waves of adoption and timing across the organization is critical in identifying who should attend the KCS v6 Practices training and KCS Design Session, and in determining the resource requirements for the KCS Center of Excellence
    • Develop initial plan/process for coach selection and training

KCS v6 Practices Workshop

  • Attendees: Center of Excellence staff and representatives from Wave I and Wave II organizations
  • Duration: 2 day training
  • Objectives: Develop an in-depth understanding of the KCS practices
  • Certification: Center of Excellence staff to take KCS v6 Practices certification exam

KCS Design Session

  • Attendees: Center of Excellence staff and representatives from Wave I and Wave II organizations
  • Duration: 4 day working session
  • Objectives: Develop the first draft of the foundation documents (strategic framework, content standard, workflow and problem solving process, communications plan)

Trainer Session

  • Attendees: Center of Excellence KCS Trainers
  • Duration: 3 day working session
    • Review workshop materials and make updates specific to the content standard and workflow developed in the Design Session
    • Review workshop exercise facilitation and debrief
    • Develop the adoption activities for follow on waves of adoption including assessment criteria, Organizational Network Analysis for coach identification, design session needs, and training
    • Prepare for exam  
  • Certification: KCS Internal Trainer exam
    • Administer the exam (written exam – 60-90 min)
    • Review exam results with Certified Trainer candidates (60-90 min)
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