Appendix C: Stakeholder Engagement

Techniques to create and sustain stakeholder engagement in KCS, by adoption phase.

Plan and Design

Develop the Strategic Framework
Engage C-level executives in Strategic Framework
Review cost benefit analysis and baseline measures
Understand the timing of benefits
Understand the impact of self-service success on traditional measures
Support the introduction of new measures for the health and value of support, and set C-level expectations for new measures
Contact references (executives at other companies who have been successful)
Fund and support KCS Council and the coaching program

Receive KCS overview and information about how it will help them
Representative knowledge workers involved in KCS Council participate in KCS v6 Practices Workshop and Design Session

Representative managers participate in KCS v6 Practices Workshop and Design Session

Review Strategic Framework
Receive regular updates on the status of adoption activities and success stories
Build relationships and communicate with Business Owners about the value of article reuse reporting and root cause analysis
Advocate the value support creates for the business (to C-level executives)
Align Director goals and measures (VP direct reports) to re-enforce/recognize KCS behaviors and contribution
Support KCS assessment program for teams (KCS Council manages and evolves)
Review plans and reporting to support new value-based measures

Receive training on KCS concepts and new performance assessment model (old measures can disrupt KCS success)
Align team goals to reinforce and recognize KCS behaviors
Celebrate achievement of KCS licensing levels (recognition of those who earn license)
Support KCS Coach activities
Coaching for managers
Management representation on the KCS Council (selection and/or rotation)

Attend KCS training and get a KCS Coach
Share anecdotes about success
Recognition for achievement of KCS licensing levels and creation of value in the knowledge base

Review reports on the benefits: performance against baseline measures
Review top reused article report with analysis
Implement the new measurement model for self-service measures and cross-functional measures (time to cure)
Acknowledge KCS impact and value in communications (news-letters, all-hands meetings)
Advocate for the value support creates for the business
Review new value-based measures with C-level executives
Support the KDE program
Review analysis from the New vs Known studies done by KDEs

Training on new measurement model
Develop team measures
Provide constant feedback to knowledge workers on the impact of their knowledge contribution
Acknowledge knowledge workers who are creating value

Review article reuse reports - both internal and self-service. (Knowledge workers must be able to see the impact of their contribution.)
Receive feedback from the Content Standard Checklist and PAR reviews
A few knowledge workers take on the role of KDE

KDEs review article reuse reports and analysis with Business Owners
Develop plans for root cause analysis and corrective actions for pervasive issues

Review/update Strategic Framework
Review reports on customer success with self-service measures and a summary of top reused article (internal reuse and customer use) reports
Review cross-functional measures (time to cure)
Acknowledge KCS impact and value in communications (news-letters, all-hands meetings, ops review with C-level)
Advocate for the value support creates for the business
Review analysis from New vs Known study

Celebrate customer success with self-service
Celebrate changes in the products, services, and/or policies due to patterns in the knowledge base
Acknowledge knowledge workers who are creating value

Access to internal and external reuse reports
Acknowledge contribution to self-service success
Visibility to and acknowledgement for changes in product due to patterns in the knowledge base (their contribution)

Review information about self-service activity patterns, trends and customer feedback
Review information about community activities: patterns, trends, and sentiment

Operational Improvements

Knowledge workers integrate use of the knowledge base into their problem solving process
- It is a faster way to identify known issues
- Access to others' experience helps them solve new issues faster
- Creating and maintaining articles in the workflow takes zero (0) incremental minutes
Percentage of problems recognized as "known" doubles
Average time to resolve drops by 20-50%
Support capacity increases by 20-50%
The biggest cynics become KCS advocates because they have “experienced it”
Knowledge worker morale is at an all-time high
Turnover rate is at an all-time low
Peer pressure becomes a primary motivator: knowledge workers don’t tolerate their peers messing up the knowledge base

Leverage knowledge to improve self-service and the business

90% of customer usable content is published to the web when the resolution is known (90/0)
Customer use of and success with self-service is over 70%
- Content in the customer’s context
- Self-service design: choices on how to find content (browsing and searching) and no dead ends
The work in the support center shifts from mostly known to mostly new
- Perceived incident complexity in the support center increases
Knowledge workers are spending a higher percent of their time on new, challenging issues
Support process evolves to a non-linear, collaborative network

For more information the organizational benefits and measures of KCS please see the Measurement Matters v6 paper.