Appendix D: The "Why" Behind Each Phase

Plan and Design

• Assessing the Current State is important because we need to understand the business & environment we are implementing in. This is our opportunity to gather information about current processes, available resources, roadblocks, pain points, and baseline measures, which will help us build and communicate both the vision and our progress.
• Getting the Right People Involved is important because we need cross-functional support for the program, and cross-functional participation in the KCS Council. (Identifying influencers of all types - champions and detractors - helps us know where to start.)
• Attending a KCS v6 Practices Workshop is a time-saver for the KCS Council; it builds a shared, baseline understanding of the depth, intent, and vocabulary of the methodology.
• Participating in the KCS Design Session is how the KCS Council and invited participants make the methodology relevant to the environment. This is when we design and agree on what the program will look like here and steps going forward to achieve that.
• Defining Wave I is important because this wave needs to provide feedback on the processes and communication created in the Design Session. This is where we build experience and initial successes to share with the organization, so Wave I needs to include a team that is committed to continuous improvement.
• Exit Criteria for Plan and Design is the list of items that must be completed before you attempt an implementation! The Plan and Design phase is the scaffolding upon which your program is built; save yourself time and pain by making sure these things are in place.

Adopt in Waves

• Preparing for Wave I is important because we don't want to lose time or momentum. Be ready to train the first (small) group of folks who will be trying out our new process.
• Management Training is important because we need top-down and bottom up change management. Managers need to understand what's coming and why, and how to deal with objections (sometimes their own) and KCS measures.
• A KCS Coaching Program is important because coaches support knowledge worker behavior change in the workflow.
• Knowledge Worker Training is how we help knowledge workers understand WHY we're doing KCS as well as the HOW. Wave I knowledge worker training makes it relevant to the environment and seeds the knowledge base in order to generate wins to build on.
• A Technology Update based on the experience of Wave I allows us to reduce friction and make it easy to do the right thing - BEFORE we adopt in future waves.
• Additional Waves (if you need them) are begun after we make adjustments based on what we learned in previous waves.
• Indicators of Adoption tell us that we're moving the needle in the right direction: tracking progress against the baselines we established in Plan & Design.

Build Proficiency

• Activities for Leveraging the Knowledge Base are important because it's time to start acting on some of the things that we are learning, including:
  • Self-Service Success: we want to move answers closer to the people requesting them - and stop using humans to answer known issues.
  • The Knowledge Domain Analysis Program: we want to learn from our collection of knowledge, make improvements, and reflect that back to each stakeholder (knowledge workers, management, and executives). This is part of what maintains momentum and health in the implementation.
  • Expanding the Measurement Model: we want to make sure we are looking at value- or benefit-centric measures in addition to our traditional transaction-centric measures as a way of understanding and communicating the evolution of the KCS program and the evolution of the organization practicing KCS 
• Indicators of Proficiency help us understand if we are expanding the use and reputation of knowledge and knowledge workers in the organization. We want to make sure we're moving the needle in the right direction: building on the progress we made in Adopting in Waves.

Optimize and Innovate

• Continuous Improvement keeps participation in KCS high, and allows us to remain adaptable as an organization, through environments of near-constant change. Just like knowledge is never complete and always dynamic, so is our KCS program. Closing feedback loops and communicating the improvements we've made thanks to participation in KCS is how we keep interest in the program alive, which in turn maintains the most updated organizational memory, the most timely information about the requestor/customer experience, and an informed and flexible community of responders/employees.

Special Thanks

This appendix was born out of the work that resulted in The "Why" Behind Each KCS Practice, and reflects the collected experience of the following people.  Thanks to each of them for their perspective and feedback!

• Kai Altenfelder, pro accessio
• Tamara Amlung, pro accessio
• Arnfinn Austefjord, Consortium
• Jennifer Crippen, DB Kay & Associates
• Sara Feldman, Consortium
• Jorge Flores, Red Hat
• Elena Forrest, Oracle
• Andre Knaup, NetApp
• Samantha Long, Cigna
• Mel Mathis, ADP
• Sonali Modi, Vanta
• Kelly Murray, Consortium
• Jessica Peralta, Calix
• Jackie Pines, NICE CXone
• Jim Porter, Primerica
• Clint Sanderson, NetApp
• Dorothy Schmidt, McKesson
• Matt Seaman, Consortium
• Bas van der Graaf, Thermo Fisher Scientific
• Jacob Watts, PAR