Reuse, improve, capture, and structure in the workflow to leverage existing knowledge and keep it accurate and available.
Reuse
Reuse knowledge to avoid rework and identify pervasive issues for corrective action.
Search Early, Search Often
Continuously discover what information exists and what current answers are available.
Seek to Understand What We Collectively Know
Fulfill new requests by leveraging existing experience and knowledge.
Track Reuse
Collect information about knowledge reuse to gain insight into the value being delivered.
Improve
Improve existing knowledge as it's used to keep it timely and accurate.
Reuse is Review
Review knowledge in the process of using it, while the context exists to improve it.
Flag It or Fix It
Address needed knowledge improvements in the flow of work to avoid future audit and cleanup.
Empower to Improve
Enable permissioned people and systems to update knowledge during interactions to reduce duplicates, keep content up to date, and assure high quality and value.
Capture
Capture and share knowledge in the moment, and in the context of the requestor, because otherwise the solution is hard to find (or recreate) later.
Capture Knowledge in the Moment
Context is clearest in the moment of use, when we are able to access tacit knowledge.
Capture the Requestor's Context
Record the requestor's perspective, in their words, to improve discoverability.
To Search is To Capture
Identify opportunities to improve by capturing knowledge discovery activity and context.
New Articles are Created on Demand
Capture context. Create only when necessary.
Structure
Structure knowledge so that humans and machines can effectively use it.
Use A Simple Template
Make content discoverable and actionable across both human and automated workflows by using a simple template.
Complete Thoughts Not Complete Sentences
Capture information that is sufficient to help to make knowledge actionable. Discrete, complete thoughts improve readability and retrieval.
Collective Ownership in the Solve Loop
One of the Core Concepts of KCS is collective ownership. This is not unique to KCS. For example, Switzerland is recognized as one of the cleanest countries in the world; it is pristine. How do they do that? It is a result of collective ownership. In Switzerland, if you see trash, you pick it up. It's that simple. The Swiss do not have a bigger budget for clean up crews or more street cleaners than other countries. What they have is a value they have all bought into about a litter-free environment.
This is the same idea we see in the KCS Practices. At the systemic level, we all own our collective knowledge. At the Solve Loop, or event level, it means I am responsible for the quality of the knowledge that I interact with. The following Solve Loop techniques all represent the collective ownership value at the behavior level:
- Link
- Reuse is review
- Flag it or fix it
- Update article states as appropriate
- Create an article if one doesn't exist, improve it if it does
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