Technique 6.4: KCS Roles and the Proficiency Model

KCS Candidate

The KCS Candidate understands the basics of KCS and knows how to interact with the knowledge base in a way that captures their experience and capitalizes on the collective experience of the organization. A KCS Candidate must be able to recognize relevant information in the knowledge base and exercise judgment in their interaction with it. They should not use or deliver a KCS article that they do not understand. Since articles in the knowledge base are created with a specific audience in mind, dictating vocabulary and level of technical content, a Candidate adapts knowledge to suit the profile of the target audience.

Upon completion of training (often self-paced training or an element of new hire training), the KCS Candidate should:

• Understand the structured problem solving process
• Accurately and consistently capture the requestor's context in the workflow
• Search for and find existing KCS articles
• Review and either link or flag articles in the problem solving workflow
• Modify their own KCS articles
• Frame new KCS articles (Work in Progress or Not Validated) which will be reviewed or finished by a KCS Contributor or KCS Coach

KCS Contributor

The KCS Contributor reviews (as they reuse) or finishes KCS articles that are framed by themselves or others, making sure the articles adhere to the content standard. The KCS Contributor has the capability and authority to create or validate articles in their product area without review by a Coach. They may also author and approve articles for broad audience visibility.  They may directly improve articles that have article audience set to Internal and should flag articles in an External state that need to be updated or improved.

While the KCS Candidate creates articles that are Work in Progress or in a Not Validated state, the KCS Contributor can create content that is in a Validated state. A Validated article implies a high degree of confidence in both the technical accuracy and compliance with the content standard. A KCS Contributor can put articles that are in a Work in Progress or Not Validated state into a Validated state if, in their judgment, the article is "sufficient to solve."

The KCS Contributor competencies are incremental to those of KCS Candidate and involve a detailed understanding of the importance of the context of the audience, the content standard, the Content Standard Checklist, and the KCS processes. They should be able to work independently by creating well-structured KCS articles and be adept at enhancing others' articles to make them visible to a wider audience.  The KCS Contributor should also be able to demonstrate understanding by passing an exam. 

KCS Publisher

The KCS Publisher is authorized to set the article audience to External or publish content to an external audience, as well as to modify externally-facing content.  In KCS environments, "publish" means making the KCS article visible to partners or customers. Compared to a KCS Contributor, the KCS Publisher takes a more global, outward view of the audience and the content. The KCS Publisher knows the technical implications of the knowledge being published, has an understanding of what material is priority information, and has an understanding of copyright and trademark policies enforced by their organization. The KCS Publisher is also responsible for understanding the external audience and publishing requirements outlined in the content standard.  Because External KCS articles may be linked from other resources and may be visible to a large audience, the KCS Publisher must exercise good judgment about modifying External articles.

In determining readiness to move to the KCS Publisher level, consider that the KCS Publisher should be consistently adhering to the Content Standard Checklist, following the KCS workflow (measured by the Process Adherence Review), and have consistently positive feedback on and high reuse of article content. They should reliably focus on the success of the team and the customer over individual success.

The KCS Publisher may flag External content for archival or deletion, but because removing externally-facing content is an activity with difficult-to-assess implications, typically the KCS Publisher can't personally archive or delete.

As KCS matures in the organization, a high percentage of the knowledge workers should be at the KCS Publisher level. This percentage allows the just-in-time publishing of content that drives a high level of customer success with self-help. This is especially important in order not to create a backlog of flagged External content, because KCS Contributors may not directly edit External articles.  The KCS Publisher should also be able to demonstrate proficiency by passing an exam.

See KCS Roles and Competencies for detailed examples of what each role should understand and do.

Variations on Roles

While both the coaching model and the KCS proficiency model are common components of successful KCS adoptions, there is considerable variation in how companies have implemented these.  Some have rigorous criteria and tests that knowledge workers must pass, while others rely solely on coach recommendations. Some organizations require an annual renewal and some assign KCS permissions for life.

Organizations also use a variety of combinations of levels of proficiency. Following are a few variations.  They all work; the variations reflect the level of trust the leadership has in the knowledge workers.

• Two-level model where the KCS Candidate and KCS Contributor rights are combined and KCS Publisher rights are distinct. Knowledge workers can create and modify Not Validated and Validated/Internal articles and, once competent, can publish External.
• Two-level model with a distinct KCS Candidate role and combined KCS Contributor and KCS Publisher rights. Candidate knowledge workers have very limited rights in the system while they are learning KCS (Work in Progress and Not Validated articles only) and when they are competent they are promoted to the KCS Publisher level.
• One-level model where everyone is trained to have all the rights and privileges of the KCS Publisher and people lose permissions if they consistently demonstrate poor judgment or a lack of compliance with the content standard. 

KCS Coach

Coaches are critical change agents in the KCS adoption process, invaluable in helping knowledge workers develop their KCS competencies. In the KCS environment, the coach is successful when people are moving from KCS Candidate to KCS Contributor or KCS Publisher. Although a KCS Publisher needs very little coaching, Coaches should be doing periodic quality checks on their articles.

The coach's focus should first be on evolving an individual's KCS skills, then over time, shift to developing team capabilities. Although organizations recognize the need for training, they often overlook the need for effective coaching. An investment in training becomes largely wasted without the follow-up provided by a Coach's on-the-job reinforcement and support. This is especially true with KCS, which requires knowledge workers to develop and foster a set of new work habits, not just skills. An effective coaching program will shorten adoption time. In fact, the benefits the organization will achieve are directly proportional to the time they invest in coaching.

Coach responsibilities include:

• Promote user skill development through effective skills coaching.
• Help the KCS Candidate understand the problem solving workflow and how the KCS article management process is integrated with the thinking process.
• Influence knowledge workers to practice good knowledge management.
• Influence knowledge workers to apply standards for creating and improving knowledge within the knowledge base.
• Review KCS articles framed by the KCS Candidate until they reach required levels of competency.
• Perform internal validation of KCS articles to ensure accuracy for the described context and adherence to the quality standards set by the organizational unit.
• Provide ongoing feedback to knowledge workers and management about organizational KCS skill development.
• Provide feedback to the knowledge developing organization, within the defined processes, to improve KCS article management.
• Develop and monitor their own coaching skills through work with head Coaches.
• Participate in the KCS Council.

The benefits realized by the organization are directly proportional to the time invested in coaching.

The Coach must have a profound knowledge of the KCS Practices and processes as well as strong communication and influence skills. We have found it most effective to have Coaches be part-time KCS Coaches and part-time in the role of the peers they are coaching. A few organizations have tried full-time Coaches and have found that the Coaches quickly lose touch with the reality of issue resolution. As a result, the Coaches lose credibility with those they are coaching. A good rule of thumb is for Coaches to split their time equally between handling requests and KCS coaching.  More on coaching at Coaching for Success.

Knowledge Domain Expert

As the organization matures in its use of KCS, an additional important role evolves: the Knowledge Domain Expert (KDE). This critical role is responsible for identifying high value articles, identifying and driving improvements in products, documentation, processes, and policies, and contributing to improvements in the workflow and content standard. 

Knowledge Domain Experts participate in the Knowledge Domain Analysis (KDA) that is defined in Knowledge Optimization. 

The Knowledge Domain Expert must have both technical depth in their area of responsibility and a profound understanding of KCS. The KDE looks after the health of a collection or domain of knowledge, usually a subset of the knowledge base that aligns with their general expertise. To help achieve business objectives, the Knowledge Domain Expert drives the value of the knowledge by paying attention to both the quality of KCS articles and the effectiveness of the workflow that produces the articles. The Knowledge Domain Expert assists colleagues in the collection, storage, and distribution of knowledge within and outside the organization. He or she will help determine what knowledge is important for the organizational memory and help to ensure that mechanisms exist for assessing the patterns that emerge from the content.

The Knowledge Domain Expert works closely with the KCS Coaches and teams who have direct responsibility for maintaining the quality and flow of content as well as owners of the products, documentation, processes, and policies. This role is instrumental in the maintenance of a coordinated worldwide team effort. The Knowledge Domain Expert also contributes input toward process automation to push information externally. Their success is measured by the impact they have on: 

• Effectiveness of reuse analysis and pattern identification
• Minimizing duplicates
• Improving article utilization (internal and external)
• Increasing customer success with self-service for their domain
• Influencing the owners of products, documentation, processes, and policies
• Identifying improvements in workflow and content standard
• Identifying and supporting specific corrective actions in conjunction with coaches

A knowledge domain is the collection of content that makes sense to look at for pattern and clustering analysis. Therefore, the purpose or intent of the analysis defines the collection of articles that is relevant.

Most organizations have multiple knowledge domains, depending on the variety and granularity of the products and services being supported. Knowledge domains are virtual collections of KCS articles about a product family, a function, or relating to a technology or group of technologies. Knowledge domains are seldom about one product. They are not precise or absolute in their boundaries; knowledge domains often overlap.

For each domain, one or more subject matter experts emerge as Knowledge Domain Experts—knowledge workers with enthusiasm for the technology or function and the KCS principles and practices. They are usually experts who continue to have the same responsibilities, but take on additional responsibilities for the overall health of the knowledge and success of the team. They are often excited about being able to provide development with actionable information based on a broader view of customer experience. Knowledge Domain Experts often become experts in the knowledge base tool being used and develop an understanding of the subtleties of the search technology.

The reporting structure for this role can be designed in several ways. Consider the focus of the Knowledge Domain Expert's role—that of creating organizational value through externalization of content outside the organization. They will work closely with product development and product management. This role may be filled as a cross-organizational position.

Responsibilities include:

• Ensure efficient and effective problem solving by the team.
• Apply expertise in data mining to perform trend analysis and find the significant patterns in the data.
• Assist in the fundamental development and maintenance of knowledge base quality and flow, including the knowledge base quality methodology, article standards, and process guidelines.
• Perform Known vs. New Analysis.
• Develop and analyze reports on key metrics for business value of the knowledge base, such as article reuse rates, case interception, and improvements to resolution times.
• Ensure effective knowledge base operations by monitoring related information (organizational effectiveness, resource allocation, new article creation trends) and making recommendations to management to accommodate changing conditions.
• Advocate for changes necessary to maintain the knowledge base as an effective tool for achieving business objectives.
• Provide input for items that have a worldwide impact. For example, monitoring and defining the KCS article metadata, prioritizing enhancement requests, coordinating training efforts where feasible, and planning for upgrades and systems integration enhancements.
• Influence the owners of products, documentation, processes, and policies to make improvements.
• Participate in the KCS Council.