What is ITIL knowledge management?

The purpose of the knowledge management practice is to maintain and improve the effective, efficient, and convenient use of information and knowledge across the organization.

The practice of knowledge management is valuable to any organisation and provides a standard approach when sharing knowledge using skills, practices, workarounds for problems, solutions and knowledge articles. There can be different methods in capturing and sharing this information that ideally needs to be maintained to further the progress in the knowledge area.

It has to be noted that knowledge is not just information. Knowledge has to be used to serve the right purpose which needs to be understood with the user of knowledge and the relevant situation in mind.

Providing a service desk analyst with a mammoth 500-page manual is not beneficial when they need to find a solution to a particular problem, fast. It has to be considered that the knowledge needs to be fit for purpose and simplified in a way that lays out specific instructions or reference points that an analyst can find immediately without spending valuable time searching for a specific solution.

Knowledge management needs to ensure that stakeholders are provided with the required information specific to a subject in the proper format within the correct time and at the right level. This needs to be associated with their access level and other relevant organisation policies that have been put in place.

A process required to access knowledge where development and capturing essential knowledge information is crucial to ensure it's documented and made available.

Plan

It's up to knowledge management to help the organization to define and plan a strategy to make sound portfolio decisions and supports financial management

Improve

Continuously improving the process adds value and having an understanding of the current situation and trending based on previous knowledge and information provides background to analyse and assess what can be achieved and improved by planning

Engage

It's important knowledge management forms relationships with stakeholders on all levels from a strategic and operational perspective based on an understanding of the context and history of those relationships.

Design and transition

To make this value chain activity more effective, it's important to have knowledge of the solutions and technologies available and the re-use of information.

Obtain/build

The efficiency of this value chain activity can be significantly improved with sufficient knowledge of the solutions and technologies available and through the re-use of information.

Deliver and support

Ongoing value chain activity in this area benefits from knowledge management through re-use of solutions in standard situations and a better understanding of the context of non-standard situations that require analysis.