IT departments are always on the lookout for new technology-the "next big thing" that will save time and money by making service desk tasks faster and easier to perform. These solutions are always around the corner, always promising lots of ingenious functionality. But as great as many of them are, they can't provide the one thing IT departments need most: Knowledge. Seasoned service desk veterans are well aware that having access to effective knowledge is at least as valuable as the solutions IT uses. In fact, many view it as the closest thing to a panacea-the only way a service desk can make the leap from reactivity and constant firefighting to proactive problem prevention.
Naturally, most service desks out there are operated by people who know their stuff-professionals with lots of experience and many with official certifications. But the type of priceless knowledge that's often overlooked is the nebulous, context-rich know-how that's intertwined with and completely inseparable from the type of environment customers operate within, the type of infrastructure IT has to work with, and the types of tasks both must perform. In short, it's the collective knowledge and wisdom that IT personnel have acquired by responding to and addressing the problems specific to their environment and their customers' needs. Many organizations come to view knowledge packs from content providers as a workaround. But, though knowledge packs are good for generic product support, they still don't provide help that's specific to your environment and needs. That means they will be of limited efficacy in resolving your biggest incidents.
One may ask how this knowledge could possibly be overlooked when it's ensconced in the minds of the very people who are enlisted, day in and day out, to help service desk callers resolve these issues. But that's the very problem: At many-if not most-service desks, situation-specific gems that could benefit the entire department are locked in the heads of whichever employee happened to be around when a solution was discovered. Time-saving application shortcuts learned by power users over countless hours on the job often don't get shared with new hires because everyone in the department is firefighting, trying to resolve the next incident as fast as possible. Likewise, knowledge about a proven diagnostic sequence, tricky steps associated with installing an operating system, or background on why a specific tool or policy has been selected by the enterprise doesn't get passed on to every member of the team.
Failure to capitalize on collective knowledge exacerbates problems that have been endemic to the service desk for far too long:
1. Longer resolution times - Redundant, needless research inevitably clogs call queues and prolongs resolution.
2. Inconsistency - Researching a problem every time it arises instead of using a single, tried-and-true solution compounds problems and yields mixed results.
3. Low morale - The repetitiveness of less-efficient service desk methods inevitably takes a significant toll on the morale of service desk personnel.
4. Loss of knowledge - When service desk staff members leave an organization that has failed to capture the knowledge they accrued on the job, the enterprise experiences an increase in costs and loses precious time and energy as it trains new employees.
