When I worked at BlackBerry, we had a (small) knowledge management community and each member presented what she or he worked on. One presentation, from the guy who was Program Manager at Customer Support, presented about Knowedge-Centered Support (now renamed to Knowledge-Centered Service) or KCS. I was surprised that I had never heard about this KM method before. My colleague was very enthousiastic about this method, which aims at service organizations (like his Customer Support department). Perhaps this method is more known in North-America, where it started. As KCS is now becoming part of my working life, I want to explain a bit more about this method. Of course I can't cover all details, but there are many open resources on the web.
Development of KCS as a method started in the 1990's, when a consortium of several large companies (Dell, HP, Alcatel-Lucent to name a few, look
here for current members) was formed that all had similar issues around support knowlegde. Best practices were shared to capture, structure and reuse knowledge (to solve an issue from a customer). The
Consortium of Service Innovation still exists and currently version 6 is the latest of the
practices guide.
In KCS knowledge and people the most important organizational asset and knowledge is part of the work process of the support agents. The team is collectively responsible for the quality of the knowledge that is used to solve issues. Not the expert, but everyone, while using the knowledge. Knowledge is stored in a knowledge base. It happens on demand, so only when an issue occurs (only then, it is used). So, the knowledge base is not filled beforehand with as many items as possible, only when there is a need for the knowledge.
KCS is a double-loop process with a Solve loop and Evolve loop. The Solve loop is aimed at solving the issue with knowledge available, while the Evolve loop is aimed at learning and improving, as well as leadership involvement. I want to keep it short, so I won't discuss the different steps in the process (maybe in another blog). Online, a lot can be found on the adoption process, which I won't discuss either.
As I said, in the Netherlands (and in Europe, I think) the KCS method is not well-known. A few of the companies that are applying the method are: UWV and Ahold, while SVB is in the process of starting the adoption.
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