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28 July 2008

Knowledge Management in ITIL v3

Read this very clear and insightful white paper from Peter Dorfman (dated May 2007):http://www.thinkhdi.com/hdi2008/files/ITIL3.pdf I agree with nearly all of it. Let me highlight one of Peter's concluding point: <<For end users, ITIL 3 is an opportunity to get KM onto executive radar screens, maybe for the first time.Managers who have tried to promote KM adoption may see this as a golden moment to advance a personal objective, and they may be right.>> This is absolutely correct but based on my experience, I would not advise IT Managers to seek the implementation of a KM specific software solution that would somehow sit on top of or alongside the Service Desk Management system. You will not succeed in making 1st and 2nd line technicians switch to a different tool to record or search for valuable knowledge.KM must be integrated with all the other processes (Incident/Request/Problem Mngt, etc...).To succeed, it must become part of the technician's normal activities to resolve issues or satisfy requests. As always, KM is first about people, culture and processes well before being about tools! And ITIL v3 actually does emphasize on this, and this is maybe one reason why it does not litteraly consider KM as a separate support process.