INTRODUCTION AND SCOPE
The ability to deliver quality services is directly influenced by the people involved in the delivery, especially by their understanding of situations, possible response options, and the consequences and benefits of those options (i.e. by their knowledge). This applies across all phases of the lifecycle.
Incidents which actually relate to a common underlying problem may present themselves with different symptoms. It is unrealistic to expect that all service desk staff will have the same knowledge about the relationship between possible symptoms and the cause, and hence automatically offer a suitable response. Being able to store and correlate information about such things and present
the shared knowledge back to the service desk staff will enable them to be more effective.
Typically, knowledge management is displayed within the Data-to-Information-to-Knowledge-to-Wisdom (DIKW) model as illustrated in Figure 20.1 and where the terms are defined as:
• Data: Discrete set of facts.
• Information: Data set in context.
• Knowledge: Uses information, but includes an extra dimension derived from experience.
• Wisdom: Uses knowledge to make correct decisions and judgements.
It is unrealistic to expect every individual to have a deep and broad range of knowledge, but it is possible to record, store and make data, information and knowledge available to people.