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Knowledge Management

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by sgs_gti_jay 1 view

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Hello Techrepublicans,

I'm looking for some idea's from the best of the best as far as the most efficient ways to transfer information between team members on rotating 24/7 schedule's. The environment is a corp NOC, so many things are happening daily and some solutions as to the best way to make sure information is transfered from person to person is highly important.

We have a few idea's floating around in our workgroup but i still feel that something is lacking as far as having a single point of prescence for all the information that you need for the shift transitions to be able to know what's currently happening. Current maintenace, Outages, Pending issues, etc

If anyone has input or solutions i would highly appreciate any feedback.

Thanks
Jay
Network Oporations

10 replies

by tig2

This is a carry-over from when I was nursing- a 10-15 minute update to the shift heads from the shift heads. In addition, a floor/section book was maintained.

While your shift head would pass information about general points of interest, the individual nurse would transfer knowledge about her patient load to the oncoming. The book contained information about fire drills, emergencies and resolution, cluster events and the like.

The place where I have had difficulty implementing this in a corporate environment is that the rule in the hospital is that you do NOT leave at the end of your shift if you have not passed knowledge. It can be difficult to motivate your teams to stay late because their opposite number is late.

Good luck!

by telco

Hi Jay & TiggerTwo! We were faced with this requirement at shift change-over in various control rooms around the world (refineries, fire stations, food processing plants, nuclear power stations, sewerage plant - and a heap others!) - so we saw a need.
We developed SHIFT CHANGEOVER LOGBOOK, Operators Logbook and Knowledge Notebook.
They are all webbased (multi user) electronicf logbooks - with easy search facilities and lots of other features.
You can view the range of products on www.sjsoft.com
I can send you dozens of white papers and other interesting information if you require it.
Here's to a happy & successful 2007!
Don

by tech

I recently quit my job as IT Manager due to pressure from a new set of directors and, as I knew I would be leaving and didn't want to drop my staff in the mire, put all my knowledge in an "IT Bible" beforehand. Every time I logged in somewhere, bought something, installed new kit or software etc I religiously documented the procedures.

When I left I agreed to be on the end of a phone for the first 2 months in case they had any problems at all.

To date (7 weeks in) I've had 4 calls - each time it was for something small that I had forgotten to document. In fact, one lad told me that they found the book so useful they renamed it after me. LOL

by tomaaa19

I would look at building a knowledge base possibly using a product like Ask Sam which a free form database system. Log all events and their status, information on follow up items and the final solution.

This can be a great reference down the road as you can search on a term to see the history of any previous occurennces.

by itil citizen

I think these are all great suggestions.

In my experience a combination of the two is best.

Nothing can beat face to face communication (and this is a good way to ensure the correct information is getting out there) and therefore I would recommend regular short meetings or huddles to bring everyone up to date.

If you have a knowledgebase or even a book, remember the adage garbage in garbage out - someone needs to be the "owner" and quality control of the information that gets entered here becomes very important as time goes on.

I wish you the best and the knowledge management is really about clear, timely communication.

by timothy j. bruce

The idea of a "book" is a great one. So why not implement a SMALL CMS or Wiki? This would also allow searching and everything to be date stamped if there are questions later about when something happened.

Tim

by telco

Wiki's work well! We have established several wiki's for use in capturing volume, quality information that's searchable over the web, by many users.
HOWEVER, if you require auditable and traceable information (i.e for FDA or legal or safety reasons) something slightly more stable & formal is required

by edluban

Jay, just a suggestion if you haven't already done this, meet with each team member or group whether personally or video conference and connect with them. I know 24/7 is hard, even harder over time and distance, but it has to be done to let team members know that they are team members ... and that's how they get ownership and input (and isn't the input what you really want? )

regards,

ed

by sgs_gti_jay

I just wanted to take a min to thank everyone for all the great idea's.

Many points were made and best of all the most efficient way to have a knowledge transfer is face to face. We are working on setting up a few things for our team to collaborate between each other, Forums is one method we have been experimenting with, also we have an existing Altiris system which we have researched and are going to make better utilization of by implementing a knowledge base specifically for our team, which will co-exhist with the already implemented KB for Helpdesk.

I guess as many have you have expressed, migrating your environment from a 12x7 to a 24x7 environment is alot of work from everyone on the team, especially when you work in a NOC setting, there is SOO much information that changes minute to minute.

Thanks again everyone!

Cheers,
Jay
GTI Network Operations
Rochester, NY

by mhaggerty

Hi Jay and all, I'd like to offer a different perspective. I read in the most recent post, "Many points were made and best of all the most efficient way to have a knowledge transfer is face to face." I disagree. In fact, I believe KM should be designed to eliminate face to face transfers. Extracting, documenting, and widely distributing knowledge are cornerstones of a robust Knowledge Infrastructure. I hope this stimulates more thought and activity on this topic. Cheers, Matt

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