Knowledge centered support (KCSSM) is a methodology for capturing, authoring, refining, and publishing information that is relevant to the support processes for an organization. When corporate knowledge is structured and processed in a methodical manner it can have positive effects on the service desk, the helpdesk, and the staff and clients of the business.
The structured, verified corporate information that is produced by KCS is often used as a knowledge base that end-users, or clients can search and browse via on-line web portals and web self-service helpdesks. When clients can find helpful information without calling the help-desk, everyone wins. By adopting a structured approach to maintaining corporate information and keeping on-line content up to date, the efficiency of the service channels and internal information distribution is enhanced.
ITIL v3 Knowledge management is the process that is responsible for providing knowledge to other areas of the business and across all other processes within ITIL. While ITIL v3 identifies this vital part of an efficient knowledge platform, it doesn't show you how to implement it. ITIL is descriptive, not prescriptive - that is, it does not tell you how to do something.
This is where KCS comes in. KCS is a set of principles and practices that will give you the "how to".
KCS endevours to collect, categorize, organize and publish information, or knowledge so that it can be continually updated and re-used by the support processes within an organization. This is why KCS and ITIL (information technology infrastructure library) processes such as incident management and problem management work well together. The information that is collected as part of an incident or problem, such as resolution, work-around details, technical data or other can be transferred into the knowledge system that is governed by KCS principles.
By having a structured database of knowledge that is product of real-world tech support, helpdesk workers will find that consulting such a resource as part of the incident/problem resolution process will become standard operating procedure. KCS should not be thought of a by-product of problem resolution. KCS should be thought of as the way to solve problems. This is where the relationship between KCS, ITIL knowledge management, incident management, problem management converge.
Get the whitepaper from Axelos http://www.axelos.com/gempdf/Synergies_between_ITIL_and_Knowledge_Centered_Support.pdf
Watch Karen Ferris from Macanta discuss this white paper with one of the authors, John Custy.