Knowledge Management at
Progressive Insurance: A Case Study
I NDUSTRY I NSIGHTS : S ESSION #308
2
3
4
Barb Dombrowski
Knowledge Management & Incident
Management Processes Owner
Today’s Topics
• Knowledge Management – Progressive’s
Story
• What worked / What didn’t
• What’s next for Progressive
5
Knowledge Management
Team Vision
6
History of KM and ITSM
at Progressive
• Knowledge Management
implemented at the
Service Desk in 2000
• Service Management
Office (SMO) stood up in
2009
– First released ITIL
processes were Incident &
Problem Management
SMO Today - 2013
• Includes 12 functional
areas comprised of
process and operational
teams
• Includes Knowledge
Management Team
(Process & Operations)
• Knowledge Management
aligned under the SMO in
2010
7
Maturing the Knowledge
Management Process
8
Capturing Knowledge
The Early Days
Napkin, Post-it note, Database request form
or Legal Pad?
9
Knowledge Management
The Early Days
Many groups, many different approaches:
– Types of requests for knowledge articles
– Processes / Tools
– Knowledge Article format
KEY:
• many different goals
• many different ways
10
Attempt to Standardize
the Content, Process
& Tool
• Information Mapping process used to
standardize the format of the knowledge
article
• Enterprise Knowledge Management
software for Service Management
• Use of standardized article templates
11
Self-Service Portal
• Knowledge articles made
accessible to all
Progressive employees
• Guidelines developed to
determine which articles
should be “self-service”
• Sub-document security
functionality
% of Knowledge
Articles Accessible to
Self-Service Users
SelfService
16%
Internal
84%
12
Knowledge Mgmt. Team –
Enterprise Accomplishments
Knowledge is addressed in Production
Readiness
Enterprise (IT) processes written and
implemented
Promote knowledge sharing among
operational tiers
Quality Review Program
13
Major Movement to
Common Tool
14
Breaking Down the Silos
All IT Employees can access knowledge
articles
Article includes description of the Intended
Audience
15
Encouraging USE of
Knowledge
• Incident Solution Confidence Factor
– Job aid that explains which content sources (knowledge articles,
incidents, known errors and problems) are the most “authoritative”, and
therefore should be searched/used first to restore service
• Incident Standard
– All Incidents in a Resolved or Closed Status must be associated to a
Known Error Record or Knowledge Article
16
Quality of Knowledge
Management - 2013
Quality Review Program
• Knowledge Article Guideline adherence
• Knowledge Sharing Interviews
• Feedback from Users
• Reports for monitoring process adherence
17
KM Quality Review:
Results Summary Template
Knowledge Management Quality Review Results - PLACE OWNER GROUP NAME HERE
A review was performed for articles owned by your Remedy Support Group. Please take a look at the results below and complete the suggested actions so
that together we can improve Knowledge Sharing and Management at Progressive. The Knowledge Management Team will also review these results to
reveal any opportunities for process improvements or training. Each tab provides additional details on your results.
Article Review
A review was performed on 5 articles to verify that the current Knowledge Article writing guidelines are being used. Based on the results, the area (s) in
which your team may need to focus is the (title/template/visibility group/adding an Intended Audience statement ). Please review the Article Review tab
for details.
Below is a link to the Knowledge Article Writing Guidelines that the review was based on.
http://myqumas/Default.aspx?nodeid=3914095&docbase=qdoc_prod&nodetype=document&nodename=FCD-000615&
Article Feedback
Feedback was solicited on some of the recently used articles owned by your group. The overall feedback was ( favorable / not so favorable ). Please
review Article Feedback tab for the specific information and consider the information provided to improve the article.
Knowledge Sharing
Based on some interviews with members of your Remedy Support Group on the topic of knowledge sharing, we learned the following:
PLACE ONE OR TWO SENTENCES HERE
View the Knowledge Sharing tab for details about the interview.
Reports (ADD date when reports were pulled here)
Approver List - A list of people who are required to approve articles owned by your support group before it is published, cancelled or retired. If you need to
add or remove anyone from that list, submit a Demand request using the following link: http://demand/service/000000000013141
Here is a link to the process document which explains the approval process in RKM.
http://myqumas/Default.aspx?nodeid=3683388&docbase=qdoc_prod&nodetype=document&nodename=WI-005321&
Incomplete Update Requests - You currently have (place number here) update requests that need attention. If you are unfamiliar with the update request
process please review MyQUMAS document WI-005325 with your team to learn about the process.
http://myqumas/Default.aspx?nodeid=3683482&docbase=qdoc_prod&nodetype=document&nodename=WI-005325&
Annual Reviews - You currently have (place number here) articles that are due / past due for an annual review. If you are unfamiliar with the annual review
process, please review the MYQUMAS document WI-005327 with your team to learn about the process.
http://myqumas/Default.aspx?nodeid=3654042&docbase=qdoc_prod&nodetype=document&nodename=WI-005327&
Article Inventory - A list of articles currently owned by your Remedy Support Group. Your group currently owns ( place number here) articles. This is for your
information, no action needed.
Article Assignment - A list of who is assigned to each of the articles that your group owns. This information allows you to see how the article assignment is
distributed between your employees. If you find that someone on the list is no longer in your group or working at Progressive, review KBA00082969 for
information on how to update the articles with the proper names. Here is link to the article: http://itsmweb/knowledge/KBA00082969
18
Use of Templates
Examples of templates used to help classify
knowledge articles
Agent
Support
• Made available for self-service
• Easily filter for Agent-specific
Knowledge articles
Service Desk
• Made available for self-service
• Easily filter for infrastructure and
claims systems Knowledge Articles
Known Error
Article
• Documents workaround & derived
from Known Errors
• Default search for Service Desk
19
Other sources of Knowledge
Production
Control
Lotus Notes
20
Where are we Today?
Total Count of Knowledge Articles
19,000
20,000
18,000
16,000
14,000
11,000
12,000
10,000
8,000
6,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
0
2007
2010
2013
21
Other Quality Programs
• ISO Certification
– 9001/2008
• Knowledge Success Measures
• Quality Score Card
– IT Wide
– Based on Incidents/Problems/Known Errors.
22
Knowledge Goal Driven
Measures
Success Measures
KM Goal – We promote an
environment in which sharing of
knowledge among IT employees
enables high quality, effective
and efficient support of IT
products and services.
KM Goal – Ensure quality and
usefulness of captured
knowledge.
23
Knowledge & Quality
Progressive Quality Scorecard
Measure
Frequency
Severity
YTD
Weighted
Actuals
1,105.6
13.85%
Total Score
YTD Weighted
Meets Target
1187.0 - 1262.5
8.90% - 11.48%
YTD Score
Exceeds
Partial Meets
Meets
Progressive Measures Quality based on:
• Frequency – Weighted # of Problems reported
• Severity – Based on # of customers, employees, or
stakeholders affected by Problems.
Knowledge helps to:
•
•
•
Prevent recurrence of problems
Mitigate severity by minimizing the number of users affected
Provide data for problem mgmt. trend analysis
24
Organizational Challenges
• Searching for knowledge (large amount of information)
• A number of legacy systems’ knowledge needs to
migrate to Remedy system – Planned in 2014
• Not all employees have full understanding of the value of
sharing knowledge
• Identifying what goes where (Process documents vs.
Troubleshooting articles)
• Service Desk level – limited in type of knowledge they
use. Not using all knowledge sources
• Process Standardization – enterprise adoption
25
Where are we going?
• Enterprise Wide Knowledge Sharing tool
for all processes
• Enterprise Search – One stop search
• Reward for knowledge sharing
• Enhanced Integration with other ITSM
Processes
26
Thank you for attending
this session.
Please fill out an evaluation form.
27
Appendix A: Self-Service
Article Guidelines
An article should be flagged for selfservice if:
• The article contains steps the
customer can perform on their own to
solve their problem or answer their
question.
• The article clearly describes
symptoms that can be easily identified
by the customer as relating to their
issue.
• The article contains easy to
understand steps that lead to a clear
resolution.
• If the article contains links to other
articles, the linked articles are also
accessible via self-service.
An article should NOT be flagged for
self-service if:
• The article does not contain any steps
the customer can perform on their
own to solve their problem or answer
their question.
• The customer will not be able to
access the article due to the nature of
their problem (network connectivity,
VPN, etc.).
28
Appendix B: Operational
Metrics
RKM Goal – We promote an environment in which sharing of knowledge
among IT employees enables high quality, effective and efficient support
of IT products and services.
Success Looks Like: Users have the ability to capture
knowledge, share it with others, and to find and use knowledge.
Average Time to
Publication
Capture
Knowledge
# of Articles
Published
Average Time to
Publication
% of Article
Inventory in a
Workflow Status
Share Knowledge
Self Service to
Internal Ratio
Private to All IT
Employees
Visibility Ratio
% of IT Employees
contributing
knowledge
(creating,
modifying,
submitting
requests)
Percent of Projects
that include
Updates/creation of
new Knowledge
Average # of
search queries
per session
Find Knowledge
Average # of
search queries
per session
Most Frequent
Search Queries: The
most common
search queries ran
by users (maybe top
25 or top 100)
Use Knowledge
Subsequent
Usage
(Knowledge
Reuse)
Articles Not
Used / Not
Viewed / Viewed
but not used
% of IT
Employees
Viewing Articles
Search Queries
with 0 Results: A
list of specific
search queries that
produced 0 results
29
Appendix B: Operational
Metrics Cont.
RKM Goal – Ensure quality and usefulness of captured knowledge.
Success Looks Like:
Knowledge articles are continually improved, updated and reviewed. Invalid information is
quickly fixed, and obsolete articles are routinely archived.
# and % of Annual
Reviews
Completed / Not
Completed
Keeping Articles Up to Date
Average time to
complete
update request
# and % of
Annual Reviews
Completed / Not
Completed
# of Articles
Assigned to exemployees
30