Analysis and Recommendations for Information Technology User Support Provided to a Government Field Office

Chapter 4

Documentation for the User

Documentation as User Support

As mentioned earlier in this professional report, one of the key services of IT user support in the Organization is to provide documentation. The IT staff in the field office is required to provide user documentation for both installed applications and applications that are either locally developed or modified. The IT program is also responsible for providing and developing system operating manuals and application software user manuals. While the functions of user support through documentation have been specified by the Organization, the format and means for providing the documentation to the user have not been specified.

Because of the absence of standardized practices for managing the documentation in the field offices, most field office users have access to literally hundreds of documents in inconsistent formats utilizing many different methods for retrieving the documents. For example, users may have to go to the office intranet to retrieve the latest office computer usage policy. The user may then need to dust off a binder to retrieve a "hardcopy" of an e-mail containing instructions on how to reboot a system. Files that have been digitized are in various file formats such as ASCII text, WordPerfect, Microsoft Word Document, and Rich Text Format. A user manual for one application may be found by the user in a hardcopy "software binder", but a user manual for another application may only be available on a computer screen through the program's "Help" menu.

Many of the field office users complain that IT is "too complicated to understand". Managers need to consider that the cause of the users' frustration is not the complexity of the IT, but poor document management. Poor management of documentation is likely to produce an environment in which the users are not able to obtain adequate knowledge of the office's IT systems in a timely and effective manner.

The field office is not alone in facing issues with the management of documentation. Most organizations appear to be grappling with how best to provide documentation to the user.

There are three significant classes of information within an organization: data, documents, and published information. What you will find in most organizations is that technologists are responsible for data management, librarians are responsible for published information management, and document management (paper and electronic) slips through the cracks with no assigned management accountability. Documents are records, and, yes, they are being managed, but often with little overall planning and without standard records management tools. (Daum, 1997, p.8)

In the age of information technology, document management refers to the automated management of digitized documents such as word processing documents, page images, and spreadsheets (Turban et al., 1999, p 434). A document management system is utilized to provide more expedient, efficient, and organized methods to retrieve documents. Functions that a document management system may perform include document identification, storage, retrieval, tracking, version control, presentation and workflow management. A number of software applications and database programs are available to organizations that provide the functions necessary for developing and maintaining a document management system.

There are many needs for a documentation management system outside of the IT user support program, especially for those in administrative duties. As a field office considers providing a document management system to improve services to the user support program, it will also want to acquire a document management system to meet other organizational requirements. Researchers at The University of Leeds suggest that a structured approach to the stages in the development of a document management system should be followed (Harris, Owen, & Bloor, 1997). The researchers' structured approach is presented in Table 3.

Organizations, however, often fail to recognize that documentation doesn't always equate to proper user support. Improving the efficiency of document management will not, by itself, provide a means to satisfy user requirements. While the user may want to efficiently retrieve the document, the ultimate goal for the user is to have the document effectively provide the information and knowledge being sought. A user may ask "How do I get this computer program to work?" and the answer that should be provided is "Hit the blue button and then click on the red button twice". Instead, many of the document management systems in the field office only provide the user the answer to where the documentation can be found and not the actual answer the user may be seeking. In other words, the documentation system may still require the user to search through a 140 page user manual in order to obtain the answer he or she seeks. For the benefit of the user, IT managers need to provide not only an efficient means for retrieving documentation, but also an efficient and effective way of retrieving the answers the user seeks from the contents of the document.

The Capture, Storage, and Retrieval of Knowledge

With respect to IT user support, IT documentation is made available as a source of reference for the user to acquire knowledge to effectively and efficiently utilize IT. If the acquired knowledge from a user is shared with a second user that is seeking answers already found by the first user, then there is no need for the second user to expend additional time and resources searching through the documentation for an answer. The term knowledge defined by Turban et al:

Knowledge consists of data or information that have been organized and processed to convey understanding, experience, accumulated learning, and expertise as they apply to a current problem or activity. Data that are processed to extract critical implications and to reflect past experience and expertise provide the recipient with organizational knowledge, which has a very high potential. (Turban et al, 1999, p. 45)

Organizations manage knowledge for "the ability to locate and bring together people and relevant information, so that individuals can take effective action when doing their job" through the sharing of knowledge (Collins, 1994, p. 13).

The database used to store knowledge for the major purpose of knowledge sharing is known as a knowledge base (Turban et al, 1999, pp 456-457). The knowledge base is a "collection of facts, rules, and procedures organized in one place" (Turban et al, G5). Knowledge management systems are used to manage the knowledge base, acquire the knowledge as input, store and process the knowledge, and retrieve the knowledge from the database to users seeking solutions to their problems. Knowledge management systems are also subsystems to other information systems, including decision support systems and expert systems.

K. Kendall and J. Kendall describe expert systems, also called knowledge-based systems, as a very special class of information systems.

An expert system (also called a knowledge-based system) effectively captures and uses the knowledge of an expert for solving a particular problem experienced in an organization. Notice that unlike DSS [decision support systems], which leave the ultimate judgment to the decision maker, an expert system selects [what it has determined] the best solution to a problem or specific set of problems." (2002, pp. 3-4)

Expert systems have shown to increase output and productivity, increase quality, capture scarce expertise knowledge, increase accessibility to the knowledge, and reduce downtime (Turban et al, 1999, pp. 471 - 482). The components included in expert systems are: (a) a knowledge base, (b) the black board, (c) the inference engine, (d) an explanation subsystem, and (e) a knowledge refining system (Turban et al, p. 483). The knowledge base for the expert system contains knowledge necessary for understanding, formulating, and solving problems.

As beneficial as applying knowledge management systems are for user support or as subsystems for other information systems, actual implementation of the information systems is not a simple task (Turban et al, 1999, p. 457; Lye, 2003). The high cost of building and maintaining knowledge management systems and its benefits can be difficult to justify (Turban et al, p. 458). One of the biggest challenges to building and maintaining knowledge management systems is the capturing of knowledge. A knowledge management system is interested in capturing two types of knowledge, explicit and tacit:

Explicit knowledge is written down. In KM it takes the form of FAQ [Frequently Asked Questions] servers and traditional knowledge bases. Explicit knowledge suits call centers that handle a high volume of similar requests that have relatively simple answers. However, it falls woefully short in business critical situations that generate complicated discussions requiring a variety of expertise, with interactions that often extend across multiple organizations. That's where tacit knowledge comes in.

Tacit knowledge is the relevant information that resides in an individual's head. It's not written down, but is simply the knowledge someone has gathered from experience. It's often untapped, because it is hidden. But it's a treasure trove of knowledge. (Lye, 2003, ¶ 3-4)

The capturing of tacit knowledge for a knowledge base is more difficult than capturing explicit knowledge. Given the resources required to acquire knowledge, most of the Organization's field offices do not have the means to build a true knowledge management system.

Applying Concepts of Knowledge Management Systems on the Intranet

In the ideal world, a user would have access to knowledge management systems that provide the same level of knowledge as a human expert. However, there are limitations to how much knowledge can be captured and put into an information system (Turban et al, 1999, p. 482). The Organization's field offices are unlikely to fully support a full knowledge management system because of limited resources available to them in IT and finances. Despite the limitations of resources to support knowledge management systems, review of available literature and knowledge bases offered on the Internet, show that many organizations are borrowing concepts of knowledge management to build at lease a partial knowledge management system. In many of the knowledge management systems reviewed, the knowledge base was built by matching repetitive questions with the information already available in online documentation. In other words, instead of building a knowledge management system that captured both explicit and tacit knowledge, many of the organization's knowledge bases for customer service were supported by mostly explicit knowledge management system.

Organizations will often use their intranet for their knowledge management systems:

One of the most powerful uses of intranets is in knowledge capture and management . . . Suffice to say that this [knowledge management] is where the future of Intranets will lie over the next 10 years. We are already seeing Intranets being used for FAQs (Frequency Asked Questions) within organizations specifically aimed at induction training. They are also being used to capture technical support knowledge so that an improved customer support function can be provided by less qualified personnel. The key benefit is that it can be used to reduce information bottlenecks within an organization and improve customer service. (P. Bickerton, M. Bickerton, & Simpson-Holley, 1998, pp. 136-137)

A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page can be utilized for an intranet knowledge base. The page allows for the user to choose a question, click on a link to provide an answer, and may provide additional links to other resources to explain the reasoning for the answer given. These FAQ components closely match the IT system components of a knowledge management system as described in the previous section of this professional report.

It can be argued that knowledge management systems in the form of static web pages don't actually retrieve knowledge, but just retrieve information and data more efficiently. However, knowledge management evolves in stages and goals over time. Intranet-based knowledge management systems have much in common with the early stages of knowledge management. Baker and Badamshina (2002) notes that there are four stages of knowledge management: (a) Smart Processes, (b) Knowledge-Infused Products and Services, (c) Innovative Business Concepts, and (d) Constructing Critical Knowledge Systems and Conjoining Work Systems with Knowledge Systems. The intranet-based knowledge management systems currently implemented in field offices are in Stage 1 of knowledge management growth:

Stage 1—Smart Processes: Knowledge management activities often initially focus on improving processes (focusing on continuous improvement through lessons learned, best practices, process innovation, getting the right information/knowledge to the right people at the right time, etc.). Many e-business initiatives are merely speeding up existing processes by enhancing the flow of information and data . . . . (Baker & Badamshina, 2002, p. 17)

While the use of static web pages on the intranet will allow the knowledge worker to retrieve knowledge, the use of web pages have, in the past, limited the efficiency to capture knowledge. However, as will be discussed later in this section, application of content management systems and other collaborative tools are beginning to provide knowledge workers with better methods to enter knowledge into the knowledge base.

Besides FAQs, another intranet application often used as a knowledge base are "best practice" repositories (Bergman, Yassine, & Roemer, 2004). Best practice repositories are used when no single procedure can be recommended to arrive at a solution. For example, the author is currently leading a project team within his organization charged with developing an implementation plan to deploy a new e-mail client application to Central Region users in the field office. The problem is that field offices utilize various servers and network configurations. Thus, a "one size fits all" installation procedure is most likely not feasible for addressing the install requirements for each office. Instead, the project team will likely need to provide a knowledge base that allows the system administrator for each field office to find answers to their question, "What is the best method for installing the software based on my office's configuration?" If the project team designs the information system correctly, the system administrator at different field offices will be able to retrieve the necessary knowledge to install the software based on their network requirements from the knowledge base . If applicable, the system administrators using their own experience with installing the software should be able to enter their knowledge into the database for future retrieval by others..

The expertise needed for creating or editing the intranet knowledge base has limited participation by the field office knowledge experts. However, besides the use of a document management system, intranet content management systems are increasingly being used by the Organization and could also be utilized on the field office's own intranet.

The main task of a content management system is to centralize content in one repository so it can be better organized, shared, and tracked throughout an organization. Content is stored in the system once and reused many times, making the editorial process more efficient . . . Through its tracking and reporting feature, a content management system can provide a complete history of the various versions of a file or piece of content: who made changes to it, when it was changed, and what the changes were. Previous versions can be reinstated if necessary (Mescan, 2004, p. 54).

Intranet applications for content management systems usually provide tools to author and edit the content with very little knowledge of intranet programming languages or database administration.

A specialized application for content management, known as a "Wiki", can be used to provide a collaborative staging area for solving IT problems. Wikis are similar to content management systems and allows more than one person to edit the content. Wikis are "typically used to run a project development space, a document management system, a knowledge base, or any other groupware tool, on an intranet or on the internet" (Twiki.org, 2005, ¶1). Some of the Wiki applications are designed to build dynamic knowledge bases intended for customer and user support (Dickerson, 2004). The Chief Technology Officer of InfoWorld discusses how Wikis could be useful applications to organizations for documentation and knowledge bases:

Wikis are organized as topic-based Web pages that are editable by anyone. In my organization, I might have a page describing changes to our Apache Web server configuration, a page detailing firewall rules for a WAN connection, and another page recording any hardware maintenance done to servers. As changes are made to specific pieces of the IT environment, IT staffers can use a Wiki page to record them as they happen.

The word "wiki wiki" is Hawaiian for "quick," and the quickness with which Wiki pages can be edited and searched means it's easy for IT staff to record important information and find it later -- easier even than it is with blogs [online journals], and far easier than conventional groupware solutions such as Lotus Notes. If the ease of editing and changing seems scary, then it's worth noting that many Wiki systems, TWiki included, can be configured to track changes with revision control. Ease-of-use doesn't sacrifice accountability. (Dickerson, 2004, ¶ 2-3)

Field offices have the opportunity to use their intranet for more than simply displaying documentation. Intranets provide an opportunity to make knowledge available to the user as if the organization's knowledge experts were physically present at the location. The key point is that knowledge management systems can be very valuable in providing user support that was not possible before.

Shortcomings of Field Office Document Management and Knowledge Management Systems

This professional report has discussed the need to provide a document management system that allows users to efficiently retrieve documents. It has also been pointed out that there is a need to ensure that the documentation can be effectively utilized by the user through the use of a knowledge management system. While most field offices have attempted to provide documentation management systems and even knowledge management systems to the users, improvements can be made to the current information systems being utilized at the field offices.

Focusing on document management systems, shortcomings of current information systems at the field offices have been identified in Table 4. Until an adequate documentation management system is in place at the forecast office, it is unlikely that adequate user support through documentation can be provided. With IT experts relying on documentation to assist them in providing expertise to the organization, the document management system needs to be in place before an adequate knowledge management system can be developed.

With respect to the availability of knowledge management systems, the field offices have provided rudimentary knowledge management systems through their office intranets through the use of FAQs and best practice repositories. Some of the shortcomings the author has identified with the field offices' current knowledge management systems are present in Table 5.

Using Information Systems to Improve IT User Support

1. Introduction and Historical Background
2. Analysis and Methodology
3. Information Technology Changes for the User
4. Documentation for the User
5. Recommendations for the Field Office IT User Support Program
6. References