Three ideas how to improve Knowledge Management… practice guide

According to the AXELOS ITSM Benchmarking Report 2022, Knowledge management, amongst all other ITIL practices, demonstrates the highest potential for improvement. Being widely adopted (79% of respondents have adopted it), knowledge management only works-well for 20% of companies, while the other 80% report it needs improving. I assume it would be easier for companies to improve their knowledge management capabilities if the ITIL practice guide for this area was updated first.

But wait a minute – I should have started at the beginning. Knowledge management is now a part of ITIL® 4 practices, and that means there is a practice guide for it. The guide provides a good explanation of key knowledge management concepts. However, I feel it lacks a set of practical recommendations on the topic, and that’s what could be improved.

So, here are my top three suggestions for improvement.

1. First, a structured approach to knowledge management starts with an understanding of knowledge demands coming from different people within an organization. For this one should be able to explain a set of competencies an organization needs and how these competencies contribute to different roles and positions. A logical chain "functional structure / organizational structure -> processes / functions -> roles / positions -> competencies -> knowledge demands" is a key to understanding which knowledge an organization requires and how that knowledge supports the business strategy. The identification of these relations is one of the primary responsibilities of the Knowledge management practice and this should be described in the practice guide.
2. But where does a list of competencies come from? The Workforce and talent management practice is the most reliable source for this, in my opinion. Understanding an organization’s competencies also contributes to many other activities within the scope of this practice - workforce planning, recruiting, employee assessment, and personal training. Unfortunately, the description of the integration between these two practices shows a lack of clarity and detail, and this certainly needs to be changed.
3. Finally, according to my observations, many companies do knowledge management intuitively, without a structured approach and sound reasoning. It would be very helpful for them if the Knowledge management practice guide provided a recommendation of the first steps. “Where to start” may be an unnecessary section in the guidance for basic practices such as Incident management or Change enablement, but for advanced practices it might be extremely valuable. And knowledge management is undoubtedly one of these advanced topics for most organizations.

The three points above seem to me the most critical. They could enrich a compelling conceptual description in the guidance with a piece of practical advice on how to proceed.

Would you vote for these improvements?