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Realising the value of an RKM.

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Hi All,

We recently completed, a RKM (Roles and Knowledge Management) engagement for one of our biggest customers in South Africa. This specific engagement focused on the Active Directory (AD) environment and service.

This engagement was a great success, the benefit and the value was immediately realised, the customer was extremely happy and I would like to share this story with you!

The RKM delivery provides guidance on the roles and responsibilities within the AD Team, the Standard Operating Procedures activities that need to be executed and recorded, as well as the importance of knowledge management within a supporting service.

This engagement brought tremendous value to our customer and before the engagement even ended the customer was asking Microsoft to perform this delivery within the other Technology teams.

Customers Issue:

The customer came to us with 3 main concerns:

  • My staff do not know what they are supposed to do on a day to day basis (their roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined)
  • No one is taking accountability for the functions and tasks needed to be performed within the team to ensure AD is healthy
  • I have no way of documenting and sharing the knowledge of the actions and tasks performed within the AD team.

These are real concerns we see on a day to day basis. How true is it that when it comes to getting more staff members, we struggle to justify the time we spend on doing our day to day operations as none of these Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS) are recorded, defined or assigned responsibility. Although calls are logged via a Service Desk majority of the time, we often miss recording the proactive maintenance and preventative tasks we perform on a daily basis to ensure the AD environment is stable.

The Solution:

We proposed an RKM Solution to assist and achieve the above mentioned concerns:

  • Clearly understand roles and responsibilities of service managers, administrators, and other Operations staff
  • Create an environment where proactive focus drives daily, weekly, and monthly tasks
  • Increase accountability and assign tasks for effective execution
  • Improve knowledge sharing to increase employee skill levels
  • Develop and maintain consistent documentation

How this offering works:

RKM combines the implementation of structured management processes and proactive operational tasks presented through an application and delivered as part of the solution, which is based on Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

  • Role and Responsibility Optimization
    • RKM delivers roles, responsibilities, and detailed proactive work instructions contained in pre-packaged content packs specific to a Microsoft technology.
  • Power and Benefits of SharePoint 2010 Technology
    • Operations Center is a SharePoint 2010 application with role-based views of the organization’s operational documentation and the work instructions performed. This enables management to easily assign administrative staff the work applicable only to their role.
  • It’s About the Knowledge
    • Pre-packaged content packs of recommended work instructions are the heart of the offering. These work instructions contain best practice guidance from Microsoft Services, Microsoft IT, and the Microsoft Center of Excellence.
  • Maximize the Value of Your IT Investments
    • Ensuring you get the most out of your IT investments is the mission of Microsoft Services.

(An RKM is currently available for the following technologies: Windows Server 2008 and 2003 Active Directory, Exchange Server 2010 and 2007, SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, SQL Server 2008 and 2005, System Center Configuration Manager 2007, System Center Operations Manager 2007, and Office Communications Server 2007 R2 environments)

This engagement helped the customer identify which engineers of the AD team were performing functions that should have been performed by other teams and sometimes departments. We were able to optimize the tasks and workloads of the team and streamline the activities per engineer.
We were also able to track the activities and maintenance tasks and assign owners to ensure the Standard Operating Procedures were actioned and tracked on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

All of this was created within SharePoint 2010, linked to automated reminders with activity guidance documentation and operating procedures, making it easy to know what to do and when. A calendar view and inbuilt reports helps to keep track of everything and the effort required to complete the scheduled tasks.

All in all, the value we delivered through this engagement has provided the customer with a sustainable approach to defining roles and responsibilities, monitoring tasks and provided knowledge sharing in a central location.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article! Please contact your Microsoft representative should you require any further information on this.

Have a great day further.

Regards,

Natalie

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Realising the value of an RKM.
    thank you