Delivering consistent and superior IT Services for application support relies heavily on the level of knowledge that resides mainly in the heads of a very few application support professionals. If the IT organization does not do something quickly, practical application support knowledge will become a statistic of the Darwin Principle – EXTINCT!
The baby boomers are retiring in ever increasing numbers, critical IT application knowledge is moving off-shore at an ever increasing rate, and the work force is more mobile now than it has ever been. Off-shore the high personnel turnover in many off-shore vendors the knowledge loss is increasing at an exponential rate.
The IT industry is experiencing an unprecedented “Brain Drain” particularly within the IT application support environment. Who is going to be left behind to mind the store? Where will all the application support knowledge go that has been accumulated over many years? Consider the following statistics:
When “Charlie” (the go-to-guy who fixes any serious problem) is gone who will take his place? How will others learn what took “Charlie” 10 to 15 years. If Charlie is gone and all the critical knowledge that was only in Charlie’s head walks out the door with him, what will happen to the quality of your support?
What took “Charlie” 1 hour to fix, may now take several people many hours or days. This can lead to serious business interruption, project schedule overruns, and a dramatic increase in application support costs.
Loss of application knowledge represents a significant business risk and should be given the same consideration as the loss of any other critical business asset.
Many IT executives say “We have application documentation.” What IT executives should be saying is “We have institutionalized our critical application knowledge and it is readily available by anyone who needs it.” However, in most cases this cannot be said.
Considering this context there is a great deal of difference between “Application Documentation” and “Application Knowledge.”
Application Documentation – Technical design and specifications Created for developing the application, not for supporting it.
- Not organized in a way that makes specific content fast and easy to find
- Badly out of date and reflects little of what the application looks like today
- Current version is difficult to find and in most cases even more difficult to use
- Does not reflect what lessons have been learned by the support SME’s (subject matter experts) over years of supporting the application
Application Knowledge is – What is in peoples heads that they have learned over many years
- Practical knowledge gained over years of supporting the application
- Knowledge used in support of specific application functions and how they relate to the business processes they support
- Knowledge of application trouble areas and what is necessary to fix reoccurring or intermittent problems quickly
- Critical or complex application processing routines and calculations
- Personal trouble-shooting utilities or processes developed over the years that are not common knowledge within the IT department
- Knowledge of critical application components and how they effect the application
Before any useful application support knowledge solution can be developed a prerequisite is an in-depth understanding of the application support environment and what is needed day-to-day by those who support and use the application. The following represent a small sampling of items that need to be addressed when developing any application knowledge capture solution.
What application knowledge content is most useful and relevant to those supporting or using the application:
- Where is knowledge this content found? In what form? Who knows it?
- Does some of this knowledge content already exist? Where is it?
- Can specific knowledge content be accessed quickly and understood easily?
- Is it in a form that is easy to use?
- Is it up-to-date?
Computer Aid has developed a field proven methodology for both capturing critical application support knowledge and processes that the will keep that knowledge current.
The question that business executives must always ask “is it worth it”? Will the benefit of developing and maintaining this application knowledge outweigh its cost? There will a different answer for each business; however, the place to ask this question is of those whose job it is to support the applications. Ask them: What will happen if “Charlie” were gone?
Another senior IT manager once said “If you think knowledge is costly, try ignorance”
The following sections of this blog will provide you the reader with the means to become acquainted with a few of the elements of CAI’s “Application Knowledge Capture Service”. CAI has used this process with our customers for 15 years. It is typical for our customers support analysts to say ”I wish I had this when I started supporting this application” The benefits and process will be discussed in the next sections.
NASA can afford to spend $100 billion to recreate lost knowledge that sent men to the moon. How much can you afford to recreate knowledge that is necessary to keep your business running?
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