Implementing and Optimizing the ITIL Framework:
Service Desk Incident Management Integrated with Knowledge Management

Key Benefits Adapt to changing IT conditions with knowledge management Improve service desk contributions to service quality Optimize incident management, problem management, and more

ITIL: Bridging the Gap
Service Desks, IT help desks and other customer service organizations are increasingly being tasked with adhering to the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework in their operations. But while ITIL is a powerful starting point, it doesn’t specify the detailed processes or technology approaches for its implementation.

In particular, it doesn’t speak directly to the role knowledge management (KM) plays in accelerating these ITIL initiatives. This means ITIL provides no practical details on how to:

• Resolve service and support incidents more efficiently.
• Empower staff to avoid incidents.
• Identify the root cause of repeated or high-impact problems.
• Design reliable, usable, serviceable applications.

Optimizing Key ITIL Processes
Integrated incident and knowledge management helps organizations implement four key ITIL processes:

• Incident Management, the process of detecting and recording problems through to resolution and closure. Consona Knowledge Driven Support helps service desk staff capture resolutions and search effectively and accurately for known resolutions, reusing knowledge to make incident closure faster and more consistent.
• Availability Management, the process responsible for ensuring that the availability of each service meets or exceeds targets. Consona Knowledge Driven Support can access information in the ITIL-specified Configuration Management Data Base (CMDB) to proactively push highly relevant alerts, downloads, and configuration health checks to end-users or IT system administrators.
• Service Management, the process describing how applications are released, delivered, and optimized. Consona Knowledge Driven Support provides Voice-of-the-Customer insight from self-service activity and service desk knowledge use to create more informed requirements for upgrades and enhancements to deployed applications.
• Problem Management, the continuous improvement process designed to minimize the impact of problems and incidents to the business. The core of problem management is root cause analysis. Because Consona Knowledge Driven Support makes it easy for agents to link from incidents to categorized knowledge, the service desk can run reports to list the causes of the most common or highest-impact incidents. Automated classification of knowledgebase content, incidents, and searches makes incident coding universal, consistent, and accurate.

Making It Happen
ITIL provides a proven framework for managing IT processes and running your service desk cost effectively. The Consona Knowledge Driven Support solution both complements and enhances ITIL with tightly integrated knowledge and service management capabilities, making your ITIL initiatives much more successful.