The humble FAQ
A question at the KnowledgeBoard set me thinking on how to leverage and work with the FAQ and Q&A as knowledge practices.
New tools:
My first surprise came when I realized there were many more FAQ specific
tools than what I imagined. Had assumed the main area for FAQ
application was web self-service - reducing the phone time and
providing cost savings by shifting the burden to the end-user.
A closer look shows FAQs as a versatile knowledge representation, a growing genre with a focus on providing solutions, helping with self-learning and capturing 'smarts'.
Similarities to problems
We have well-defined objects for dealing with 'problems' , templates
that have established fields, e.g. name, description, context,
solution, author, related issues, root causes, work-a-rounds, escalation
workflow and more. Many of these have been adopted for FAQ entries.
Pattern processes
FAQ systems now also follow the paths for compiling, publishing and
ensuring pattern adoption. There is often an (informal) 'community'
that vets solutions and monitors the list for applicability and
usefulness (often helped by tracking metrics from the web). FAQ entries
now focus on issue definition, and provide more explicit context, give
examples and include pointers to deeper stuff to encourage learning and
promote understanding.
Versatile FAQs
With careful construction and thought, the FAQ can:
- capture common heuristics
- help with self-education & learning
- lead to experts and deeper content
- show gaps in corporate / group knowledge
- provide feedback on product and service defects (if tracked)
The FAQ is certainly growing up
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