A primary strategy for understanding the users’ needs is to develop use cases, such as any of the following:

• Capture and preserve organizational knowledge
• Onboarding new employees
• Will not be a source for answering specific technical questions; more on the broader knowledge needed to be effective.
• Provide a forum for conversations around ongoing projects
• Provide access to key professional networks
• Provide access to collective organizational resources

(i.e., allocation matrix, green sheets)

• Find an appropriate mentor / model / instructor / expert
• Provide a teaching mechanism
• Provide a centralized link to other sources of documented knowledge
• Provide a place for comments and suggestions on the knowledge capture system

A common tension:

There is an unavoidable tension between providing the broader conceptual skills that often underlie the exceptional performance of an expert vs. meeting the daily task needs of front line staff.

Source: Jerry Talley and Laleh Shahidi