personal knowledge base

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I was reading chapter one of MS press 70-271 training kit about how it may be a good idea to keep your own personal knowledge base.

I just wondered how many of you currently use this practice?

 

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Nope - that's what Google + MS Official Base etc etc is for

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I have always recommended (and required) all my engineers and support staff to carry round a "Day Book" where they note down what they do each day and especially any problems/fixes/workarounds.

If you're going to be an IT professional then CPD (Continuing Professional Development) is a must and haveing your own records goes some way to helping with this. Gets a big thumbs up from me.

 

I agree but Microsoft still recommends you keep your own with your own documentation, I guess it could prove useful in speeding up the process and those hard to find solutions. Also your own solutions of course.

 

Obviously in a work environment it's different. Documenting everyday problems helps other techies fix problems in less time and with less hassle.

Personally - no, I have better things to do, and I generally find that if something goes wrong I have a recollection of what to do.

At work - yeah, it's a very good idea and I always contribute to a central 'store' of problems/resolutions... although admittedly I've never had to use it to resolve a problem. Admittedly though, that could happen.

*shrugs* Each to their own.

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Day Book nice idea.

 

I know where you are coming from

I also suppose it would help as you move from company to company.

Must admit i only have ever used centralised company bases

but i would only do it selectively reg entries, urls to files etc

 

Make yourself a nice access little access database if you want to do this for personal knowledge!

Then twelve months down the line you can search/filter results as opposed to flicking through 300+ pages of scrap notes.

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Exactly! Give that woman a gold star! I had assumed that this was common practice inside a working environment.... maybe not.

I.T support staff should always have a central base of knowledge so that it can help resolve similar future problems bettererer. (Yes, that is a word)

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Depends on your job. My guys covered a lot of client sites, hence use of the book (which btw was my Company property, not theirs).

 

Fair enough - I now understand the reasoning behind it.

And damn right! I'd want my notepads back too once they were done with! p

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I always thought that was one of the primary purposes of bug tracking systems, change management, machine logs, trouble ticket systems ?

Personally I just find day books get full of doodles from all the boring meetings....

 

Yes that is common practice. Well every where i have been

However, personal is different as it would be selective and obviously generic , obviously no client details etc

I am on about personal knowledge and development

 

The log of every repair is what they suggest you do in the A+ .I haven't seen it mentioned yet in the mcdst,i'm nearly finished 70-271.

This stuff is literally a gold mine of information i would have thought,if you take 300 calls every week,by the end of the year that is 15 600 repairs documented.

I keep every repair in my head,i don't even have as many as 500 repairs done yet.I should really write them all down.

 

Thats what it recommends in the book

 

It's entirely up to you matey. If it were up to me.. I wouldn't bother. If a problem was annoying enough to become troublesome then I'd write down a separate resolution method, not document everything.

To be honest, a lot of what's said in the 70-271 chapter 1 is a bit odd anyway. You should never assume that a user knows less than you regarding their I.T related problem.


Yadda Yadda. Skip to chapter two...

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Heh. Well if you were 100% going to go for it then that would be one of the easier ways to do it. IMO though, as stated before, don't worry about it.

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Page 1-35 - Supporting Users and Troubleshooting a Windows XP operating system (70-271 - Training Kit)

 

Some people try to make it into a field in itself and call it 'Knowledge management'. This is one driver behind things like Sharepoint. You can create a blog or wiki and stick it all there, then you and others can benefit, its available from anywhere in the world, and it might help you network with other professionals.