The Dialog manager a system for managing procedural knowledge

Abstract

The Dialog Manager is a conversational web-based tool that helps organizations manage procedural knowledge. In the modern enterprise, procedural knowledge is of particular importance for service delivery organizations. The Dialog Manager helps standardization of operating procedures in order to deliver a consistently high level of service. In turn, it provides a systematic approach to capturing, managing and disseminating procedural knowledge. The Dialog Manager captures procedural knowledge in the form of dialogs that serve as interactive guides by offering a visual knowledge representation and an integrated content management system. It also provides a sophisticated conversation management mechanism that records and manages the activation status of nodes in a conversation. With advanced question selection algorithms, it makes the performance of procedural knowledge effective. The Dialog Manager has been piloted with the Application Management Services practice of IBM Global Business Services. Currently, the Dialog Manager is being used primarily for teams managing and supporting software applications for large enterprise customers in service engagements. We currently have several hundred users and expect the user population to grow to several thousand by the end of the year. The system has been received enthusiastically by users and in a recent survey. We found that over 70% found the tool to be of value to them and that it significantly improves the productivity of the practitioners. While the initial area of deployment has been in the area of IT services, the Dialog Manager is equally well suited to handling all kinds of procedural knowledge in the enterprise. © 2013 IEEE.