Heather Ausmus, Program Manager for KCS at Twilio, describes their thoughtful approach to KCS implementation. Building a cross-functional team of advocates strengthened adoption and support for KCS initiatives. Team Mentors also played a key role by fostering collaboration, providing feedback, and encouraging sustained behavior change.
After approaching KCS as a list of projects and tasks for a number of years, Twilio launched a KCS program in the first half of 2024. Heather began with an assessment to understand the current state, and leveraged what she learned to set priorities and develop thoughtful communication about the program at all levels.
Priorities included:
- alignment and ownership around strategy
- buy-in and advocacy on the leadership team
- empowering and encouraging support engineers
- simplifying and automating technology where possible
Twilio aligned around a mission, vision, and values for their program, and gave it the name “Knowledge Exchange.” Focusing on supporting and empowering Team Mentors, followed by reviewing, editing, and verifying articles in the Knowledge Base has led to a huge increase in KCS activity hours logged by Team Mentors and their mentees, as well as increased article quality on over 500 articles.
Heather’s best advice:
- Build a core team of representatives across teams to support and guide initiatives and champion the program within their teams.
- Foster connections and collaboration with Team Mentors (aka Coaches) and proactively ask for input and feedback.
- Use data to identify opportunities and tell the story. Make the data accessible to everyone too.
- Behavior change takes time, so celebrate and communicate small wins.
Get all the details by watching the recording!
Resources Shared
- Slides (PDF)
- Process Alignment Review: details on PAR 2.0
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