The Best and Worst Ways to Run a Knowledge Base Governance Council

It can be challenging to get a group of people, all with different perspectives, to agree on one thing.

A knowledge base governance council is no different.

HR comes in advocating for the employee experience. IT is focused on how the system works. Legal worries about risk. Communications wants consistency. Each lens matters, but without shared understanding, governance meetings become debates instead of decisions.

The result? Slow approvals, unclear ownership, and content that doesn’t improve even though everyone is trying to help.

Why Knowledge Governance Matters

Knowledge management governance is defined as the framework of policies, processes, and structures that ensure organizational knowledge is accurate, accessible, and aligned with business goals. Without it, content can become chaotic, outdated, and disconnected from user needs. In a Deloitte survey, nearly 29% of employees reported that extracting needed knowledge from company repositories was difficult or nearly impossible without clearer governance and structure.

Governance isn’t optional - it’s foundational. It turns a knowledge base from a dumping ground into a strategic asset that drives decisions, reduces support overhead, and improves self-service effectiveness.

The Best Way: A Council Built on Clear Roles, Shared Purpose, and Shared Metrics

Start With a Clear Framework

The best governance councils use an explicit framework that defines roles, processes, review cycles, and metrics up front. Core pillars of knowledge management governance include roles (who owns what), process (how updates happen), metrics (how success is measured), and policies (standards for quality and lifecycle).

A governance council should outline:

• Executive sponsor - someone who can secure resources and remove roadblocks

• Knowledge program manager - owns the framework and outcomes

• Content owners - accountable for specific domains or topics

• aUser experience representatives - ensure content meets real needs

In our experience, defining a clear owner is also essential, especially when decisions are beyond the council’s scope. Ownership prevents stalemates and ensures issues are resolved.

Align on Goals - Not Just Tasks

Too often, councils get bogged down in discussions about formats or style guides while losing sight of why the knowledge base exists. Early alignment on measurable goals (e.g., reduce support cases, improve search success, reduce turnaround time for updates) helps every function understand what they’re optimizing for. Clear objectives are a best practice in knowledge management frameworks and help secure leadership buy-in.

Cross-Functional Membership With Mutual Understanding

One of the biggest challenges in governance councils is functional silos, especially between groups like HR and IT. HR may focus on user experience, clarity, and policy applicability, while IT may prioritize system performance, metadata, and technical integration.

Both are essential, but without mutual understanding, councils can stall:

• HR might argue that language should be rewritten for employees at all levels.

• IT might insist on strict taxonomy and structural rules before publication.

A good council gives each functional perspective a voice while centering decisions on end-user outcomes rather than internal priorities. This is where strategic alignment - ensuring processes, structures, and culture support shared goals - plays a crucial role.

The Worst Way: A Committee Without Clarity or Accountability

Too Big, Too Slow

A governance “council” of 20+ people that meets quarterly is not governance. Too many voices without clear decision authority leads to indecision and delays. Instead of moving content forward, a council like this becomes a review hurdle no one wants to cross.

Function-First, Not User-First

When councils let internal priorities override user needs, content becomes optimized for internal comfort, not employee clarity.

For example:

• IT may demand metadata precision that delays publishing

• HR may remove context in pursuit of simplicity

• Legal may stall updates for overly conservative compliance checks

None of these priorities are wrong in isolation. But when each is pursued without understanding the others, the result is content that pleases no one - especially users.

No Lifecycle or Accountability

Bad councils treat governance as a one-and-done checklist. They may approve content once and never revisit it. As knowledge ages, relevance drops, and governance failures accumulate - leading to confusion, mistrust, and redundant artifacts across the base.

Without a lifecycle or review policy tied to accountability, content drifts toward irrelevance.

Speaking of content, we believe governance councils should get out the way of content teams. Each function should have it’s own content person(s) that is trusted with posting without jumping through extra hoops.

How Research Connects to These Failures

Governance is not just about having rules, but about structures that ensure accountability and innovation. A federated, stakeholder-focused governance model, one that includes accountability and responsibility for meeting organizational needs, is shown to be more effective than rigid, siloed models.

Cross-functional collaboration also matters. Research on knowledge sharing shows that teams with cooperative communication across disciplines produce higher-quality shared knowledge and better perceived usefulness. Poor communication, competing priorities, and siloed decision-making hurt knowledge quality.

Practical Steps for Better Governance

Whether your knowledge base lives in ServiceNow, a wiki, or an intranet, the governance council needs to operate with clarity and purpose:

Define Roles and Expectations

Assign owners with clear responsibility for accuracy, relevance, and lifecycle. Make these owners accountable in performance goals.

Align on Shared Outcomes

Build common metrics that reflect user success, not just internal completion numbers.

Balance Functional Expertise With User Advocacy

Make sure every function has its own space and that users are represented in decisions.

Establish Lightweight, Regular Review Cycles

Governance shouldn’t be an annual meeting. It should be part of standard operations with clear triggers for review.

Focus on Collaboration, Not Command

Governance works best when it enables contributors instead of policing them.

Here’s the point

A knowledge base governance council can be one of the most impactful levers for organizational clarity — or one of the slowest bottlenecks to content usefulness. The difference usually comes down to governance that centers on user outcomes, clear roles, and cross-functional alignment rather than internal turf wars and slow processes.

In today’s complex environments where platforms like ServiceNow serve multiple needs, councils that help teams understand each other’s priorities and align around shared success signals are the ones that drive real impact.

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If our perspective resonates with you, The Employee Content Experience Playbook goes deeper into how employees actually experience content and why most organizations misdiagnose the problem.

It’s designed to reframe thinking, not prescribe solutions.