Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Knowledge Management Coordinator

🎯 Role Definition

The Knowledge Management Coordinator organizes, curates, and governs institutional knowledge so teams can find accurate information quickly and make better decisions. They design knowledge structures (taxonomies, metadata, templates), manage knowledge base platforms (SharePoint, Confluence, Zendesk, CMS), measure knowledge usage and quality, and drive continuous improvement through stakeholder collaboration, training, and feedback loops. This role is both strategic—shaping knowledge workflows and governance—and tactical—creating, reviewing, and publishing content.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Technical Writer / Documentation Specialist
Business Analyst with documentation responsibilities
Knowledge Management Specialist or KM Analyst

Advancement To:

Senior Knowledge Manager
Knowledge Management Lead / KM Program Manager
Head of Knowledge & Information Management
Content Strategy Manager

Lateral Moves:

Content Manager / Documentation Manager
Learning & Development Specialist (Knowledge Transfer focus)
Information Architect

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Lead the development, implementation, and continuous improvement of the organization's knowledge management framework and governance policies, ensuring consistent standards for content creation, review, retention, and archival across departments.
Develop and maintain an enterprise taxonomy, metadata schema, and content classification rules to improve discoverability, search relevance, and information lifecycle management across knowledge platforms.
Own the content lifecycle for high-value knowledge assets: create templates, editorial guidelines, version control processes, and quality standards to ensure accuracy and compliance.
Design, build, and administer knowledge base systems (e.g., Confluence, SharePoint, Zendesk Guide, Drupal, or enterprise CMS), including page structure, permissions, workflows, and integration with other corporate systems.
Curate, edit, and publish technical and process documentation, FAQs, SOPs, and how-to articles, ensuring content is clear, up-to-date, and targeted to specific user personas and use cases.
Conduct regular content audits and gap analyses to identify outdated, redundant, or missing content; prioritize remediation and consolidation projects to reduce duplication and improve content relevance.
Implement and monitor search optimization strategies (metadata, synonyms, redirects, search analytics) to reduce time-to-answer and increase first-contact resolution for internal and external users.
Measure knowledge base performance using KPIs such as page views, search success rate, bounce rate, time-to-first-click, article helpfulness, and content accuracy; translate insights into actionable improvements.
Partner with IT and platform teams to configure search appliances, AI-driven search features, and chatbot/virtual assistant integrations to surface the right content at the right time.
Facilitate cross-functional knowledge capture workshops, interviews, and documentation sprints with subject matter experts to capture tacit knowledge, institutional memory, and lessons learned.
Build and run a structured content governance board or review process that includes stakeholders across product, support, engineering, legal, and HR to enforce standards and approve changes.
Coordinate and deliver onboarding and ongoing training programs for content authors, reviewers, and knowledge champions on KM tools, editorial standards, and best practices.
Establish feedback loops with frontline teams (support, sales, operations) to capture unresolved questions, recurring issues, and content improvement requests; prioritize fixes and track outcomes.
Manage relationships with external vendors and consultants that provide CMS/knowledge platform support, AI tools, or taxonomy services; oversee contracts, SLAs, and project deliverables.
Maintain, document, and communicate knowledge retention and access policies to ensure regulatory compliance, data privacy, and secure handling of sensitive information.
Create and maintain dashboards and executive reporting to demonstrate KM ROI, adoption metrics, and the impact of KM initiatives on operational efficiency and customer experience.
Lead content migration and consolidation projects when implementing new KM platforms or reorganizing existing knowledge repositories, ensuring content integrity and minimal disruption to users.
Support incident response and postmortem documentation by coordinating timely capture of root causes, remediation steps, and preventive measures into the KM system.
Advocate for knowledge-centered culture by promoting best practices, recognizing contributors, and building a network of knowledge champions across the organization.
Implement structured processes for knowledge validation, peer review, and subject-matter expert sign-off to ensure technical accuracy and currency of critical documents.
Optimize knowledge for multi-channel delivery (web, mobile, chatbots, internal portals) and ensure content reusability and consistency through modular content design and single-sourcing techniques.
Monitor and improve multilingual knowledge operations by coordinating translations, localization workflows, and quality checks to support global teams.
Manage version control, archival schedules, and retention tags to reduce information clutter and ensure users access only current and relevant content.
Define and document KPIs and SLAs for KM services—such as article update cadence, response time to content requests, and knowledge coverage metrics—and manage continuous improvement cycles.

Secondary Functions

Provide day-to-day support to internal teams for ad-hoc knowledge requests, quick content updates, and troubleshooting of knowledge platform issues.
Assist in running pilot programs for AI-assisted content generation and validation, including prompt design, hallucination mitigation, and human-in-the-loop review.
Support product and feature launches by coordinating go-to-market knowledge deliverables, release notes, and training materials for support and sales teams.
Participate in cross-functional project teams to ensure knowledge requirements are included in product roadmaps and system implementations.
Contribute to open-source or community knowledge initiatives and represent the organization at industry KM forums, webinars, and best-practice groups.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Enterprise knowledge base platforms: strong hands-on experience with Confluence, SharePoint, Zendesk Guide, Freshdesk, or similar CMS/KB tools.
Information architecture and taxonomy design: ability to design metadata schemas, tagging strategies, and hierarchical content structures.
Search optimization and analytics: experience tuning search relevance, configuring search appliances, and interpreting search analytics (Elasticsearch, Coveo, Google Cloud Search).
Content management and publishing workflows: proficiency in creating templates, approval workflows, version control, and editorial calendars.
Structured authoring and single-source publishing: familiarity with modular content design, DITA, Markdown, or XML authoring practices.
Data-driven KM: ability to build dashboards (Power BI, Tableau, Looker) and analyze KPIs such as page views, time-to-answer, and article usefulness.
Basic scripting and automation: knowledge of CSV/Excel automation, APIs, or low-code tools to automate metadata updates, migrations, and bulk edits.
Integrations & bots: experience integrating KM systems with chatbots, virtual assistants, CRM (Salesforce), and ticketing systems (Zendesk, ServiceNow).
Quality assurance & compliance: knowledge of records management, retention policies, and handling of sensitive information.
Localization workflows and translation management: exposure to translation/localization tools and best practices for multilingual content.

Soft Skills

Excellent written and editorial ability: strong aptitude for clear, concise, audience-focused documentation and style guidelines.
Stakeholder management: proven capability to influence and align cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders without direct authority.
Analytical mindset: comfortable using data to diagnose issues, prioritize initiatives, and measure the impact of KM activities.
Project management: organized, deadline-driven, and able to manage multiple concurrent content and platform projects.
Training and change management: experience delivering workshops, onboarding, and adoption programs to drive KM behavioral change.
Curiosity and continuous improvement: proactive in identifying gaps, testing hypotheses, and iterating on KM processes.
Empathy and user focus: strong customer-orientation to design knowledge that anticipates user needs and simplifies complex workflows.
Problem-solving and critical thinking: ability to synthesize disparate inputs into clear content strategy and actionable plans.
Collaboration and facilitation: effective at running capture sessions, interviews, and content reviews with subject matter experts.
Attention to detail: meticulous about metadata accuracy, version history, and content integrity.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Information Science, Library Science, Communications, Technical Writing, Business Administration, Computer Science, or related field.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in Knowledge Management, Information Science, Library & Information Studies, Organizational Development, or equivalent professional certifications (e.g., KM Certification, Certified Information Professional).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Knowledge Management
Information Science / Library Science
Technical Communication
Computer Science / Information Systems
Business Administration / Organizational Development

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–6 years of progressive experience in knowledge management, documentation, content strategy, or information architecture roles.

Preferred:

3+ years administering enterprise knowledge platforms and delivering measurable improvements in search and content quality.
Proven track record coordinating cross-functional content programs, taxonomy projects, or large-scale content migrations.
Experience in customer-facing or technical environments (support, product, operations) with demonstrated impact on resolution times and customer satisfaction.