Tim Wood Powell     The value of knowledge

What is the Knowledge Value Chain®?

Your enterprise — business, government agency, NGO, even your family or household — has, as its ultimate purpose, producing value — results, outcomes, and impact in some specific form, for example:

• Profits and shareholder returns – if you’re a business
• Patient health and outcomes – if you’re a medical provider
• A better world, in some specific way – if you’re a social enterprise or NGO
• Satisfied customers and clients – in all cases
• Productive and fulfilled employees – in all cases

To achieve that purpose and all the goals supporting it, you take actions based on group decisions.  The best decisions — those that produce optimal outcomes — are typically those based on the best knowledge (i.e., the most timely, most accurate, most relevant, etc.)

There are direct linkages between (1) how your organization produces value and (2) how it acquires and processes knowledge — that is, how it “thinks“.  The KVC framework describes these linkages in detail, enabling you to leverage greater value from existing resources.

How is the KVC different?

There are other widely-used frameworks that have Data, Information, and Knowledge at base.  We call these DIKx models — “x” being Wisdom or something equally lofty.  What makes the KVC model different and (we think) better?

1. KVC thinking makes knowledge, not the end point, but an enabling deliverable on the road to value (i.e., enterprise results, outcomes, and impact)
2. KVC details the actions needed to move from one step to the next
3. KVC explicitly considers the users of knowledge (i.e, the knowledge demand side)

As one client put it, “I thought [the KVC] was a really useful diagram due to [its showing] the actions needed to move through the stages and that it didn’t just stop at knowledge like a lot of the others.”

Who benefits most from the KVC?

The KVC can help anyone—in any industry—who produces, manages, or uses information to help organizations achieve their strategic and tactical goals. We work most often with professionals in:

How can I learn more?

Three easy steps will take you there:

1. Start by watching this short intro video.
2. Then buy the KVC Handbook listed on the front page.
3. Even better, contact us and we’ll tell you more.