Tim Wood Powell     The value of knowledge

Are you awash in data and information — to the point where you sometimes no longer know how to use it effectively?  In an enterprise context, the value of knowledge is agency — the ability to act based on that knowledge.  In business, we seek knowledge less as an end in itself, as might be the case in an academic context.  Rather, we seek it primarily as a catalyst or enabler to producing value by improving performance, managing risk, and reaching other outcomes-based enterprise goals.

What is the Knowledge Value Chain?

The KVC is a template for evidence-based decision making.  It functions as a descriptive and diagnostic tool for improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of value-producing enterprise processes.

What do we mean by ‘enterprise‘?  A purposeful group, for example, a business, government agency, NGO — even your family or household.  Every enterprise 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 fulfill your purpose and achieve the specific goals supporting it, you take actions typically based on group decisions.  The best decisions — those that produce optimal outcomes — tend to be those based on the best knowledge (i.e., most timely, most accurate, most relevant, etc.)

Over decades of working with our clients, TKA has developed several analytic tools to help us rapidly visualize and improve the quality, value, and performance of their epistemic resources (data, information, knowledge, and intelligence — DIKI). Perhaps the best-known of these is our Knowledge Value Chain® (KVC), shown here.  Using data from your organization, the KVC framework examines the transformations from knowledge to value in detail — enabling you to assess and amplify the value of your existing knowledge resources.

How does the KVC help us?

Quality assurance is as important for data as it is for manufacturing.  As our enterprises — and our entire economy — rely increasingly on data, our trust in that data become especially critical.  This urgency will only increase as machine-human hybrid approaches are increasingly deployed through AI.  The Total Quality frameworks originally designed for manufacturing environments can be readily adapted to enterprise epistemic resources.

There are other frameworks that also have Data, Information, and Knowledge (DIK) as foundations.  We call these DIKx models — “x” typically being Wisdom or something equally abstract and lofty.  How is the KVC model different and (we think) better?

• KVC thinking describes knowledge, not as the end point, but as an enabling force on the pathway to value
• KVC details the transformations required to move from one step to the next — and the potential challenges in each
• KVC explicitly considers the users and applications of knowledge in solving business problems

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.”

How can we use the KVC?

There are now more than one billion knowledge workers in the world.  The KVC can help anyone—in any industry—who produces, manages, or uses information in helping an organization achieve its strategic and tactical goals. We work most often with professionals in:

The KVC consists of books, workshops, and both one-shot and ongoing technical assistance, as provided by our sole licensee The Knowledge Agency®, a New York City based consultancy.  Knowledge Value Chain and Knowledge Agency are registered trademarks of TW Powell Co., a New York corporation.

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.