DIKUW

This 100 second video of the late Russell Ackoff is solid gold!

In it he describes the DIKUW hierarchy – data, information, knowledge, understanding and wisdom – and how it is critical to put effectiveness before efficiency.

A wise objective is a purpose … the intended outcome … and a well designed system will be both effective and efficient.  That is the engineers definition of productivity.  Doing the right thing first, and doing it right second.

So how do we transform data into wisdom? What are needs to be added or taken away? What is the process?

Data is what we get from our senses.

To convert data into information we add context.

To convert information into knowledge we use memory.

To convert knowledge into understanding we need to learn-by-doing.

And the test of understanding is to be able to teach someone else what we know and to be able to support them developing an understanding through practice.

To convert understanding into wisdom requires years of experience of seeing, doing and teaching.

There are no short cuts.

So the sooner we start learning-by-doing the quicker we will develop the wisdom of purpose, and the understanding of process.


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