Digital

The DIKW pyramid is the most widely used mental model in knowledge management — and one of the most systematically misunderstood. It names the levels but stays silent on the transitions between them, and it hides the values that shape every knowledge decision. The result: organisations that diagnose their knowledge problems correctly and still invest at the wrong level. This article dissects the four structural weaknesses of the classical pyramid and proposes DIKW-V — an extended model that adds an orthogonal values dimension and a five-stage knowledge transformation cycle. A map is useful. But it should not be blank exactly where it matters.