Tag: DIKW pyramid

The DIKW pyramid, also known variously as the knowledge pyramid, knowledge hierarchy, information hierarchy,^: 163 DIKW hierarchy, wisdom hierarchy, data pyramid, and information pyramid, sometimes also stylized as a chain,^: 15 refer to models of possible structural and functional relationships between a set of components—often four, data, information, knowledge, and wisdom—models that had antecedents prior to the 1980s. In the latter years of that decade, interest in the models grew after explicit presentations and discussions, including from Milan Zeleny, Russell Ackoff, and Robert W. Lucky. Subsequent important discussions extended along theoretical and practical lines into the coming decades.

While debate continues as to actual meaning of the component terms of DIKW-type models, and the actual nature of their relationships—including occasional doubt being cast over any simple, linear, unidirectional model—even so they have become very popular visual representations in use by business, the military, and others. Among the academic and popular, not all versions of the DIKW-type models include all four components (earlier ones excluding data, later ones excluding or downplaying wisdom, and several including additional components (for instance Ackoff inserting "understanding" before and Zeleny adding "enlightenment" after the wisdom component).^: 14 In addition, DIKW-type models are no longer always presented as pyramids, instead also as a chart or framework (e.g., by Zeleny),^: 14 as flow diagrams (e.g., by Liew, and by Chisholm et al.), and sometimes as a continuum (e.g., by Choo et al.).