Practice Area
Epistemic (Anti)Patterns
Avoid Decision-Making Blind Spots
The habits, biases, and shortcuts that shape how we think—often without our awareness. This is where thinking goes wrong, and where it can be corrected.
Domain > Knowledge Architecture
Build the Blueprint for Knowledge Flow
A structured approach for organizing, linking, and governing the movement of knowledge through people, tools, and systems—so decisions and actions are informed, timely, and connected to context.
Related Practice Areas
Explore related knowledge architecture salons that help you build the blueprint for knowledge flow.
Practice Area
Knowledge Repositories
Practices for ensuring knowledge remains usable, connected, and relevant as work evolves—so it can inform decisions instead of disappearing into tools or archives.
Practice Area
Knowledge Structures
Design methods that shape how knowledge is structured so people can find it, understand it, and use it in real work.
Understand Knowledge Architecture
Build and evolve systems where knowledge flows, accumulates, and informs action.
Knowledge Architecture is how an organization makes thinking visible. It shapes how ideas connect, how decisions are made, and how knowledge persists over time.
When knowledge is well-structured, people do not need to rely on managers, memory, heroics, or accidental proximity to someone who can fix things. The system itself begins to support continuity, clarity, and better judgment.
This domain integrates the design of those structures: how knowledge is named, stored, connected, retrieved, and kept alive as the work evolves.
Architecture is Knowledge Flow
Thomas Betts and Diana Montalion delve into the design of architecture for knowledge flow, differentiating between knowledge stock and flow, and emphasizing the need for a growth mindset to innovate in problem-solving.
The Pain Train: Why I Write
Together, we can figure out how to stop riding the pain train. And start doing more knowledge work.
Try This
Ways to Practice
Use activities to experience the concept rather than only reading about it.
Welcome to your Knowledge Flow Studio. It’s not a Confluence. It’s a kitchen where ideas simmer, collide, reduce, and occasionally catch fire. You’ll use this space to map insights, notice patterns, shape artifacts, and practice the skills of knowledge flow.
Implement a process where humans review and refine AI-suggested changes to the ontology, feeding back accepted changes to retrain the model.
“Information environments create contexts that influence our behavior and actions.”
“All models are wrong, but some are useful”
“Expressing organizing principles in a way that separates design and implementation aligns well with the three-tier architecture familiar to software architects.”
Companions
Resources and Experts
Books, talks, and people that deepen the concept and widen the conversation.
Living in Information
Jorge Arango
Websites and apps are places where critical parts of our lives happen. We shop, bank, learn, gossip, and select our leaders there. But many of these places weren't intended to support these activities.
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The Discipline of Organizing
Robert J. Glushko
We organize things. We organize information, information about things, and information about information. Organizing is how we create understanding.
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Language
Terms to Know
A few words that help the domain hold together.
Information
Information is data that is organized, processed, and structured to provide meaning and context. It can be communicated, understood, and utilized to support decision-making, learning, and knowledge creation.
Architect
An architect is a professional who designs buildings and other structures, focusing on aesthetics, functionality, and safety. They often work with clients to create plans and may oversee the construction process to ensure that their designs are executed correctly.
Structures
Structures refer to organized systems or arrangements of parts that form a whole. They can be physical, such as buildings and bridges, or abstract, like organizational frameworks or social constructs. Structures provide stability, support, and functionality within various contexts.
