The Knowledge Circle

The Knowledge Circle
By Peter McBride

Draw a circle. Make 3 pie slices in it.

In one pie slice, write a K. This represents how much you know (on a given topic).

In one pie slice, write the letters DK. This represents how much you don’t Know.

In the last slice, write the letters DKDK. This represents how much you don’t know you don’t know.

Wisdom is gained when we reduce the size of the DK and DKDK slices. We gain when we learn something, and thereby reduce the size of what we Don’t Know.

We gain when we learn that there is something we never knew anything about, thereby reducing the size of what we Don’t Know We Don’t Know. We don’t have to know it, just that we don’t know it yet.

We can be so critical about not knowing; we can get so risk averse waiting for all to be known. That’s nonsense. There is always a big DKDK out there. This cannot be used as a reason for remaining stuck. Sometimes we have to just stick our necks out and try something, even if the outcomes are not clear. We will reduce our DK, or we will reduce our DKDK. Both are good outcomes.

I forget where I learned this. If anyone has a citation or attribution, please let me know. I would welcome the opportunity to include it.

Peter McBride, PMP is a project manager in Vancouver, BC, Canada. You can read more from Peter on his blog.

PMHut Team

PMHut Team

PMHut.com is a website dedicated to providing PM articles, detailed project management software reviews, and the latest news for the most popular web-based collaboration tools.

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