description: "Glossary of core terms of the Organizational Intelligence Platform: Claim, formal core, query latency, resilience, Memory."
Glossary
This glossary summarizes each term in one to two sentences and references the canonical definition box in the text. The box is authoritative; the glossary serves for quick reference. Standards and governance terms additionally receive a Non-Technical Definition.
Core Terms of the Model
Organizational Intelligence (OI) · Organizational Intelligence. The ability of an organization to keep its knowledge about itself available, consistently decidable, and resilient under change. Canonical: Definition 5.3; operational version with measurement indicators: Definition 8.1.
Organizational Intelligence Platform (OI Platform). The tool class that operates the missing layer as a system: cross-source consolidation, explicit conflict semantics, and governance of organizational self-knowledge as its core task. Category term, not a product name; coined in Chapter 4.1, criteria in 4.2, reference architecture in Chapter 13.
OI Ladder. The six-stage model of this book from raw knowledge base to governed decision-making capability; diagram and derivation exclusively in Chapter 5.
Organizational Memory · Organizational Memory. The versioned, consolidated, and governed repository of statements an organization makes about itself, not to be confused with mere storage. Canonical: Definition 5.1 (after Walsh/Ungson); operational version with four Yes/No criteria: Definition 6.1.
Organizational Self-Understanding · Organizational Self-Understanding. The consolidated, decidable picture an organization has of its own processes, roles, and rules. Canonical: Definition 5.2.
Organizational Capabilities · Organizational Action Patterns. Repeatable action patterns anchored in routines of an organization (after Teece/Winter). Canonical: Definition 5.4; operational version: Definition 8.2.
Organizational Self-Empowerment · Organizational Self-Empowerment. The ability of an organization to maintain and advance its self-knowledge without permanent external assistance. Canonical: Definition 5.5; operational version: Definition 9.1.
Organizational Resilience · Organizational Resilience. The capability to remain decision-capable under disruption and change (delineation from the ISO 22316 version in Chapter 9). Canonical: Definition 5.6; operational version: Definition 9.2.
The Missing Layer. The continuously consolidated layer between an organization's knowledge repositories and its decision-making capability, the absence of which Part I diagnoses. Canonical: Definition 4.1.
Formal Core
Claim. The smallest independent knowledge unit of the repository: a single, attributed statement about the organization with provenance, validity status, and responsible owner. Canonical: Definition 7.1.
conflict_record. The normalized data record that emerges when two Claims contradict each other; it records participants, contradiction type, and resolution status. Canonical: Definition 7.2.
Four-Zone Review. The review process that maps every open conflict to one of four zones, thus combining human decision-making with automated enforcement. Canonical: Definition 7.3.
Ontology. A formal, machine-readable conceptual model that specifies what types of statements exist and how they interrelate. Non-Technical Definition: the shared vocabulary that machines and auditors alike can read – the precondition for making self-disclosures auditable rather than merely readable (Chapter 2 and 14).
Measurement and Proof
Baseline (Baseline Measurement). The measurement week according to Chapter 10, during which an organization assesses its initial values per metric prior to intervening.
Evidence Tier Model. The scale for the strength of evidence introduced in Chapter 11 (ranging from individual observation to controlled before-and-after measurement); the four cases in this book stand at Tier 2.
Proof of Understanding. Proof that a consolidated repository correctly and demonstrably answers a concrete organizational question; counterpart to Proof of Concept (POC), which merely demonstrates technical feasibility (Chapter 11).
Maturity Stages. The four-stage self-assessment model from Chapter 12 (fragmented → documented → consolidated → governed); constructed, validation pending (Challenge H8).
Standards and Governance
Every entry: first Non-Technical Definition, then technical definition. Detailed in Chapter 14.
BSI — Federal Office for Information Security. Non-Technical Stakeholders: the German federal authority defining what secure and auditable IT must look like. Technical: national cyber security authority; publisher of the A5 architecture.
A5 — AI Audit and Assurance Assessment Architecture. Non-Technical Stakeholders: the BSI's blueprint for how the use of AI in organizations will be audited in the future. Important for anyone accountable for AI outcomes, not just technical staff. Technical: BSI audit architecture for AI systems featuring tiered audit depths and machine-readable assurance formats.
CADA — Cloud and AI Development Act. Non-Technical Stakeholders: a European legislative proposal classifying cloud and AI infrastructure based on its independence from non-European access. It elevates the storage location of corporate knowledge to C-level priority. Technical: European Commission regulatory proposal for sovereignty classification; status: in progress, monitored under Challenge H7.
EU AI Act. Non-Technical Stakeholders: the active European AI law that tiers obligations based on application risk. Technical: Regulation (EU) 2024/1689; connection points to the repository in Chapter 14.
AI-BOM — AI Bill of Materials. Non-Technical Stakeholders: the ingredients list of an AI system: which models, data, and components are contained within it. Technical: structured bill of materials for AI systems as an assurance building block in audit procedures.
OSCAL — Open Security Controls Assessment Language. Non-Technical Stakeholders: a file format enabling security and compliance evidence to be read and audited by machines rather than filed away by humans. Technical: NIST standard format for machine-readable control and assurance descriptions; target format for Challenge H6.
Operator Attestation. Non-Technical Stakeholders: an operator's self-declaration that their system possesses the pledged properties (increasingly required in machine-readable form in the future). Technical: attested self-disclosure in the A5 context; in this book's model, a query against the governed repository rather than a point-in-time document.
Abbreviations from Case Studies and Practice
| Abbreviation | Meaning |
|---|---|
| POC | Proof of Concept – proof of technical feasibility |
| MRO | Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul – maintenance, repair, and overhaul (aviation) |
| EASA | European Union Aviation Safety Agency – European aviation safety agency |
| GMP | Good Manufacturing Practice – good manufacturing practice (pharma) |
| SOP | Standard Operating Procedure – standard operating procedure |
| ISO/TS 22163 | Quality management standard of the railway industry |
| SPEM | Software & Systems Process Engineering Metamodel – OMG process metamodel |
| OMG | Object Management Group – standardization consortium |
| S/4HANA | ERP product generation by SAP |
| BPM | Business Process Management – business process management |
| KM | Knowledge Management – knowledge management |
| EA | Enterprise Architecture – enterprise architecture |
| HRO | High Reliability Organization – high reliability organization |
| LLM | Large Language Model – large language model |
| CFO | Chief Financial Officer – chief financial officer |
| CIO | Chief Information Officer – chief information officer |
| CRM | Customer Relationship Management – customer relationship management system |
| ECM | Enterprise Content Management – document and content management system |
| CAQ | Computer-Aided Quality – computer-aided quality management system |
| SECI | Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization – knowledge conversion model after Nonaka/Takeuchi |
| IEEE | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – professional association and publisher |
| NASA | National Aeronautics and Space Administration – US space agency |
| BCCRT | British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal – citation abbreviation for decisions of this Canadian tribunal |
| MIT | Massachusetts Institute of Technology – here as publisher (MIT Press) |
| Portable Document Format – standard document format |
Notation Prefixes in Examples
MA. Prefix for Claims from the running example "Muster AG" (e.g. MA-0412); introduced in Chapter 7.
CR. Prefix for conflict_records (e.g. CR-0087); introduced in Chapter 7.
ID. Identifier: the unique identifier of a knowledge unit in the repository.