Learning

• Observation
• Interpretation
• Decision
• Adaptation
• Verification
• Learning

Definition

Learning is the conversion of a verified result into retained organizational understanding: what the signal meant, what the response did, how long it took, and what the earlier judgment got wrong.

The claim

This is the only stage whose output compounds. The other five cost approximately the same in year three as in year one. Accumulated verified interpretation about one specific market is the asset, and it cannot be compressed into a shorter timeframe by spending more.

Preconditions

A record held by the organization rather than by a supplier or an individual, since understanding that lives in a relationship is lost with the relationship.

Known limits

Learning inherits the weakness of the verification beneath it. A record accumulating confident conclusions from weak evidence is worse than no record, because it makes the next decision faster and wrong. Entries carry dates and are retired rather than trusted by default. An unpruned learning record becomes folklore.

This page expands one stage of the cycle set out in Section 7. The commercial practice built on the model is described separately by Digilu.