Knowledge continuity, term by term
The vocabulary of knowledge continuity — and of mapping and running the processes that knowledge serves — defined precisely and without jargon-on-jargon. Each term gets its own page: a citable definition, the common confusions, why it matters for SMEs and family businesses, and how it applies inside MentX.
The problem vocabulary
Knowledge concentration risk
The exposure when critical knowledge sits in one or a few heads.
Key person dependency
A business's reliance on one individual — the due-diligence red flag.
Tacit knowledge
What an expert knows but cannot easily write down.
Explicit knowledge
The codified layer: procedures, drawings, manuals.
Institutional knowledge
The organization's collective memory — history, norms, reasons.
Knowledge transfer
Moving knowledge between people — the succession bottleneck.
The solution vocabulary
Knowledge base
A structured, queryable collection of knowledge — built to answer.
Knowledge graph
Knowledge stored as a network of entities and relationships.
Temporal knowledge graph
A knowledge graph where every fact carries time.
Provenance
Who said it, where, when — what makes knowledge checkable.
Digital knowledge copy
A queryable representation of one person's knowledge and reasoning.
Succession planning
Preparing the handover — and its habitual knowledge blind spot.
The process vocabulary
Process map
A visual picture of how work flows, from trigger to result.
Business process flow mapping
Making the real flow of a process visible, with the people who do it.
Process owner
The person accountable for a process end to end.
Hand-over
Where work passes to the next person — and information gets lost.
Decision rule
How a recurring decision is made, and who decides when it does not fit.
Exception path
The route a case takes when it does not fit the standard flow.
AI-ready process
A process AI can support without having to guess.
Operational excellence
Processes that reliably deliver and keep improving.
Mapping and discovery methods
SIPOC
A one-page overview of a process: suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, customers.
Swimlane diagram
A process map in lanes per role, showing every hand-over.
BPMN
The standard notation for business process models.
Value stream mapping
A lean map of flow, time and waste from order to delivery.
Process discovery
Finding out how a process really runs, before changing it.
Process mining
Reconstructing processes from system event logs.
Task mining
Analysing how people do tasks on their computers.
As-is and to-be process
How work runs today, and how it should run after a change.
Process management and systems
Process hierarchy
All of a company's processes in levels, from areas to tasks.
Shadow process
The unofficial way work really gets done.
Review cycle
The rhythm and triggers that keep captured knowledge correct.
Process orchestration
Coordinating people, systems and automated tasks end to end.
Operational intelligence
Watching running operations and acting on deviations.
Process intelligence
Insight into how processes run, and why they deviate.
Business process management
The ongoing discipline of managing processes.
Digital twin of an organization
A current model of how a company works.
See the terms at work
How MentX turns capture, graph and provenance into a working Knowledge Space for your company.
How MentX works