Universal Business Knowledge Decimal System (UBKDS)
A public standard for organizing business knowledge with clear meaning, controlled access, and versioned change.
UBKDS is designed to make business knowledge findable, teachable, governable, and transferable across teams, tools, and time.
What UBKDS Solves
Modern organizations create more knowledge than they can manage. The result is predictable:
- People can't find the right information fast.
- Different teams use different words for the same thing.
- "Important" content drifts, duplicates, and goes stale.
- Governance becomes tool-driven, inconsistent, or ignored.
UBKDS is a standard designed to solve those failures by separating meaning, access, and change into a consistent, portable structure.
The UBKDS Model
UBKDS is built on a simple rule:
Meaning should be stable. Access should be intentional. Change should be visible.
This standard supports that rule through a structured classification system and a governance posture intended for real-world operations.
What UBKDS Is
- A standard for classifying business knowledge using a consistent reference system.
- A framework for separating:
- Domain (what it is)
- Sensitivity (who can access it)
- Lifecycle (what stage it is in)
- A canon of definitions meant to be cited and reused.
What UBKDS Is Not
- A software product.
- A replacement for your tools.
- A content library, wiki, or template collection.
- A guarantee of good knowledge by itself.
UBKDS is a standard that can be implemented in many systems, but it remains independent of any platform.
Canonical Authority
UBKDS.org exists to publish the canonical standard.
If you are adopting UBKDS, the Canonical Registry is the only authoritative source for:
- Current version status
- Canonical definitions
- Governance rules