Regardless of the end goals, Collective IQ comes down to how quickly and intelligently the group can iteratively assess a situation, identify needs and opportunities, realize desired outcomes, and incorporate lessons learned, while continuously adapting to changing conditions until the goals are met. Whereas an individual's IQ is based largely on the brain one is born with, a group's IQ is based largely on how the individuals engage:   (1) in the group process for 'concurrently developing, integrating, and applying its knowledge' toward its mission, for which Doug affectionately coined the term CoDIAK,   (2) in the shared memory of swirling knowledge gained, captured, retained, and accessed within a shared 'dynamic knowledge repository', or DKR.

Doug developed the shorthand CoDIAK for the concurrent development, integration, and application of knowledge to characterize the basic knowledge processes shown in the purple boxes at right.

The key determining factor of any group's Collective IQ is how effectively it can develop, integrate, and apply all this iterating knowledge from the swirl of disparate concurrent contributions.

A dynamic knowledge repository is a living, breathing, rapidly evolving repository of all the stuff accumulating moment to moment throughout the life of a project or pursuit. This would include successive drafts and commentary leading up to more polished versions of a given document, brainstorming and conceptual design notes, design rationale, work lists, contact info, all the email and meeting notes, research intelligence collected and commented on, emerging issues, timelines, etc.