From Book to Living Body of Knowledge: The RMBOK Wiki

By Julian Talbot

The publication of the Risk Management Body of Knowledge (RMBOK) in 2026 is a milestone, but it is not intended to be the end of the project. In many respects, it is the beginning.

The proposed RMBOK cycle connects the book, wiki, professional community and future editions. Future edition dates shown are indicative.

A book has some enormous advantages. It provides structure, context and a coherent body of knowledge that can be read from beginning to end or used as a reference. Most importantly, a published edition creates a stable snapshot in time. When somebody cites the 2026 edition of RMBOK, everyone can go to the same page and see exactly what was published.

But books also have an unavoidable limitation: the moment they are published, the world continues to move.

Risk management is no exception. Terminology evolves. New techniques emerge. Existing models are challenged. Practitioners discover better ways of applying ideas. Technology changes what is possible. And, perhaps most importantly, no individual author can capture the accumulated experience of an entire profession.

That is where the RMBOK Wiki comes in.

From a book to a living body of knowledge

Over the coming weeks, months and years, we will progressively publish more of the ideas behind RMBOK through the Insights section of this website. Some will expand on material in the book. Others will explore emerging ideas, questions, terminology, models and practical applications.

Our longer-term ambition is considerably bigger.

During 2027, subject to the project becoming financially sustainable, we plan to begin developing the RMBOK Wiki: a collaborative, professionally moderated body of knowledge built upon the foundation established by the 2026 Risk Management Body of Knowledge.

The intention is to invite experienced risk professionals and subject-matter experts who can demonstrate appropriate expertise to participate as contributors, editors and authors.

This will not simply be an online version of the book.

It will be a place where the profession can collectively develop it.

Why a wiki?

Professional knowledge does not advance particularly well through isolated social-media posts. LinkedIn and similar platforms are excellent places to raise questions and exchange views, but conversations disappear down the feed remarkably quickly. The same debate may then be repeated six months later by an entirely different group of people.

Nor does a collection of hundreds of independent articles necessarily constitute a body of knowledge. Articles are useful, but they are inherently random-access. They answer particular questions at particular moments.

A body of knowledge needs architecture.

The RMBOK Wiki will provide that architecture.

Our aim is to create a single place where risk professionals can debate definitions, challenge assumptions, improve models, contribute practical experience and develop new approaches to applying risk management. Behind the published wiki will be discussion mechanisms through which contributors can examine competing terminology, concepts and models before incorporating the resulting knowledge into the published material.

Not every question will produce unanimous agreement. Risk management is far too broad a discipline for that. Where genuine differences of professional opinion exist, they should be captured rather than artificially eliminated. Nevertheless, the objective will be to develop, wherever practicable, a consensus or at least a clearly identifiable majority view, while documenting important alternative perspectives.

The result should be far more valuable than a collection of opinions scattered across the Internet.

It should become the profession’s collective memory.

Making risk knowledge more accessible

There is another important objective behind the project.

We want to make an increasing proportion of the core concepts of RMBOK freely available to people around the world who cannot necessarily afford to buy a professional reference book.

That will happen progressively through articles on this website and, ultimately, through the RMBOK Wiki.

The published book will continue to serve a different and important purpose. Each edition will remain the authoritative snapshot of RMBOK at a particular point in time: structured, edited, illustrated, indexed, typeset and designed as a coherent reference work.

The web and wiki will be more dynamic. They will contain discussion, emerging concepts, alternative views and work in progress. That flexibility is their strength, but it is also why they cannot completely replace a carefully edited reference book.

The two formats therefore complement each other.

The book provides the reference point. The wiki provides the conversation and evolution between editions.

Towards RMBOK Edition 2

The really interesting part comes next.

Our intention is that approximately every five years, the accumulated work of the RMBOK community will be brought together.

The discussions, revised wiki pages, new models, practical experience and contributions from risk professionals around the world can then be reviewed, consolidated and professionally edited into the next edition of the Risk Management Body of Knowledge.

In other words, Edition 2 should not simply be one author’s revision of Edition 1.

It should increasingly represent the accumulated knowledge and experience of the risk profession itself.

The 2026 edition provides the starting architecture. The community can test it, challenge it, improve it and add to it. Then, at the end of the cycle, we can turn that accumulated knowledge back into a coherent, permanent reference work.

The cycle then begins again.

Book → discussion → wiki → professional collaboration → new knowledge → next edition.

If we can make that model work, each successive edition of RMBOK should represent a broader range of industries, countries, disciplines, experiences and professional perspectives than the edition before it.

That is how RMBOK can gradually become a genuinely global body of knowledge for risk management.

There is, however, an economic reality

None of this is free to produce.

Building and hosting a professional wiki costs money. Moderating contributions takes time. So does reviewing submissions, resolving competing terminology, checking references, editing thousands of pages, commissioning and updating graphics, maintaining models, administering contributors, typesetting books and ultimately publishing new editions.

We do not want the RMBOK Wiki to depend upon advertising, sponsored content or a commercial organisation paying to influence what appears in a professional body of knowledge.

Our proposed model is much simpler.

Book royalties will fund the wiki.

We will need to sell at least a few thousand copies of RMBOK before there is enough revenue to justify building the infrastructure and committing the substantial editorial time required. Continuing book sales will then help fund the ongoing operation of the wiki and the eventual production of the next edition.

There is a rather nice circularity to that model.

People who buy the book receive the structured, definitive reference edition. Their purchase also helps fund the progressive release and development of risk-management knowledge for people around the world who may never be able to afford the book themselves.

Buying a copy therefore does a little more than put a book on your shelf.

It helps build the next one.

How you can help

If you believe risk management would benefit from a genuinely collaborative body of knowledge, there are three things you can do.

First, buy a copy of RMBOK. Book sales are what will make the wiki economically possible and, ultimately, allow us to make substantially more of this knowledge freely available.

Second, tell other risk professionals about it. A few thousand copies is not a particularly large number across the global risk profession, but reaching those first few thousand readers will determine whether this experiment can become self-sustaining.

Third, if you are an experienced risk practitioner, researcher or subject-matter expert, subscribe to RMBOK Insights and stay involved. As the wiki project develops, we will be looking for people who can contribute expertise, challenge existing thinking, review material and ultimately become contributors, editors and co-authors.

The ambition is deliberately large.

RMBOK began as an attempt to capture what we know about managing risk in one coherent reference work. The next step is to create a mechanism through which thousands of practitioners can challenge, refine and expand that knowledge without losing it to another disappearing social-media thread.

If it works, the Risk Management Body of Knowledge will no longer simply be a book that is periodically updated.

It will be a living body of knowledge that is periodically turned into a book.

And that is a much more interesting idea.

Want to see the full scope of the book? Explore the detailed RMBOK table of contents.