> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.kowalah.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Your data across an engagement

> What Kowalah does with your data at each stage of the Kowalah Way — from mapping your operating model through discovery, design and build, and measured delivery — and how it's handled.

An IT team's fair question is: *"across a Kowalah engagement, what actually happens to our data?"* Kowalah delivers under a structured methodology (**the Kowalah Way**) across four pillars. This page walks that lifecycle, from mapping how your business works through to live, measured delivery, showing what data is involved at each stage and how it's handled.

## The principles that apply at every stage

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="You decide what's shared" icon="hand">
    Kowalah works with the materials and access you choose to provide. Nothing is extracted from your systems without your involvement.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Scoped to your organization" icon="building-2">
    Engagement data is tied to your organization in the platform and visible only to your authorized people and your assigned Kowalah team.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Not used to train models" icon="brain">
    AI features run on Anthropic's commercial APIs. Your data is not used to train or improve any model.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Humans stay in the loop" icon="user-check">
    AI assists with capture and analysis; Kowalah's people review, shape, and sign off on recommendations and delivered work.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## The lifecycle, stage by stage

<Steps>
  <Step title="Map the operating model">
    Kowalah works with you to build your **[AI Operating Model](/platform/operating-model/overview)**: a coarse, living map of how your business runs, made of organizational **units**, the **processes** each owns, and the **steps** inside them, with an AI disposition on every step. This is organizational structure and process information, not the underlying business data those processes handle. It is built with your Kowalah team, so you do not start from a blank canvas.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Vision Map Workshop and interviews">
    The **Vision Map Workshop** is the entry point: a structured co-creation session, supported by interviews, that produces a defensible roadmap and proposal. With your agreement, sessions may be recorded and transcribed with AI assistance so nothing is missed. You control which sessions are captured and who attends.
    <Note>The specific tools used for meeting capture and transcription are disclosed in the subprocessor list within your [Data Processing Agreement](/security/subprocessors). Ask your Kowalah team if you need this confirmed before a session.</Note>
  </Step>

  <Step title="Discovery, opportunities, and ICE scoring">
    A **Discovery** (`DISC-XXXX`) surfaces 20–30 AI **Opportunities** (`OPP-XXXX`) from across your operating model. Each is **ICE-scored** and, where it maps to a step, linked to that step, so the redesign backlog is ranked by value rather than by whatever is easiest. Opportunities are triaged with you.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Design and build (the Kowalah Way)">
    A triaged Opportunity is promoted into a **[Deliverable](/platform/projects/deliverables)** inside a Kowalah-managed **Project**, or into an **[Expert Request](/platform/expert-requests)**, and moves through defined stages (planning → in progress → in review → done). This is where the change is designed, built, and validated against scoped data and access agreed with you. The "in review" stage is an explicit quality gate.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Change enablement and adoption">
    Alongside delivery, the **Change Enablement** pillar drives adoption: coaching, Claude Guides, comms, and training so the change actually lands with your people.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Managed Services: keep the map live and prove value">
    As a Deliverable ships, its step's disposition shifts and the process KPI moves against its baseline, so value is measured on the map, not asserted. Under **Managed Services**, you and your Kowalah partner keep the operating model current and work the backlog over time.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Where this data lives and who sees it

* **In the platform:** your operating model (units, processes, steps), Discoveries, Opportunities, Projects, Deliverables, tasks, and the files attached to them live in Kowalah's [Supabase database and storage](/security/platform-architecture), scoped to your organization.
* **Access:** governed by [role-based permissions](/security/access-controls) for your people, and by your assigned Kowalah team under the engagement. Dual ownership is optional — you can keep projects private to your organization and choose what to share with Kowalah.
* **Retention and deletion:** covered in the [Data Processing Agreement](/security/subprocessors), including how long engagement data is kept and how it's removed at the end of a contract.

<Info>
  Have a specific requirement — for example, a session that must not be recorded, or data that must stay in a particular region? Raise it with your Kowalah team before the engagement and it can be accommodated in how the work is scoped.
</Info>