Communities of practice

Communities of practice
What are communities of practice?
A community of practice (CoP) is a network of people who share a common interest in a specific area of knowledge or competence and are willing to work and learn together over a period of time to develop and share that knowledge.
Etienne Wenger (see ‘Resources and references’ below) is credited with coining the term ‘community of practice’ and he defines them as "groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis." He also believes that learning is a social activity and that people learn best in groups.
Communities can vary quite widely in their characteristics. Some exist for years while others form around a specific purpose and disband once that purpose has been achieved. Members may be very similar e.g. consultant gynaecologists, or they may be multi-disciplinary, such as is often the case in communities that are formed around addressing a specific challenge. Some may be small and localised while others will be geographically dispersed ‘virtual communities’ that communicate primarily by telephone, e-mail, online discussion groups and videoconferencing etc.
Communities of practice differ from the usual notion of a team or work groups in a number of fundamental ways:
Voluntary membership
Whereas teams and workgroups are formed by management, membership of a community of practice is voluntary; Specific focus
Teams and workgroups are formed to focus on a specific objective or activity, while communities of practice are not necessarily; they may have some stated goals, but they are more general and fluid; No expectation of tangible results
Teams and workgroups are required to deliver tangible results, whereas communities of practice are not necessarily; Existence defined by group members
Teams and workgroups are disbanded or reorganised once they have achieved their goals, while communities of practice last as long as their members want them to last.
Communities of practice exist in some form in every organisation – whether they have been deliberately created and labelled as such or not. The challenge for knowledge managers is to support them in such a way that they make a positive contribution to creating and sharing organisational knowledge.
Communities of practice are already being established in the NHS, based around the National electronic Library for Health (NeLH). (See Christine Urquhart and colleagues in ‘Resources and references’ below for further details).
What are the benefits?
 
Melissie Clemmons Rumizen (see ‘Resources and references’ below) calls communities of practice ‘the killer knowledge management application’. Communities of practice:
Provide a valuable vehicle for developing, sharing and managing specialist knowledge Avoid ‘reinventing the wheel’ Cut across departmental boundaries and formal reporting lines Can be more flexible than traditional organisational units Generate new knowledge in response to problems and opportunities Provide early warning of potential opportunities and threats Can be a vehicle for cultural change (creating a knowledge sharing culture) Are largely self-organising.
As well as the organisational benefits, communities of practice also provide benefits for individual community members, including:
Having access to expert help to expand horizons, gain knowledge and seek help in addressing work challenges Members often feel more conscious of, and confident in, their own personal knowledge Provides a non-threatening forum to explore and test ideas or validate courses of action Can foster a greater sense of professional commitment and enhance members’ professional reputation.
How do I go about it?
There is a wide range of approaches to creating and developing communities of practice, and a wide range of resources full of guidelines and pointers (see ‘Resources and references’ below). As a starting point, these are a few key areas for consideration:
Getting started
Communities of practice are organic and self-organising. Ideally they should emerge naturally. Organisations that have tried to create communities ‘from the top down’ have often failed. Communities can, however, be ‘seeded’. Any area or function of your organisation where knowledge is not evenly distributed is a potential target for a community of practice. However the impetus for a new community usually comes from the recognition of a specific need or problem. From there, next steps will revolve around:
Defining the scope – What is the domain of knowledge? At the heart of every community is a domain of knowledge; that domain can be either based around a professional discipline or on some specific problems or opportunities. Finding participants – Who can make a major contribution to this community? Who are the subject experts, and possible co-ordinators, facilitators, and librarians and/or knowledge managers? Will membership be open or by invitation only? Identifying common needs and interests - What are the core issues within the domain of knowledge? What are members interested in and passionate about? How do they hope to benefit from membership of the community? Clarifying the purpose and terms of reference – What are the specific needs or problems that need to be addressed? What is the community setting out to achieve? How will the community benefit the organisation? What are its values and ways of working? How will it be structured, organised and resourced?
It can often help to launch a community with a meeting or workshop so that members can meet each other and begin to develop relationships, and also spend some time together exploring and agreeing their purpose, terms of reference and ways of working.
Developing and sustaining
Once the initial enthusiasm of the set-up phase has passed, communities can easily wane and fade away unless they are actively developed and sustained.
Maintaining members’ interest and involvement – The ongoing success of a community depends on members’ continued interest and involvement. A good co-ordinator will be constantly seeking to maintain that using a variety of methods. For example: ensuring that members of virtual communities meet face to face at least once a year to keep personal relationships alive; allowing plenty of time for socialising at gatherings; ensuring that the wider organisation supports members in taking time to participate; motivating and rewarding people for their contribution; introducing new and challenging perspectives in the subject area from time to time, either from within the community or from external experts. Growing the community – In the life of any community, members will come and go, and there will usually be a need for ongoing recruitment – both to replace lost members and to ‘keep things fresh’. Similarly, roles and responsibilities will often be rotated between members over time. The ongoing success of the community will be affected by how well new members are welcomed and integrated into it. Developing the body of knowledge – At this stage the community will probably be taking a more proactive and formal role in assuming responsibility for the relevant body of knowledge, with typical activities including: creating knowledge maps, organising knowledge resources, identifying and seeking to fill knowledge gaps, etc. Here, the roles of librarians and/or knowledge managers will be particularly important. Moving the agenda forward and adding value – Communities thrive when they are supported and valued by the organisation. This is a ‘two-way street’ so it is important that a community develops in alignment with overall organisational goals, rather than to its own agenda. This will increase the chances of ongoing support from the organisation, such as: providing resources; recognition and reward of community members and particularly co-ordinators; help in removing barriers to community membership; and involvement of communities in key management decisions and problem-solving. However at the same time, care is needed not to ‘over-formalise’ or ‘institutionalise’ the community.
Closure
Communities can naturally fade away and this is not always a bad thing. Sometimes a natural ending is reached – a group of people or a practice reach a natural conclusion. Other times a community can break up and in its place, a number of ‘sub-communities’ based around particular specialist subject emerge. Either way, when a community fades it is important to celebrate its life and achievements, and to ensure that the relevant body of knowledge is captured and/or transferred.
Are there any other points I should be aware of?
The successful cultivation of communities of practice requires a fine balance between giving them enough support and direction to ensure their value, while at the same time not imposing too much structure and therefore risking losing the informal social relationships that underpin their effectiveness.
Successful communities of practice require a simultaneous focus on two key areas: developing the practice and developing the community.
Developing the community involves a focus on the social structure - the sum of the social relationships built up within a community. Particular roles that are important and should be explicitly recognised are:
Leader (or coordinator) – recognised in the organisation at large as the spokesperson for this community; organises and co-ordinates the community’s interactions and activities; Facilitator(s) – facilitates the interactions within the community e.g. in face-to-face meetings and steers the agenda of online interactions. Librarian or knowledge manager – manages the explicit knowledge resources of the community.
You might consider providing training and support for these roles, for example in co-ordination and moderation techniques.
Developing the practice looks at the community’s inputs and outputs - the resources that the community uses and develops. These resources consist not only of information and knowledge resources such as documents, databases, a website, etc but also the processes and practices within the community. These include ways of developing and enhancing the knowledge base such as through peer group reviews of emerging best practice, and ways of communicating new knowledge developed within the community to the wider organisation. Many communities are becoming the focal point within their organisations for documenting best practice, identifying valuable external resources, writing case studies, and developing frameworks, techniques and tools for their particular knowledge domain.
Resources and references
There is no shortage of material on communities of practice, such is their popularity. In addition to the resources listed here, most of the more practice-oriented books on knowledge management will include a chapter on communities of practice.
Books
Clemmons Rumizen Melissie. (2002) The complete idiot’s guide to knowledge management. Madison, WI: CWL Publishing Enterprises.
Chapter 8: Communities of practice – the killer application.
(This book as a whole is well worth a look – extremely easy to read, very comprehensive and full of sound, practical advice).
Collison, Chris and Parcell Geoff. (2001) Learning to fly: practical lessons from one of the world’s leading knowledge companies. Oxford: Capstone.
Chapter 10: Networking and communities of practice. (Again, this book as a whole is well worth a read – refreshing low on theory and jargon, and high on sound, practical advice based on proven results).
Wenger, Etienne. (2002) Cultivating communities practice. Harvard University Press.
A ‘seminal work’ by the practitioner who is credited with coining the term ‘community of practice’
Reports and guides
Skyrme David J. (2002)Developing successful communities. David J Skyrme Associates.
A very comprehensive 32-page guide available for online purchase either as a pdf file or in hard copy at £7. Describes a framework for community development and gives practical guidelines on how to establish, nurture, develop and sustain them. Includes case studies.
Urquhart C, Yeoman A, Sharp S. (2002) NeLH communities of practice evaluation report
A report prepared for the NHS Information Authority to present the findings of research into the effectiveness of existing websites within the National electronic Library for Health (NeLH) as a platform for developing communities of practice. Also includes a comprehensive bibliography.
Articles
Brice, Anne and Gray, Muir.Knowledge is the enemy of disease
CILIP Update, 2003, March
Describes how the NHS is building communities of practice in the National Electronic Library for Health.
Davies J. Building virtual communities. Knowledge Management, 2000, April, Volume 3 Issue 7
Describes two internet-based tools used at BT to support virtual communities of practice.
Endsley S, Kirkegaard, M, Linares A.Working Together - Communities of Practice in Family Medicine
Family Practice Management, 2005, January
This is a comprehensive article about the use of communities of practice in primary care.
Jubert, Anne. Communities of practice. Knowledge Management, 1999, Oct, Volume 3 Issue 2
Explains how Siemens Knowledge Management is focused on actively creating, encouraging and supporting communities of practice through leadership, expertise, and a variety of supporting roles and processes.
Lelic, S.A sense of community: The role of CoPs in knowledge management Knowledge Management, 2001, 10 Oct
Representatives from AskMe, IBM, McDermott Consulting, Mitretek, Plural, Room, Skandia and Xansa, consider how the power of communities should be harnessed to help realise an organisation’s broader knowledge management ambitions.
Moreno A. Enhancing knowledge exchange through Communities of Practice at the Inter-American Development Bank. Aslib Proceedings: new information perspectives. 2001, Volume 53 No 8, pp296-308
Examines and evaluates the nature, structure and activities of the bank‘s communities of practice. Some ideas as to whether organisations should be supporting and encouraging the formation and development of communities of practice, and whether and how their proliferation should be fostered, are offered for consideration.
Ward A. Getting strategic value from constellations of communities. Strategy and Leadership, 2000, Volume 28 No 2, pp4-9
The concept of constellations of communities is a big picture view of how communities of practice in organisations relate to one another. Presents examples of constellations of communities in business, non-profit, volunteer-oriented associations, and society at large and outlines the potential benefits of a constellation to its stakeholders.
Wenger, Etienne and Snyder WM. Communities of practice: the organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review, 2000, Jan-Feb.
Tools
Guide And Toolkit For Communities Of Practice Available
The NHS Information Authority has compiled a guide called “Getting to 7 - Cultivating Communities of Practice: the 7 Stages of Development” which is freely available.