Good CoP/Bad CoP

I precised an article about Communities of Practice this morning. Had some interesting points, and was highly relevant to ASLIB.

Communities of practice are one of the most significant means of fostering knowledge management. They can considerably enhance the exchange of expertise, information, collaboration, and resources within organizations. There are five ways CoPs can improve organizations:

1.    through rapid problem solving
2.    professional skill development
3.    best practice promotion
4.    retaining talent, and
5.    By guiding strategy.

Creating successful communities of practice

We identified six factors that contributed to the success of the three established CoPs we studied:

1. Dispersal
The dispersal of development and learning practitioners across the state and throughout different organizational divisions creates an obvious need for a CoP. It acts as a way to collaborate over distance and share expertise across divisional boundaries.
2. Awareness of limitations
The identification of limitations indicates that members are enthusiastic about improving their CoP and are committed to its success.
3. One coordinator
If a CoP has the same coordinator throughout its life, then its coordinator has been able to establish recognition and become highly networked.
4. High level sponsor
The acquisition of high-level management support is important to ensure the long-term viability of CoPs, so getting high-ranking officers to act as sponsors is crucial.
5. Pre-existing social capital
The use of pre-existing social networks for the purposeful design of CoPs is highly beneficial. This can overcome isolation and a “silo” mentality, and a support group is in place from the start. This enables newcomers to quickly advance to expert status. The speedy transition of novices to experts is also facilitated by the opportunities for community members to learn through experience, a central feature of learning systems.
6. Core business
A consideration of core business values should be in-built.

Creating successful CoPs is more than a business or managerial concern. Social capital plays an important role, and whilst there are social aspects to learning within organizations, the contribution of social capital to successful CoPs is still not well understood. In line with previous studies cautioning against top-down approaches to CoP design, strategies for fostering social capital among employees could be explored, as it could provide the conditions required for CoPs to emerge. Moreover, CoPs, with their social aspects, could help overcome organizational silos.

Good CoP/bad CoP

A successful CoP is one whose members:

    * demonstrate a sense of stake holding or ownership of their CoP topic
    * demonstrate a willingness to participate in meetings and in the sharing of expertise
    * communicate with members in meetings and between meetings; and
    * identify gaps in their knowledge and attempt to fill gaps by, for example, suggesting new topics for meetings.

The concept of enthusiasm is useful as its presence or absence among community members largely determines the success of a CoP.

Practitioners aiming to create a successful community of practice should:

    * avoid creating a CoP within an organizational silo
    * build on pre-existing social capital among potential members
    * use one coordinator throughout the life of the CoP (or have in place a successful method of transferring coordination)
    * gain the support of a high-ranking officer embedded in the political life of the organization to act as sponsor
    * engage in reflective practice that attempts to overcome the constraints to effective functioning of the CoP; and
    * ensure the focus of the CoP reflects the organization's core business.

However, it may be appropriate to step back and consider the strategic organizational context before proceeding. This may reveal a need to:

    * build or reveal a discourse of organizational imperative/need
    * gain organizational commitment and support structures for the CoP concept, including sponsors, funding, allocation of time, etc)
    * foster or facilitate individual motivations to participate in a CoP (enthusiasm, ownership, etc); and
    * develop the means to value and communicate individual and organizational benefit from CoP participation (learning, improved delivery on core business, communication, etc).