Transcript No Slide Title

Communities of Practice
Prof Elaine Ferneley
&
Prof. Andrew Basden
Adapted from Lévy 1997
”No one knows everything,
everyone knows something,
all knowledge resides in humanity.”
networks.
Prof Elaine Ferneley
It is increasingly through an organization’s
informal networks that work gets done
Informal network in
pharmaceutical
multinational
Prof Elaine Ferneley
3
An increasingly connected world
Just a click
away…
colleagues
at other
offices
new
friends
family
old
friends
local
colleagues
old
colleagues
avatars
local
networks
old
classmates
virtual
communities
Prof Elaine Ferneley
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The formal organization
Top-down, command hierarchy
Prof Elaine Ferneley
5
Where do individuals go for help with problems?
Non-electronic
documents
Intranet
Contacts in
other offices
Internet
External
electronic
networks
Non-electronic
documents
Other
contacts
Internal
electronic
networks
Co-located
colleagues
?
?
Prof Elaine Ferneley
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Communities of practice cross all boundaries
Competitors
Partners
Suppliers
Customers
Company
Prof Elaine Ferneley
External communities are growing in importance!
Avatars
Schoolmates
Online
communities
Physical
networks
Organization
Previous work
colleagues
Large portion of new ideas and formal
collaboration relationships come from
external contacts Prof Elaine Ferneley
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Encourage an open innovation attitude
Closed attitude
Open attitude
The smart people in
our field work for us.
Not all the smart people work
for us. We need to work with
smart people inside and outside
the company.
If you create the most
and the best ideas in the
industry, you will win.
If you make the best use
of internal and external
ideas, you will win.
Prof Elaine Ferneley
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The wisdom of crowds (crowdsourcing)
(Surowiecki 2004)
Closed
Expensive
Complex
Accurate
Open
Inexpensive
Simple
Close enough
Hinton
2007
Prof Elaine
Ferneley
Crowdsourcing: Capturing the wisdom of crowds
 What is it?
 Customer participation
 in business and
 business development
 Why the interest?
 Experience, Engagement
 Loyalty
 Customer Driven
 Innovation
 Product development
 Content generation
 Decision making
 Funding
 Sales & marketing
 Distribution
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Communities of practice –
A driving force in crowdsourcing
Participation
Engagement
Commitment
Openness
Conversation
Connectedness
Prof Elaine Ferneley
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Two departments within the same firm
Department 1
Poorer degree of learning &
knowledge sharing
Department 2
Higher degree of learning &
knowledge sharing
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What are communities of practice?
Hinton 2007
Prof Elaine Ferneley
Examples of communities of practice
Prof Elaine Ferneley
Definition of Communities of Practice
They exist informally and formally in all
aspects of work and social life
Three basic elements
joint enterprise (shared identification and
common goals)
mutual engagement (learn together, do things
together)
shared repertoire (communal resources that
have developed as part of their engagement)
Prof Elaine Ferneley
Community
It turns out that …. the
community ends up being not
the secondary resource for
knowledge, but for the majority
of participants …, it’s the
*primary* resource.
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CPs are not teams or personal networks
Personal
Network
Community
of Practice
Team
Purpose
-Share information
-Friendship
-Solve problems
-Share info. & ideas
-Expand knowledge
-Accomplish goal
Members
-Friends &
acquaintances
-No boundary
-Mostly volunteers
-Permeable boundary
-Assigned
-Not voluntary
-Defined boundary
Activity
-One-on-one
-Meetings
-Informal communications
-Organize tasks
Value
Creation
Glue
-Serendipitously
discovered
-Actively discovered
-Planned
- Friendship
-Value
-Commitment
-Obligation
-Job requirement
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Communities of practice
Top-down
Command hierarchy
Emergent
organic network
Communities
of practice
Prof Elaine Ferneley
Two extreme communities of practice
Face-to-face
Virtual
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Role of communities of practice in organizations
 Create: Own & develop knowledge
Develop & manage good practice
Build organizational competence
 Organize: Develop & manage materials
Develop tools, guidelines, templates
Manage databases
 Disseminate: Connect people across boundaries
Who knows what
Home in changing organization & an uprooted society
 Embed: Share ideas & insights
Share tacit, complex ideas & insights
Help each other solve problems & find innovations
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Organizations supporting communities
 Hewlett-Packard
 World Bank
 DaimlerChrysler
 Shell Oil
 McKinsey & Co.
 British Telecom
 Xerox
 British Petroleum
 Ericsson
 Siemens
 CapGemini
 IBM
 Schlumberger
 European Commission
McDermott
2001
Prof Elaine Ferneley
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Communities of practice at Ericsson
Community
Type and Members
Objectives
Communication
channel
eRelationship
Vodafone
-Inter-organizational
-1400 members in 10
countries
-Use internet to design
joint e-business platform
-Virtual
Competence
Groups
-Intra-organizational
-200 members in 14
countries
-Ensure sharing of best
practices and
commonality
- Primarily
face-to-face
Ericsson
Foresight
- Inter-organizational
including universities,
experts, & institutions
- 600 with core of 40
- Think tank on emerging
trends in society,
technology, & consumers
- Virtual and
face-to-face
Ericsson
System
Architect
Program,
ESAP
- Intra-organizational
- 20 members from 14
countries
-Facilitate inter-project
learning and innovation
-Retain key individuals
Primarily faceto-face
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Communities of practice cannot be “managed”
You cannot force a
plant to grow by
pulling its leaves
You can, however,
create the
conditions for it to
grow
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Communities are living things
 Design from the inside
Involve community leaders in design
 Design for different & fluid levels of
participation
Not all must participate to the same degree
 Design for evolution
Communities evolve in their own direction
 Maintain creative disequilibrium
Avoid too much management support
Prevent competency traps
McDermott 2001
Prof Elaine Ferneley
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Cultivating communities of practice
Motivate
Define
Moderate
Prof Elaine Ferneley
Define the community of practice
 Business relevance
Choose a topic that is value-adding for the
business
Find common objectives across participants
 Personal passion
Focus on real, current problems
Find people who care about the topic
 Define focus and scope
What is the purpose of the community?
McDermott 2001
Prof Elaine Ferneley
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Moderate the community of practice
 Build human relationships
 Ensure an active coordinator – This is crucial!
 Develop an active core group
 Ensure time to participate
 Combine virtual connections with face-to-face
events
Conferences, electronic conferences, discussion
boards
 Work the public & private community space
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Community membership and roles
Contribute less
Not committed
Enjoy helping
Peripheral
Experts
High
commitment
Contribute more
Reputation
Core Group
Coordinator
“Janni”
Active
Ask questions
Don’t contribute
Not committed
Outsiders
Contribute
less
Challenge
Enjoy helping
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Building critical mass is crucial
It’s like going to the newest bar in town
- the music is great, the drinks are
cheap, the interior is cool…...but there’s
no one there………..You gotta have
critical mass to make it work!
Teigland 2003
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Ensure communication technology fits with
participants’ needs and abilities
 Use familiar technology
 Integrate sharing technology with everyday
work
 Customize technology to fit the community
 Change functionality as community discovers
what is valuable
McDermott
2001
Prof Elaine Ferneley
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Public & private community space
Public Space
~ 30% in the
public space
Events: Meetings,
website, telecons
Private Space
Person to person
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Build an understanding of this “new” organizational
form
Old = organic, value-driven
New = to understand dynamics of community
processes and to intentionally develop
communities
McDermott 2001
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Why do people participate in a Community?
Useful information
Specific answer
Personal gain
Community
interest
50%
Pro-social behavior
Reciprocity
Advancing the community
Tangible
returns
26%
Intangible
returns
24%
Enjoyment
Learning
Reputation
Wasko & Faraj 2000
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But remember people have dueling loyalties
Organization
Communities
Prof Elaine Ferneley
Align incentives with CPs
 Recognize and reward for collaborative behavior
At individual, group, and organizational levels
 Show management commitment
Satisfaction
$$$
Status and
recognition
Monetary
Challenge
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Reward and broadcast results
Reward
Collect data & tell stories linking
activities, knowledge assets, & value
Broadcast results
User various means to communicate
stories
Value is always for someone!
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Critical failure factors for CPs
 Community leaders inactive or lousy
networkers
 Scope too wide
 Focus on standardizing work processes
 Company leaders discourage participation
 Build it, wait (pray) for them to come
 Build more empty libraries
McDermott 2001
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Summary
Communities of practice are key to effective
knowledge management
Implications for organisational culture and
structure
help to nurture, do not inhibit
Implications for the use of technology to
support
flexible, people centred, communication
Prof Elaine Ferneley
Challenges to knowledge databases
 Time consuming and difficult
Takes times for writer to document experiences
Takes time for reader to search through databases,
information overload
Often weak incentives to contribute golden nuggets
 Difficult to understand
Difficult for writer to explain context, tacit ->explicit
Difficult for reader to interpret experience and use in
own situation
 Data becomes out-of-date very quickly
Difficult to maintain, especially in fast moving
industries
Prof Elaine Ferneley
From tacit to articulate knowledge
“We know more than we can tell.”
Michael Polanyi, 1966
MANUAL
How to
play
soccer
High
Low
Codifiability
Articulated
Tacit
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“We know more than we can tell.”
Knowledge is experience,
everything else is just
information.
-Albert Einstein
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Innovations - www.innocentive.com
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Decision making & funding – My football
club (Ebbsfleet United)
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Product development - www.ideastorm.com
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Building the Dell community
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A variety of virtual communities at BP
Technology
Design
VP PM
Processes & Methodology
Virtual community led by VP PM
Intranet
VP BD
Business Concepts
HR
Competencies
Knowledge
Networking
*Virtual communities led by
Competency Group responsible.
*Functional reporting to HR
VP Sales
Industry Knowledge
Wireless
Branding
*Virtual communities led by Business
Concept responsible
*Functional reporting to VP BD
Proj Mgrs
Automotive
Travel
Finance
*Virtual communities led by Industry Group
responsible
*Functional reporting to VP Sales
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