Transcript CoP Overview

Building a community of leaders
using
Communities of Practice (CoP)
- a tool of the Learning Organization
- Knowledge Management
through relationships
2/14/2004
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Community of Practice (CoP)
Communities of Practice are
informal groups
formed around a
common issue, problem, skill,
or resource.
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Types of communities
• Helping community - forum to help
each other solve work problems
• Best practice community - develop
and share best practices
• Knowledge community - organize and
manage a body of knowledge
• Innovation community - cross
organizational collaboration for
creative ideas
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Communities of Practice (CoP)
• Self-organizing relationships
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operate informally with management support
self-select their involvement and invite others
set own agenda focusing on company issues
establish own leadership structure
• Knowledge & relationships are inseparable
• technology alone is not sufficient
• incentives to share are not sufficient
• directives to share are not sufficient
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Snapshot Comparison
In perspective with other organizational groupings.
Who belongs
Formal
Hierarchical
organization reporting
Purpose
To deliver a
product or
service
Project
Management To accomplish
Team
assigned
a specific task
Community Voluntary,
Build &
of Practice invited or self- exchange
selected
knowledge
Informal
Friends and
Collect & pass
network
acquaintances on information
Cohesiveness
Duration
Organizational Until next
goals
reorganization
Project goals
Passion,
identity,
commitment
Mutual needs,
friendship
Until project is
complete
As long as
interest remains
As long as
reason
to connect exists
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Benefits from CoP
• Tear down silos by focusing on
commonality
• boundary permeability (people & ideas)
• Increases organizational learning through
establishment of employee relationships
• solving problems without redundancy
• tap into employee tacit knowledge
• makes knowledge sharing natural, not forced
• Provide a mechanism for employees
• to enable their ideas for innovation and change
• to “make a difference” (employee satisfaction)
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Business Purposes
Forum to share knowledge for solving work related
problems
Best practice and knowledge sharing
Establish a repository of knowledge not otherwise
captured by technology
Establish a foundation for learning
• Adaptive learning – responding to business
challenges
• Generative learning – being innovative
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Success stories
• Shell E&P realizes annual benefits of $200+
million through its CoP knowledge sharing
• American Management Systems (AMS)
estimates that their communities save the
company between $2-5 million per year and
increase revenue by over $13 million
• An international company formed
communities to supplement their
management development program
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More success stories
• Nynex cut service set-up time by 80% through
the increased communication that
communities bring
• Andersen Consulting Education division
• over half of eligible employees participating
• sample groups: motivation, culture and
learning, demographics, virtual classroom,
Web technology, problem-based learning
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Value measurement
• Ties to the learning & capability
component of the balanced scorecard
• current activity builds future value
• value appears in the work of teams and
business units, not in the communities
themselves
• discontinue a group when value generation
ceases (death is natural as interests change)
• Measure by anecdotal evidence (stories)
• how ideas are being used
• changes resulting from community input
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Support structure needed
• Explicit management support
• provide legitimacy for Communities of Practice
• commit to concept & provide small operating budget
• remove barriers as needed
• encourage collaboration
• reward participation
• provide support resources, if requested
• Directory of Communities knowledge base
• build awareness & facilitate use
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Support structure needed
• Community Facilitator (knowledge manager)
• assistance in community formation
• identify initial group membership & help organize
• define initial community boundaries & expected
benefits
• community promotion and champion
• establishment of community space on Intranet
• assist community to get established
• organize initial meetings (agenda & location)
• identify and resolve community problems
• required communication to remove barriers
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Community governance
• Community charter (rules and guidelines)
• community’s mission & goals
• can change over time
• voluntary participation (can phase in & out)
• limit involvement to 1 to 2 hours per week max. in all CoPs
• virtual lurking is encouraged
• community boundaries (area of focus)
• 8 to 15 ideal group size
• ability to subdivide or merge if desired
• self-organizing group culture
• degree of formality determined by the community
• procedural rules jointly agreed upon
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Community governance
• Community “mayor” or team leader
• keep things on track & serve as group contact
• initial mayor appointed for 3 month term
or rotated for learning opportunities
• Community history documented on Intranet
• document group activities & presentations
• discussion forum between group meetings
• Start small & leverage success
• individual actions to implement themselves
• expand to larger initiatives with more people
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Sustaining interest
• Recognition of accomplishments & benefits
• measure and communicate
• employee recognition (leading to satisfaction)
• Annual Showcase & Innovation Fair
• awareness & diffusion of ideas
• recruit additional employees into interest groups
• broaden the base of topics covered
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Possible communities
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sales (virtual meetings?)
e-business
accounting issues
workflow processes
diversity (racial, gender,
age, mental models)
retirement
community building
technology utilization
PC tech support
business strategy
Based on needs
determination
• marketing strategy
• data mining & analysis
• core competencies
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“Leaders are those people who ‘walk ahead,’
people who are genuinely committed to
deep change in themselves and in their
organizations. They lead through
developing new skills, capabilities, and
understandings. And they come from
many places within an organization.”
Senge (1996, p. 45)
CoP to provide a structure for emergent leaders
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Communities of Practice (CoP)
- a tool of the Learning Organization
- Knowledge Management through relationships
Information cannot be assumed to circulate freely just because
technology to support circulation is available. Too often information is
treated as a commodity to be hoarded and exchanged. A mechanism is
needed, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking and acting. It
is this free flow of information that makes knowledge creation possible.
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