Managers can create effective communities of practice if they follow the best practice guidelines.

In the first part of this series, we defined community as a fundamental principle in open organizations, where people often define their roles, responsibilities, and affiliations through shared interests and passions, not title, role, or position on an organizational chart. Then, in the second part of the series, we explored the many benefits communities of practice bring to open organizations—including fostering learning, encouraging collaboration, and offering an opportunity for creative problem-solving and innovation.

Now you know you'd like to start a community of practice, but you may still be unsure where to start. This article will help define your roadmap and build a plan for a successful community of practice—in five simple steps (summarized in Figure 1).

Figure 1: Steps for creating a community of practice

Step 1: Obtain executive sponsorship

While having a community manager focused on the day-to-day execution of community matters is important, an executive sponsor is also integral to the success of the community of practice. Typically, an executive sponsor will shoulder higher-level responsibilities, such as focusing on strategy and creating conditions for success (rather than implementation).

An executive sponsor can help ensure the community's goals are aligned with the overall strategy of the organization. This person can also communicate those goals and gather support for the community from other senior executives (potentially instrumental in securing financial support and resources for the community!).

Finding the right sponsor is important for the success of the program. An executive leader committed to fostering open culture, transparency, and collaboration will be very successful. Alternatively, you may wish to tap an executive focused on finding new ways to grow and reskill high-potential employees.

Step 2: Determine mission and goals

Once you've established a vision for the community, you'll need to develop its mission statement. This is critical to your success because the mission begins explaining how you'll achieve that vision. Primarily, your community's mission should be to share knowledge, promote learning in a particular area, and align that work with organizational strategy. However, the mission statement may also include references to the audience that the community will serve.

Here's one example mission statement:

To identify and address needs within the cloud infrastructure space in support of the organization’s mission of defining the next generation of open hybrid cloud.

After articulating a mission like this, you'll need to set specific goals for achieving it. The goals can be long- or short-term, but in either case, you'll need to provide a clear roadmap explaining to community members what the community is trying to achieve.

Step 3: Build a core team

Building a core team is essential to the success of a community. In a typical community of practice—or "CoP," for short—you'll notice four main roles:

• CoP program manager
• CoP manager
• Core team members
• Members

The CoP program manager is the face of the community. This person is primarily responsible for supporting the managers and core teams by resolving questions, issues, and concerns. The program manager also guides new communities and evangelizes the communities of practice program inside the organization.

The CoP manager determines community strategy based on business and community needs. This person makes the latest news, content, and events available to community members and ensures that the CoP remains focused on its goals. This person also schedules regular meetings for members and shares other events that may be of interest to them.

The CoP core team is responsible for managing community collateral and best practices to meet the community's goals. The core team supports CoP manager(s) and assists with preparing and leading community meetings.

Members of a community attend meetings, share relevant content and best practices, and support the core team and manager(s) in reaching community goals.

Step 4: Promote knowledge management

Communities of practice produce information—and members must be able to easily access and share that information. So it's important to develop a knowledge-management system for storing that information in a way that keeps it relevant and timely.

Communities of practice produce information—and members must be able to easily access and share that information. So it's important to develop a knowledge-management system for storing that information in a way that keeps it relevant and timely.

Over time, your community of practice will likely generate a lot of content. Some of that content may be duplicated, outdated or simply no longer relevant to the community. So it's important to periodically conduct a ROT Analysis of the content validating that the content is not Redundant, Outdated, or Trivial. Consider conducting a ROT analysis every six months or so, in order to keep the content fresh and relevant.

A number of different content management tools can assist with maintaining and displaying the content for community members. Some organizations use an intranet, while others prefer more robust content management such as AO Docs or Drupal.

Step 5: Engage in regular communication

The secret to success in maintaining a community of practice is regular communication and collaboration. Communities that speak with each other frequently and share knowledge, ideas, and best practices are most likely to remain intact. CoP managers should schedule regular meetings, meet-ups, and content creation sessions to ensure that members are engaged in the community. It is recommended to have at least a monthly meeting to maintain communication with the community members.

Chat/messaging apps are also a great tool for facilitating regular communication in communities of practice. These apps offer teams across the globe the ability to communicate in real-time, removing some collaboration boundaries. Members can pose questions and receive answers immediately, without the delay of sending and receiving emails. And should the questions arise again, most messaging apps also provide an easy search mechanism that can help members discover answers.

Building your community

Remember: A community of practice is a cost-effective way to foster learning, encourage collaboration, and promote innovation in an organization. In The Open Organization, Jim Whitehurst argues that "the beauty of an open organization is that it is not about pedaling harder, but about tapping into new sources of power both inside and outside to keep pace with all the fast-moving changes in your environment." Building communities of practice are the perfect way to do just that: stop pedaling harder and to tap into new sources of power within your organization.

Read the series

This article enumerates 5 proven communities of practice tips in creating a learning organiation that aim for continuous performance improvement.

Communities of practice have become a major knowledge management resource in modern organisations. Defined as a group of people who share a common passion and learn how to develop it through regular interaction, members of a CoP put their heads together to share ideas and strategies, come up with solutions, and develop innovations for companies like yours.

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

It should be noted, however, that not all communities can be referred to as a community of practice. To be considered one, it has to have the following elements: a shared domain of interest, a community engaging in shared activities, and a practice through different methods.

Even though they are less known, most communities of practice exist in organisations. They can be seen in a group of professionals — production operators exchanging knowledge and best practices, engineers in the factory floor discussing how to increase their production, or staff members holding a meeting to brainstorm for their next marketing strategy. These groups of informal networks have been observed to support business goals by utilising the individual members’ knowledge and expertise.

But in what ways can an organisation maximise the benefits of having communities of practice? Are there substantial approaches that are best suited to their informal and free-flowing nature?

Fortunately, there are. Here are some foolproof communities of practice tips to enhance their performance and stimulate innovative thinking through collaboration and sharing of expertise.

Set clear goals

Communities of practice must determine the primary objectives and goals that they would like to achieve. Members  must decide the main purpose for establishing their community and the reason they are sharing their knowledge and expertise.

Whether the goal is to develop a particular training strategy or improve the production of a specific department, It is necessary for communities of practice to have a clear set of goals and objectives so that members will be aware of how they can contribute in achieving the desired outcome.

Create a clear plan or learning outline

Similar to any training workshop or short course, communities of practice who would like to share their knowledge, expertise, and experience need to have a learning plan to achieve their goals and ensure that they are on the right track.

The learning plan  should identify the strategies that the group will use, the communication tools that all members need to utilise, the venue and schedule of the meetings, and the list of tasks assigned to each member.

Because communities of practice can exist in both virtual environments and physical offices, it is important to establish clearly if members will have sufficient time for the learning, if members will receive direct and practical benefits from their involvement, and, more importantly, if the host will officially recognise the results.

Strengthen their ties and resolve differences.

While they share the same interest, members of CoPs could come from various backgrounds, skill sets, teams, or departments. Thus, it is important to determine their key strengths and weaknesses and understand patterns that can help manage the community more effectively.

One method used in determining issues or weaknesses where communities of practice should focus is through a survey. The feedback obtained from the survey will allow members to focus on the most critical issues that the community is currently encountering. It will also help members properly allocate their resources and manage their time more wisely.

It should be noted that access to valuable tools, applications, and monetary funds are the key instruments to achieve their primary objectives and goals.

Assign a moderator/facilitator

Moderators or facilitators of communities of practice are usually those that play important roles in the organisation because of their subject matter expertise. Therefore, they must be willing to spend time and resources to assist in the learning process of each member.

A moderator should have attractive and stimulating ways to present and initiate activities to ensure that each member actively participates.

What are the roles of a moderator?

• Schedule an orientation meeting for all members. Whether online or offline, the moderator should ensure that all members attend the orientation meeting to start making interactions and more importantly, to understand their goals and objectives as a community of practice.
• Connect and get to know each member. A moderator should also know each member individually. He should be able to identify each member’s expertise and experience and how they can contribute to the group. Though communities of practice share the same passion, it is also good to have members with different areas of expertise and wide variety of skills. The moderator should be able to figure out what each member can bring to the community so that he can easily give a name when a member with specific knowledge or expertise is needed.  
• Initiate or spearhead activities. The moderator should also create a calendar and organise regular meetings. Furthermore, a moderator should have a wide range of knowledge on the topics to be discussed during meetings.

Utilise social media platforms and online forums for updates and communication

Perhaps one of the most useful communities of practice tips in today’s organisational setup is the integration of social media. When the corporate world started to welcome Generation Y, also known as “the Facebook Generation”, discussion forums and newsgroups were used to drive professional development and business performance.

Email discussion, video conferences, and webinars linked professionals and multinational corporations from different countries around the globe to work on a specific project.

Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Viber as well as online forums have proved to be important tools for communication. Sharing ideas became faster via social media sites and working together is more convenient among members; therefore, members of the communities of practice can come up with new and innovative solutions more quickly.  

Equip them with tools and technology for easy collaboration.

Some communities of practice also use project management software tools, such as Basecamp, Asana, and Trello, to share documents, assign projects and tasks, billing, reporting, and other tasks.

A community calendar is also recommended to remind members of the regular meetings and deadlines, especially when the members are working from different places.

Offer support and resources to emerging communities

In general, the success of a community of practice depends on the support it receives. Success is also measured by the support it can offer to other emerging communities of practice.  

When communities of practice receive huge support from each other, they can develop training plans. They will also be able to determine solutions and strategies that will be beneficial to the entire organisation.

Communities of practice is a great tool that can help drive an organisation to success. But for them to make a significant impact, they have to be nurtured and supported in every way possible. You, as a leader, plays a key role in nurturing CoPs.

Hopefully, with these communities of practice tips, you can be sure to create communities that support the growth of your organisation.

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A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!