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The world is moving at a rapid pace, and most of us are scrambling to keep up, attempting to constantly learn and adapt. But learning in isolation can limit the scope and depth of the knowledge you gain.
That’s where the concept of the community of practice (CoP) comes in.
Fostering such a community can be an effective strategy that enhances collective learning, drives innovation and keeps employees engaged and resilient.
What Is a Community of Practice?
Communities of practice are still not very well known. Rachel Happe, organizational and business strategist and founder of Engaged Organizations, said there’s a lack of understanding of what they are and how they fit into the business world and how they can help workflow versus related processes that are more operational.
At the business level, a community of practice is a group of individuals who share a common profession and come together to deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis. They exchange information, experiences and insights, and help each other solve problems and innovate within their fields.
The idea of communities of practice or people connected through their practice is really important, said Emily Webber, organizational consultant at Tacit and author of “Building Successful Communities of Practice.” It’s something these individuals care about and actively practice and through those connections can improve that practice.
“Community of practice itself kind of goes wider than just a meet up,” said Webber. “It’s in various interactions that people have, and it might be one-to-one or one-to-many or lots of different modes of learning, sharing or working on problems or various other things.”
Related Article: The Thing Employees Want Most From Your L&D Offerings? Peer-to-Peer Learning
Why Build a Community of Practice?
Building a community of practice offers advantages that go beyond the traditional confines of workplace learning and problem-solving. Some of the biggest benefits include:
It Offers a Support Network
A support network is one of the underlying fundamental benefits of a community of practice, according to Webber. “Particularly in our distributed, hybrid, whatever worlds that we find ourselves in or might be in in the future, the connections to people is really, really important.”
Even if you’re in an organization where you’re moving teams all the time, she added, having the stability of people that you’re constantly connected to is great for your motivation, resilience and more.
It Leads to Better Knowledge Development
One big benefit of CoPs, said Happe, is that people don’t have to know each other — or a subject matter expert — to find expertise.
“Now, you can use communities of practice to enable the rest of the organization to access that expertise and get it translated in a way that’s usable to them. So, it’s almost like a translation and matching engine for them. And those two things combined really accelerate the knowledge development process, and they really increase the efficiency of an organization,” Happe said.
It’s also helpful for people in the organization who, whether they’re new or not yet comfortable, don’t like to ask questions. “It allows them to be micro-mentored without anybody’s time,” explained Happe, “because they can watch how people ask questions and how responses are framed and the questions that come next. And so they’re learning through watching about some of the nuances of their expertise area.”
It Serves to Scale Approaches
Communities of practice allow the sharing and spreading of good practices across the organization to create consistency, said Webber. This benefit, she added, comes in later when people start to coalesce around ways of doing things.
“So, if you’ve got a similar role to someone else, maybe you see how they do it, you build on top of it, and it helps you scale approaches and standards across an organization in a bit more of an organic way.”
It Helps Improve Practices
Another big boon for communities of practice? They help facilitate collaboration opportunities that raise the standard and quality of your delivery, said Webber. She explains this as creating opportunities for people who work on similar projects and tasks to collaborate.
“They’ll generally come across common problems that they can then work on together to improve.” This collaborative environment fosters a culture of continuous improvement, where shared challenges are met with shared solutions that enhance overall practice efficacy.
Related Article: 5 Ways to Get out of Sync and Get Started With Asynchronous Work
How to Build a Community of Practice
Building a community of practice requires thoughtful planning and commitment. There are six key steps to developing a community that leverages collective expertise and fosters continuous growth.
1. Define the Purpose & Scope
Clearly define the objectives and scope of the CoP. What specific knowledge, skills or practices does the community aim to develop?
Understanding the purpose will guide all subsequent steps and help in recruiting members who are invested in the community’s goals.
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2. Identify & Engage Members
Look for potential members who have the expertise and a vested interest in the community’s focus area. These types of individuals can help form the backbone of the CoP and drive the group’s agenda forward.
Keep in mind that participation in a community of practice should not be mandated. Members should want to join and participate of their own free will — not because it’s a requirement of their employment.
3. Develop a Governance Structure
Establish a governance model that includes roles for leadership, decision-making processes and guidelines for membership.
In the article “Evolution of Wenger’s concept of community of practice,” researchers say one significant characteristic of a community of practice that should be set up is the domain, something that creates the common ground between members and outlines the boundaries that enable members to decide what is worth sharing and how to present their ideas.
4. Make Sure It Is Digitally Enabled
Traditionally, communities of practice have been in-person and very structured, said Happe. But today, when people are spread out across locations and time zones, that presents a problem.
By digitally enabling your community of practice, you can open up a whole new world of possibilities. For one, explained Happe, you’re not limited to the size of a conference room. And the second, bigger opportunity is that you can use the CoP as an escalation of the workflow, where immediate colleagues can answer a question. “That has immense power because once you put it there, anyone can opt in and access it.”
5. Consider What Success Looks Like
One valuable way to measure CoP success is to look at engagement, Webber said. “How many people are you reaching? Are they engaging in the community in some way? And is it valuable?”
You should also consider the community’s effect on the wider ecosystem, she added. In the beginning, it might just be a group that gets together and gets to know each other but eventually, she said, it’s “what do people looking outside of the community see when they look at it? Is it having a positive impact on the organization, does it put things in place that become part of the ecosystem?”
Related Article: How Does Learning and Development Relate to Employee Retention?
Delivering on Innovation Through Community
Executives and leaders contemplating the next steps toward organizational growth should consider how CoPs might be adapted to their unique situations. Could the creation of a community of practice lead to breakthroughs in areas currently constrained by conventional thinking?
As you consider the possibilities, remember that the strength of a CoP lies in its capacity to create a culture where learning is as natural as it is necessary.
