Community of Practice (CoPs) - A Way of Sharing

When a huge organization having 10,000+ employees reorganizes into a team-based structure, team members with functional expertise create communities of practice as a way of maintaining connections with peers. Communities of Practice (CoP) are the areas where specialists can gather to discuss best practices and share knowledge. A community of practice can exist entirely within a business unit or stretch across divisional boundaries. Few benefits of CoPs on Organizational productivity are:

        -   Facilitating rapid response to customer needs and problems.

        -   Decreasing the learning curve for new team members.

        -   Helping in recruiting and retaining talent.

Earlier approaches to KM treated knowledge as object (Explicit knowledge); however Communities of Practice offer a way to theorize tacit knowledge which cannot easily be captured, codified and stored. With gradual passage of time, CoPs have become the main building blocks of a Knowledge Management framework.

In the paras below you will see an overview of the Community (CoP) and its characteristic features. 

We have seen in our last article that how a knowledge management portal can be an effective KM tool. To make the portal more effective and comprehensive, a go to resource, it has to have other active tools  which in turn makes knowledge management effortless. Which are these tools and how to make them alive?

One of the most commonly used tool on the KM portal is that of a community. A CoP should have following elements to be able to serve its purpose and to sustain for long time. 

• A compelling, clear business value proposition for all members
• A senior dedicated leader, skilled facilitator and moderator
• A coherent, comprehensive knowledge map for the core content of the Community
• An outlined, easy-to-follow knowledge-sharing process 
• A solid platform to facilitate knowledge exchange and collaboration
• Communication and training plans for members
• Key metrics of success to show business results and regular content audits
• Reward and recognition plan for its participants 

A vibrant and effective knowledge management practice comprises of active community of practices which are self governing, collaborative and in alignment with the organizational knowledge needs which helps in meeting its goals. 

I hope the blog post gave you a fair idea about community of practices. Please leave your comment below for your feedback.