How long should a community of practice be expected to last? There really is no set length of time that a community should last. In most cases, a community of practice starts without a clear sense of how long it will exist. It will last as long as members find value in their learning together. …
How long should a community take to get going? Community formation takes time, but the time it takes for a community to become fully operational varies a lot from case to case. Some communities are so ready to exist that they congeal as soon as members have an opportunity to start learning together. Members can …
What are the first three things one should consider doing to get a community of practice started? You cannot start a community by yourself. In fact you cannot start a community at all, to be quite honest about it. The only people who can form a community are the members themselves as a collectivity. But …
Why should practitioners be involved in developing strategic capabilities? Traditionally, knowledge has been viewed as something that experts hand down to practitioners. But organizations in all sectors are discovering that something unique happens when practitioners become direct learning partners by forming a community: they bring insights from their engagement with customers and practical challenges; the …
Why should organizations pay attention to communities of practice and networks? Communities of practice are the perfect vehicle for involving practitioners directly in the management of the knowledge they need individually and collectively to do their work. As a result they engage in the development of strategic capabilities critical for achieving the goals of the …
How is a community of practice different from an informal network in regard to social learning? All communities of practice are networks in the sense that they involve connections among members. But not all networks are communities of practice: a community of practice entails shared domain that becomes a source of identification. This identity creates …
How are communities of practice different from more familiar structures like teams or task forces? A team is held together by a task. When the task is accomplished the team disperses. Team members are likely to learn something in the performance of that task, but this learning does not define the team. It is the …
As communities and networks go more mainstream there is an increasing demand from organizations to have ways of monitoring their value. How can we make the connection between the activities of a community or network and the improved performance of an organization, institution or even a country? In our value assessment framework, published by the …
