( There are four main steps that are generally considered to be crucial when starting a Community of Practice:
(a) Defining the Community. The first step is to define the CoP's purpose. What specific business need does it to address? How will it create value? What are the expected benefits for all group members? Its goals need to be stated clearly, and shared with all those who will be invited to join. They will also need to be reiterated and validated periodically.
Develop a strong and compelling objective and community concept by answering the following questions proposed by Nancy Kinder (KM and community consultant and trainer at Connect and Share Consulting)
(b) Planning. A next step is to carry out a competitive and audience analysis. Is there a clear demand? Is this demand not being addressed? A simple template may help determine or see
(c) Design. It is then necessary to establish a core group of potential members, as those who are interested in the embryonic community. This group will need to consider:
(a) Defining the Community. The first step is to define the CoP's purpose. What specific business need does it to address? How will it create value? What are the expected benefits for all group members? Its goals need to be stated clearly, and shared with all those who will be invited to join. They will also need to be reiterated and validated periodically.
Develop a strong and compelling objective and community concept by answering the following questions proposed by Nancy Kinder (KM and community consultant and trainer at Connect and Share Consulting)
- What is the core objective of the community?
- What is it trying to do which doesn’t currently happen and why?
- What will happen in the community? Share content, discussions, run events, activities (polls, surveys)?
- What does success look like for the organization and how will they measure it?
- Who is the potential audience?
- What existing relationship do we have with them?
- What are the benefits to the potential members?
- What does the organization want members to do?
- Is there resource to support the building of the community?
- Is there platform available to help connections and interactions between members.
(b) Planning. A next step is to carry out a competitive and audience analysis. Is there a clear demand? Is this demand not being addressed? A simple template may help determine or see
- what type of communities are there?
- what makes them successful?
- how would a new CoP fit within the given context?
- how would it stand out?
(c) Design. It is then necessary to establish a core group of potential members, as those who are interested in the embryonic community. This group will need to consider:
- A leader who sets the direction of the community and articulate its vision and agenda over time thus keeping the community’s activity aligned with the business needs.
- A facilitator who is responsible for the day-to-day management of the community and stimulate online and face-to-face contributions.
- A core group of members who will be active participants in the community, such as colleagues or partners who care about the theme. They can help build the mission, purpose and charter, setting norms and values.
Working together, this core group will establish the way in which the CoP will function. A Community Charter, adapted from one developed by the World Bank, can be used as a template to structure the new community, helping the core group to determine the specific goals, membership, roles, leadership and expectations. Equally important is to determine the CoP's value proposition. Once again, a simple template can help the team agree on the short-term and the long-term value that the CoP is expected to bring to members and to their organizations.
At this stage, an action framework is also necessary, determining the inputs and activities that will be necessary so as to achieve the expected outputs and outcomes. A template like the one provided by the World Bank's "Building Community" can be expanded to include tentative dates and the names of those who will be responsible for each step. (d) Launching the Community. Last, the core team needs to select and set the convening venues, and launch the community. The group may consider e-mail chains, video conferences and virtual meetings as ways through which members might communicate and interact. Online collaboration platforms not only connect members who are far from each other; all the interactions and documents are captured online in the same place and are available to the other members. |
Success factors
More information?
Building community: A Primer World Bank This primer provides concrete steps and tools to help you build a community of practitioners and/or online community. |
MANAGING A COP
Communities can be found at different stages of maturity. Some have only started, while others have members who have been interacting with each other for many years. Most of them are found in what is known as the "hierarchy" stage, where discussions are mostly driven by the managers, and most members participate passively. The ideal situation, of course, is where all members play an active role, but this does not happen automatically.
Regardless of the stage they are in, community managers and facilitators will need to focus on three different areas:
Regardless of the stage they are in, community managers and facilitators will need to focus on three different areas:
- Growth: Facilitators need to make sure that new members join, that the group becomes larger, and that these new members engage with all other members. A few "core members" can play a bigger role at the beginning, inviting their colleagues and encouraging to participate;
- Content provision, ensuring that this is of a high quality, and meaningful and relevant for all members. Members need to be encouraged to create content, sharing ideas and information;
- Member engagement: Facilitators need to work so that members trust each other and feel confident to share information. If at first many of them just "lurk", the facilitator needs to invite them to participate and to play a growing role, while he or she gradually withdraws.
FACILITATION STRATEGIES
Online spaces do not guarantee that people will contribute or collaborate with each other. It is thus necessary to take specific steps so that a group of members reaches the objectives it has set for itself (providing a structure); showing how to do this and guiding the group (following a given process) and making sure that members work together, share ideas and information, avoid conflicts, etc. This requires following a few key strategies:
- Reinforce the purpose: Highlight the specific purpose of the community; restating its objectives at regular times. Linked to this, the facilitator will need to provide a clear structure for all discussions and interactions;
- Assess members' needs: Facilitators need to regularly review the specific interests of all members - especially focusing on the new ones, identifying new projects or activities which may be relevant, and which may lead to new needs (information, collaboration, etc.);
- Guide and profile members: Explain what is expected of them and how they can contribute. This may mean having a "how to use this group" page and a set of ground rules (provide constructive comments, do not send non-related information, etc.), presenting new members, or inviting individuals to react to a specific idea;
- Encourage participation: Plan discussions, announcing them in advance, identifying key speakers or contributors, and distributing tasks and responsibilities; and
- Curate content: Provide valuable content, responding to the needs of all members, organising it in a way that it can be easily found (as part of a discussion, or of a library or repository).
The ongoing engagement of all members requires facilitators to constantly monitor all activities, looking at what all members like or dislike and adapting to the CoP's continuous needs. Some of the key steps to see its membership grow and to see that all members engage with each other are to:
|
As part of an IFAD-funded project on experience capitalization, CTA started ten regional and global Communities of Practice (CoPs), inviting all of those who were part of its training workshops to join. Ivan Kulis ran a series of webinars to help these groups evolve into real communities, highlighting the key competences that the best facilitators show:
What else did they learn? |
Bibliography
WBG. 2018. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER
UNICEF. 2015. KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE TOOLBOX
WBG. 2018. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER
UNICEF. 2015. KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE TOOLBOX