Communities of practice are a powerful way for companies to build professional skills and maximise use of employee knowledge - but need to be carefully nurtured, according to Faculty Training Institute MD Steve Erlank.
"Companies often resort to conventional training courses as a way of building knowledge, but it can be more valuable (and cheaper) to harness existing know-how within their organisations," says Erlank.
"A community of practice is a group of people with similar work interests who come together to share ideas and find solutions to common problems. The definition is simple, but these communities - which are usually informal - can contain hugely valuable knowledge which organisations have no other way of capturing. They're effectively a human-based knowledge management system."
Erlank adds that companies that have implemented conventional knowledge management systems face many challenges. "When information is stored in even the most sophisticated database, it can lose the context that makes it relevant," says Erlank. "There's also often no effective way to validate content or to update it, so it can be difficult to find and outdated when people do find it. That means it's not particularly valuable to users, who in turn don't want to waste their time entering their own content."
Calling or e-mailing a colleague is often a more successful way to discover information, says Erlank, "and that's where communities of practice come in. Many organisations are host to informal networks of people from different departments, divisions or maybe even in different countries who communicate regularly to share information. Often companies don't even know this and so miss out on an opportunity to nurture and preserve these communities with more formal structures."
Communities of practice are relatively common in established professions, and take a variety of forms. The Computer Society's Stephanie Bulmer, who chairs the society's Special Interest Group for business analysts, confirms that informal networks provide valuable ways of sharing knowledge but can be difficult to sustain. "We've found that special interest groups work best when there are one or two people who are willing to take on some of the work of keeping it going, even if that's just maintaining an e-mail list or booking a venue for a speaker," she says.
In theory, a community of practice is easier to maintain within a single organisation, says Bulmer, because there are fewer logistical issues to manage. Erlank agrees, but says communities of practice are doomed to fail if they are simply created by managerial decision. "You can't create a community just by deciding who should be in it," he says. "You need to recognise the relationships and networks that already exist and then encourage and nurture those."
The simplest and most effective way to nurture communities of practice, says Erlank, "is just to give people time and space to interact, and provide tangible support for the knowledge-sharing practices of employees. This could be as simple as providing a budget for drinks and snacks at a monthly discussion group, right through to sponsoring staff conferences which are oriented around teambuilding and knowledge sharing. It's a small investment that can have big payoffs later.
"Successful in-house communities of practice emerge in companies that have good leadership styles. Newsletters, intranets, management recognition and good internal marketing all contribute to vibrant communities in a learning organisation. If you can identify one successful community of practice in your organisation and let other people know how it works, you help that community keep going as well as encouraging others to start their own.
"Many in-house communities of practice rely on a regular programme of invited speakers to infuse the organisation with new ideas and knowledge," adds Erlank. "Many training companies, universities, research institutes and consulting firms happily provide speakers on a variety of topics. These topics can become the catalyst for internal debate and discussion at in-house workshops."
Bulmer adds that providing support and admin personnel can also be invaluable. "It helps a great deal to have some facilitation and guidance, just to keep things moving," she says. Erlank concurs, saying a neutral facilitator can help group members maintain good relationships and keep the focus on learning and knowledge sharing. Knowledge professionals in emerging fields like business analysis live with constant uncertainty and tools that are evolving all the time," says Erlank. "Nurturing communities of practice among these kinds of people in a company - ideally across projects and areas of specialty - can increase their effectiveness and productivity tremendously."
Share