The Importance of a Community of Practice!

[#1]

Are you part of a community of practice?

You may be asking, what is a community of practice? A community of practice, or sometimes known as a CoP, is an organized group of people who share the same interests or set of problems who come together to resolve those problems, improve their skills, share best practices, and learn from each other’s experiences. Sometimes the group is naturally created and other times you must seek out people who have the same interests as you and form one. A community of practice does not always have to be a strict meeting with an agenda, rather it can be an informal lunch or other informal activity.

I have been involved in communities of practice practically my whole career, but typically when I mention the term to others, they have never heard of it or been involved in one. One reason for this is that businesses do not allow their employees to have creative freedom to create them, nor are they easy to stand up or nurture. Many of my colleagues have told me that their organizations have struggled in the past to create a CoP or keep one going. I can relate to this struggle.

At my company, we created a community of practice a while back and it fizzled out, despite that so many of us found it so useful. We took a hard look at while it failed then took those learnings used them to create and launch a new one. We now have a CoP for Product Managers, Product Owners, and Analysts. It is a formal meeting where we come together and discuss topics that are prevalent to our craft! We have a Jira board where all members can add topics they want to discuss, and we move those topics through different stages depending on if they need an action taken or not. Most of them are related to knowledge that is being shared with the larger group. I learn so much from our CoP and encourage you all to start one at your company!

[Mia Paulin]

I would love to be a part of a Community in Practice. How do I start?

[Amanda Barber]

I'm at such a small company, this doesn't seem viable from within my organization. However, I'm grateful for the Atlassian Community Events which could potentially turn into a CoP! I'd love to hear if anyone knows of great Slack communities to join, too!

[Summer Hogan]

@Mia Paulin - below is a great article to help get you started. One thing we did was establish a core team of participants (or volunteers) to plan out the meeting cadence, establish the agenda for the first meeting where we asked one of our executives to speak, and get a confluence space and Jira board going. Let me know if you have any other questions. 
https://opensource.com/open-organization/20/2/building-community-practice-5-steps 

[Nikki Zavadska [Appfire]]

Oh, this is the first time I hear this term 👀

I sounds similar to for example Lunch and Learn where you can take a break from work and discuss industry related topics.

[Summer Hogan]

@Nikki Zavadska [Appfire] , yes very similar!

[Markku Miettunen]

Thanks, this is something I'll study deeper.

[Andy Gladstone]

Thanks for introducing this term and concept @Summer Hogan. Like many of the other commenters, I have never heard this term before, but your definition certainly helps me understand that there are CoPs that I am part of. I've never been part of one internally at the companies I have worked at, but I am part of an organization that caters this need specifically to those in my role or similar roles in the greater NYC area. At times it has been a game changer. Being able to speak with people that have similar struggles and understand how they are solving/resolving them has helped me grow personally and professionally. 

[Sidar Yarar]

The company I work for is also CoP for me. We work togehter on Problems and my colleagues always help me to develop myself.👍💪

[Bill Sheboy]

Thanks, @Summer Hogan for sharing this tool with others.  I have used this one for quite a while in lots of different roles/companies.

One thing to watch for is the "boil the ocean" problem, where there are too few organically grown CoPs, and so one group tries for a too-wide focus, which leads to disinterest/inaction, and then the CoP ends.  I suggest that is a good thing, as focused groups can start their own!

We currently have these for product management, team-level knowledge sharing, coaching, and coaching-coaches on lean/agile ideas...and we're planting seeds for the technical leaders to start their own around better development practices and facilitating people.

[Summer Hogan]

Thank you @Mia Paulin, @Markku Miettunen, @Andy Gladstone, @Sidar Yarar, and @Bill Sheboy for the responses. Sorry I'm late responding. I was on vacation in Hawaii last week taking a much needed break! 

@Mia Paulin - these are some very, very good points you make! And everything you said is correct. I love your bit about connecting the dots between what your passion is, your expertise is and what you like to do. Those are all very important, but also may intersect. 

@Andy Gladstone - yes, I didn't think about it that way, but I'm sure many people are part of CoP's that are not organized. Now that I think of it, so am I. 

@Sidar Yarar - yes exactly! That's similar to what Andy said. There are hidden CoP's out there that we are all apart of! My eyes are open to this now! 

@Bill Sheboy - thanks for sharing your experiences! 

[Dan Breyen]

It's about exchanging information.  If you're in a smaller company and people retire, you can lose a lot of experience out the door if that knowledge isn't shared/passed down to the rest of the company.

[Summer Hogan]

So true @Dan Breyen! It is important for leaders to think about losing that domain knowledge. I heard today during an IT Townhall at my company that they are going to start hiring more FTE (Full Time Employees) and start reducing the ratio of contracts to FTE's. This is good and bad. Good for the point you mentioned above, but sad because some of our contractors have been with us for longer than a lot of FTE's have.