How can communities of practice add value? Let me count the ways.
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No doubt you can think of more!
Community members can
- Solve problems for each other
- Learn before" starting a piece of work - using the CoP as a "Peer Assist" mechanism
- "Learn during" a piece of work, drawing on the knowledge of the CoP
- "Learn after" by sharing lessons with the community
- Support each other emotionally, through messages of support or congratulations
- Benchmark performance with each other
- Exchange resources through the community, such as tools, templates and approaches
- Collaborate on purchasing (buying things that any one member could not justify)
- Collaborate on contracts (using the purchasing power of the community)
- Cooperate on trials and pilots
- Share results of studies, and maybe remove the need for others to re-do the same study
- Exchange equipment (re-use old equipment, share spares)
- Mentor and coach each other
- Provide a "sense of belonging" for the members
The community collectively can
- Collaborate on a community blog, to act as a real-time story of what the community is collectively learning
- Act as a learning resource for new staff
- Build and maintain documented Best Practices, perhaps using a community wiki as a shared knowledge base
- Build and maintain a curated document base as a shared resource
- Decide a taxonomy and/or metadata scheme so members can record their knowledge in a consistent way
- Identify the most useful resources (for example through feedback and voting)
- Recognise the most helpful and generous sharers (for example through "contributor of the year" awards)
- Develop lists of common risks and warning signs (and what to do when you see them)
- Develop checklists and templates for member use
- Develop FAQs for new staff or for customers
- Create knowledge products for use by clients or customers
- Identify knowledge retention risks
- Identify training gaps and collaborate on training provision
- Identify new opportunities for the organisation within the practice area
- Innovate new products, services or opportunities by combining ideas from everyone
- Advise the organisation on strategy within the practice area
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