Start small and be patient… You can’t move faster than you can build trust and ownership, without making the network reliant on you. (Jamie Pett, London International Development Network.)
Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. (Wenger & Trayner)
It seems to me that we can’t talk of collaborative and collective development without mentioning Communities of Practice (CoP), particularly as I had several conversations last week that reminded me of the potential of CoP’s. Some years ago, with the Arts Council’s organisational development team, we presented a conference paper on a particular CoP developed as part of an Arts Council programme. Looking back at it now it has a weird prescience in that the argument we made in the paper was for the need for ‘resource-stretched’ organisations to become skilled social learners if they are to respond to and influence a rapidly changing environment. As part of the programme a team of four us had been working with 22 projects (140 organisations) that were embarking on ambitious change programmes over a couple of years.
When we were reflecting on the development of that CoP one of the community members shared a fantastic metaphor. Initially, he thought of the Palace of Versailles and its Hall of Mirrors.
…further reflection led me to think of mirrors at funfairs. These are places where people go with others, consciously choosing to see themselves in different and unexpected ways and expecting to enjoy the experience. Project Facilitator
It seemed to me a great way to describe the power of social learning – it provides the opportunity to see ourselves in new and unexpected ways. CoPs provide safe spaces for discussion and learning, a mechanism to allow people from different disciplines and practice areas to come together and share experiences, insights, advice and information. Such communities have the potential to:
- Connect people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to interact, either as frequently or at all.
- Provide a shared context for people to communicate and share information, stories and personal experiences in a way that builds understanding and insight.
- Enable dialogue between people who come together to explore new possibilities, solve challenging problems, and create new, mutually beneficial opportunities.
- Stimulate learning by serving as a vehicle for authentic communication, mentoring, coaching, and self-reflection.
- Capture and share existing knowledge to help people improve their practice by providing a forum to identify solutions to common problems and a process to collect and evaluate best practices.
- Introduce collaborative processes to groups and organizations to encourage the free flow of ideas and exchange of information.
- Help people organize around purposeful actions that develop tangible results.
- Generate new knowledge to help people transform their practice to accommodate changes in needs and technologies. (Adapted from Cambridge, Kaplan & Suter)
Etienne Wenger, who has been instrumental in developing the CoP approach, offers a clear view of the value that can be provided by CoPs. I had the privilege to meet Etienne at the conference I mentioned above and he was incredibly supportive of practitioners expanding on and developing his work.
If you want to develop a CoP there are several aspects to consider:
- Curating the ideas and the group: help people see how the group will be mutually beneficial
- Creating space: find the best way to come together and create a safe, welcoming and open space physically and/or online. You might want to agree a convenor and process tools
- Managing knowledge: share stories, create communication channels within and beyond the CoP and build constructive feedback into the process
- Managing the community: agree how you will manage and support the community. Decided on rules, roles, decision making, resourcing and boundaries
- Love and care: the CoP should be a safe and caring community where people can share openly and be supported