A Brief Introduction to Communities of Practice

1. William A. Yasnoff, MD, PhD, FACMI Senior Advisor National Health Information Infrastructure Department of Health and Human Services National Health Information Infrastructure July 22, 2004 A Brief Introduction to Communities of Practice

2. Overview • What is the Problem? • What is a Community of Practice? • Why have a CoP for LHIIs? • What are the activities of a CoP?

3. I. What is the Problem? • Working in isolation on a difficult problem is very challenging • Must solve every problem yourself • No source of guidance • No source of experience • No colleagues to discuss ideas • Easy to get discouraged • People who do similar work naturally want to interact • Organizations in every imaginable field of endeavor

4. II. What Is a Community of Practice? A group of people who: • share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic • interact with each other on an ongoing basis to deepen their understanding and knowledge of this area - Etienne Wenger

5. Growing Interest in CoPs • Increasing specialization of knowledge • No one person has all the answers • Need team approach to solve problems • Ability of technology to bridge time & distance • Asynchronous communication • Conference calls (including video)

6. III. Why a CoP for LHIIs? • Problems are complex (Lorenzi, 2004) • Buy in • Governance • Ownership of Data • Finance • Technology • Still much to learn • Few implementations • All in early stages • Geographic Isolation

7. IV. Activities of CoP Members • Sharing information, insight, and advice • Solving problems and help each other • Thinking about common issues • Discussing their situations, aspirations and needs • Creating tools, standards, manuals, and other documents

8. Multiple Leadership Roles Successful communities of practice draw on more than one leader • thought leadership • day-to-day leadership • librarian leadership • interpersonal leadership • cutting-edge leadership Adapted from Etienne Wenger

9. Multiple Communication Channels • Face-to-face conferences • Audio/video teleconferences • Visits • Web Sites • Threaded discussions • Online document sharing • Listserv • E-mail • Informal one-on-one interactions

10. We are here Life Cycle of a CoP discover/prepare initiate/incubate focus/expand sustain/renew let go/remember Potential Coalescing Maturing StewardingLegacy Adapted from Richard McDermott/ Etienne Wenger

11. Community of Practice LHII Project Team A CoP Helps Support a Project • Apply knowledge • Assure quality • Deploy tools Learning • Reflection • Synthesis • Documentation • Dissemination Adapted from Richard McDermott/ Etienne Wenger

12. Questions? William A. Yasnoff, MD, PhD william.yasnoff@hhs.gov 202/690-7862