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Steve Dale Director Semantix (UK) Ltd Collabor8now Ltd

Communities of Practice: turning conversations into collaboration. Steve Dale Director Semantix (UK) Ltd Collabor8now Ltd. January 2009. What I will cover. What is a ‘Community of Practice’ (CoP)? Five steps to a successful CoP CoP Facilitation – the magic ingredient

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Steve Dale Director Semantix (UK) Ltd Collabor8now Ltd

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  1. Communities of Practice: turning conversations into collaboration Steve DaleDirectorSemantix (UK) LtdCollabor8now Ltd January 2009

  2. What I will cover • What is a ‘Community of Practice’ (CoP)? • Five steps to a successful CoP • CoP Facilitation – the magic ingredient • Case Study - IDeA CoP Project • Case Study from the private sector

  3. What is a What is a Community of Practice? ?

  4. Communities of Practice communities of practice – an environment connecting people and encouraging the sharing of ideas and experiences

  5. A community

  6. A domain of interest Gosport Allotment Holders & Gardeners Association

  7. A place to meet

  8. Someone to facilitate

  9. A community of practice

  10. Communities of Practice A Community of Practice is a network of individuals with common problems or interests who get together to explore ways of working, identify common solutions, and share good practice and ideas. • puts you in touch with like-minded colleagues and peers • allows you to share your experiences and learn from others • allows you to collaborate and achieve common outcomes • accelerates your learning • validates and builds on existing knowledge and good practice • provides the opportunity to innovate and create new ideas

  11. Why have a Community of Practice? CoPs are not about bringing knowledge into the organisation but about helping to grow the knowledge that we need internally within our organisations.

  12. What is a Developing Successful Communities of Practice Step 1: Establish or identify a purpose ?

  13. What problem am I trying to solve?

  14. Join our list Join our forum Join our community Degrees of Transparency and Trust Increasing collaboration and transparency of process

  15. Is the answer already out there?

  16. Dynamics of Different Network Types

  17. What is a Step 2: Identify your Community ?

  18. Know your audience

  19. This is our audience

  20. transactional lurkers peripheral occasional experts active beginners core group leaders facilitator outsiders Members of an active community

  21. Community Type • Helping Communities provide a forum for community members to help each other with everyday work needs. • Best Practice Communities develop and disseminate best practices, guidelines, and procedures for their members use. • Knowledge Stewarding Communities organise, manage, and steward a body of knowledge from which community members can draw. • Innovation Communities create breakthrough ideas, new knowledge, and new practices.

  22. Understanding your Community

  23. Step 3: Understand the Culture and Behaviours

  24. Addressing the culture

  25. Why does a person engage with a Community of Practice? • Attractive purpose grabs and retains attention • Perceived benefits: • Socialisation • Co-learning, knowledge sharing and co-production • Each person chooses to be a member • Volition • Joining in – and leaving!

  26. Become an expert Become a mentor Write a blog Ask a question (with attribution) Comment (with attribution) Level of engagement Register Comment (Anonymously) Waxing and Waning Interest Browse, search, learn (Anonymously) Type of engagement Levels of engagement

  27. 1% active contributors 9% occasional contributors The 1-9-90 rule Number of contributions 90% readers (aka ‘lurkers’) Number of participants Patterns of contribution Ref:Jacob Nielson http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html

  28. The “1% Rule” • For every 100 people online only 1 person will create content and 10 will “interact” with it. The other 89 will just view it. • Each day at YouTube there are 100 million downloads and 65,000 uploads • 50% of all Wikipedia article edits are done by 0.7% of users, and more than 70% of all articles have been written by just 1.8% of all users • In Yahoo Groups, 1% of the user population might start a group; 10% of the user population might participate actively. 100% of the user population benefits from the activities of the above groups Source: The Guardian The important message is: look after your content creators!

  29. It’s more about the people than the technology

  30. Community Archetypes Duelsists In a perpetual personal duel. Generally don’t menace anyone except each other. http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/duelists.htm

  31. Community Archetypes Ego For Ego, the discussion forum is all about him, and he regards discussions that stray from that topic as trivial dalliances. Ego is one the fiercest of all the Warriors and will fight to the death when attacked http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/ego.htm

  32. Community Archetypes Fillibuster Attempts to influence the forum simply by holding the floor. His monotonous hectoring and prodigious output of verbiage rapidly clears the field of other users http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/filibuster.htm

  33. Community Archetypes Big Dog and MeToo Big Dog is a bully who doesn't hesitate to use his superior strength to intimidate other combatants. Me-Too will join the attack. Me-Too is far too weak and insecure to engage in single combat. http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/bigdogmetoo.htm

  34. Community Roles and Responsibilities On a more serious note… • Champion/Sponsor is able to envision the services of a CoP over time, and should have a sense of how the CoP can interact across the organisation • Facilitator/Coordinator consulting, connecting, facilitating, helping, guiding. • Leader serves an integral role in the community's success by energising the sharing process and providing continuous nourishment for the community • Librarian organises information/data (may be part of Facilitator/Coordinator role). • Technical Steward understands business needs and ensure the appropriate tools are available to meet these needs. • Core Groupis a working group that initially performs start-up activities and continues to provide ongoing organisational support. • Experts are the subject matter specialist • Members/Participants without these there is no community; the essence of a community is its members.

  35. Step 4: Develop the ‘Practice’

  36. Attributes of a successful CoP Social Networking Culture Collaboration Tools Based on a slide by IBM

  37. Sustain/Renew Grow Level of energy and visibility Start-up Close Plan Discover/ imagine Incubate/ deliver value Focus/ expand Ownership/ openness Let go/ remember Time Your community’s life-cycle From: Cultivating Communities of Practice by Wenger, McDermot and Snyder

  38. Find and connect with experts Find and connect with your peers Threaded discussion forums, wikis, blogs, document repository News feeds Event calendar News and Newsletters Building an environment to support collaborative working

  39. What makes a successful community?

  40. Facilitation – the magic ingredient Facilitating or Coordinating a community

  41. Facilitators’ (Coordinators, Moderators) responsibilities Facilitation and Coordination of a CoP includes: • monitoring activity • encouraging participation (facilitation techniques) • producing an action plan • reporting CoP activity – metrics, evaluations • monitoring success criteria and impact • managing CoP events

  42. What can you accomplish in one week? Start a discussion Be a community member Facilitate a community Read a wiki Read a wiki Read a wiki Read a wiki Read a wiki Read a wiki Read a wiki Read a blog Read a blog Read a blog Read a blog Read a blog Read a blog Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Read a document Read a document Read a document Read a document Read a document Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Contribute to a wiki Contribute to a wiki Contribute to a wiki Contribute to a wiki Add an event Add an event Add an event Add an event Add an event Add an event Add an event Add an event Add an event Write a blog Write a blog Write a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Respond to a forum posting Respond to a forum posting No time 1 hr 5 hrs 10 hrs Lots of time

  43. ACTIVITY: WHAT ARE THE ATTRIBUTES OF A GOOD CO-ORDINATOR?

  44. A Good Facilitator/Coordinator?

  45. A Facilitator/Coordinator cultivates the community

  46. Step 5: Monitor and Measure Everything!

  47. Metrics

  48. IDeA CoP Membership and communities • Over 26,000 registered members • Over 600 communities • Average membership of a community is 50 • Highest membership of a community is over 1400 • Over 2700 members are contributing. • Average of over 16,000 visits per month. • Average of over 1000 contributions per month.

  49. Metrics – CoP Activity

  50. Metrics • Don’t rely on metrics to claim your community is successful. • Use metrics to understand your community better.

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