Communities of Practice (CoP)

A Community of Practice (CoP) is a group of people who are a common interest, concern, set of problems, or passion for a topic. To deepen their knowledge and expertise, they interact on an ongoing basis¹.

History

The idea was coined by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in 1991². According to Wenger, a network or club becomes a CoP when it features three intersecting components:

• Domain: Shared area of interest that creates common ground and defines the community. Membership implies a baseline commitment and competence that distinguishes members from non-members.
• Community: Members engage in activities, discussions, and information-sharing to build relationships, help each other, and learn together.
• Practice: Members are practitioners and develop resources such as experiences, tools, templates, and proven ways of addressing recurring concerns.

By the late 1990s, corporate organizations caught on that standard knowledge management failed to capture human experience. Wenger continued studies with additional partners and this work helped to shift the concept of CoP into an organizational tool. CoPs often form to break down silos and foster innovation³.

Common Contexts

A CoP is very useful in the following contexts:

• Extracting Tacit Knowledge: Documentation keeps explicit knowledge, but struggle with tacit knowledge. CoPs excel at surfacing context-based wisdom through experience-sharing.
• Breaking Down Silos: Practitioners doing similar work are often compartmentalized into different departments. CoPs provide a bridge for isolated peers to exchange knowledge and tools.
• Preventing Knowledge Loss: Undocumented expertise leaves with employees. CoPs are an ongoing archive of knowledge distribution across multiple teams.

CoPs may meet bi-weekly or monthly with no standard cadence, agenda, or top-down needs. They thrive as an informal chance for conversation and engagement, rather than enforcement.

Common Functions

Discussions in Communities of Practice usually break down into a few general buckets, but vary depending on the topic and organizational needs. These might include:

• Problem solving
• Requests for information/resources
• Experience sharing
• Asset sharing
• Discussing developments or innovative ideas

Links

• Wikipedia: Community of practice
• What Is A Community Of Practice? (And Why You Need One)

Notes

¹ Edutech Wiki: Community of practice

² Introduction to communities of practice

³ Evolution of Wenger's concept of community of practice

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