How to Get the Most Out of
Community of Interest (CoI)
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- Community of Practice (CoP)
Community of Interest (CoI)A group of people who share knowledge and experience around a common interest. These people are driven more by learning and less by outcomes, compared to a Community of Practice. A good example could be business school faculty having a common interest in a particular topic of research. Peer reviews, seminars and collaborative paper writing are some of the ways in which communities of interest are sustained. Community of Practice (CoP)A group of people who share and develop their knowledge and expertise. These people may not necessarily work in the same department or organization. In many disciplines, knowledge is generated not by individuals but by a community of like-minded peers. So formation and nurturing of communities of practice is becoming a key challenge for many companies. Etienne Wenger40 has given an excellent account of how CoPs function. Most knowledge management initiatives lay emphasis on making codified knowledge available in databases / portals. But important knowledge is often difficult to codify. Only a small fraction of the knowledge in an organization is ever captured in content management systems, knowledge repositories and portals. Moreover, context is missing in such knowledge. It is context which gives a knowledge asset its richness. Context includes background information, alternatives that were tried but discarded, experiments that did not work the thinking behind a solution and reasons for the success or failure of an approach. Communities provide this context by facilitating connections between knowledge seekers and the knowledge source. Within a community, members are likely to have common interests. They’ve developed relationships and built trust, and are used to helping and sharing knowledge with one another. The common elements of CoP are a sense of joint enterprise, shared identification, relationships of mutual engagement that promote bonding, and shared repertoire of resources that members develop over time through engagement. Communities can be formed within business units, across business units, and across organizations. A CoP is not entirely homogeneous. Indeed CoP often have different categories of members: Core Group: There are the passionate and actively engaged people. Full Membership: These are the practitioners who make up the community. Peripheral Membership: They belong to the CoP but have less involvement and authority. Transactional Participation: These are outsiders who interact with the CoP occasionally to receive or provide service. Passive Access: There may be many other people who have access to artifacts produced by the community such as publications, website or tools. A CoP is different from other forms of organizational structure. Rather, it does not involve reporting relationships. Rather, it is based on collegiality. The power of its members comes from knowledge, not formal authority. Unlike a team which is defined by a task, a CoP is defined by knowledge. A CoP is held together, not by a project but by the passion of its members. Unlike a cross functional team, a CoP does not form when a project starts or disappears when a project gets over. A CoP provides a stable form of membership that carries people from one task to the next while allowing them to find continuity in terms of professional identity and development of expertise. A CoP provides a context for the relevant exchange and local interpretation of information. CoPs usually start as loose networks with latent needs and opportunities. As the community matures and grows, members gradually establish a shared practice, a learning agenda and a group identity. CoPs evolve over time. Some CoPs are short-lived; others last for centuries. Communities have to be nurtured carefully. They need activities to remain vibrant and get people involved. Meetings play a key role in many communities. A face-to-face meeting is often desirable early on, to socialize, build relationships and trust. Members can get to know one another — what their strengths and interests are, what they’re passionate about, the knowledge they hold, their experience, etc. At each stage in the life cycle of a CoP, there are specific challenges or questions. In the early days, there is a need for an inspiring vision or a difficult task to advance the state of a practice or to achieve a challenging organizational objective. The challenge at the next stage, where more people want to participate, is scaling up, so that the community can handle larger numbers. When it reaches maturity, the problems faced by a CoP include complacency and loss of vitality. People participate less and less. The key challenge then is to reinvigorate the community. Collaborative and communication tools can support communities. In their early days, communities need tools that help develop relationships while enhancing divergent thinking. Collaborative environments like chat rooms, brainstorming tools and mechanisms to facilitate the sharing of member biographies and pictures, and simple portals with various features for collaboration may be ideally suited for young communities. During the growth stage, a community needs tools that enable convergent thinking to help it agree on a course of action, a best practice, a recommended solution, or a decision about which product idea to pursue. It needs technologies that help it to find relevant knowledge assets quickly, and engage internal and external customers in dialogue. It needs the capability to vote on alternatives, and features that help surface and resolve inter-community conflicts. It also needs to integrate new members quickly. During the maturity stage, the community may need tools that balance convergent and divergent thinking. Finally, when it is in decline, a community needs tools that archive and preserve knowledge. Communities on the decline need to be re-energized. Movies, images and motivating stories can be used to revitalize the community. Face-to-face meetings, as well as skilled facilitation, may once again become essential. The return on time invested in community activities can be evaluated using various metrics: Business problems solved in the community. New knowledge created in the community. Joint learning occurring in the community. Existing knowledge reused by the community innovations. The community’s role in recruiting and retaining talent. 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