I dare you to find a serious general conference on knowledge management that doesn’t include at least one session on communities of practice. Slowly over the past few years, communities of practice have come to be acknowledged as the killer application for knowledge management. And rightfully so.

But the concept may be hard for you to grasp. I’ll admit that to someone who has spent years in organizational life, communities of practice look weird. They don’t look anything like the teams you were on. Are they supposed to replace the standard organizational structures? If so, how? Will people belong to communities of practice, and teams, and departments?

In this chapter, we’ll learn more about that elusive creature, the community of practice, and its distinguishing characteristics. We’ll discuss the creature’s life cycle and how to nurture it. Lastly we will discuss how to bring them into the world.

A community of practice (COP) is a platypus lurking among the dogs, chickens, cows, and pigs of standard organizational structures. I say that because when I began to understand what a community of practice is, I was reminded of the day in grade school when we learned about the platypus. Having been told up until then that all mammals bore living young, I thought the platypus was odd because it laid eggs. The picture in our textbook didn’t help much. It reminded me of a cross between a duck, a beaver, and a seal. In real life, the platypus is a shy and wary animal. It lives in burrows on the banks of freshwater ponds in eastern Australia and Tasmania, venturing out in the early morning and night to feed.

In organizational life, communities of practice can also be shy and wary. Nevertheless, they may surround you. You just need to know where and what to look for. You may even be one yourself—many of us are, even though we’re not aware of it. Also, more organizations are recognizing and supporting these rare animals, so they’re getting easier to spot.

At first you may be tempted to think that communities of practice are another type of team. However, they aren’t teams—but there can be teams within a community of practice. Although teams vary, they have some common characteristics:

You also might be tempted to think that communities of practice are like the work groups you’ve belonged to all of your organizational life. If so, you’re wrong. Communities of practice aren’t work groups, either. Work groups

In contrast, a community of practice has its own characteristics—its equivalent of the duckbill, webbed feet, and egg-laying traits of the platypus:

This last quality, the ability for self-sustainment, is what drew me to communities of practice. As a benchmarking manager, I was active with teams and work groups, promoting both learning and sharing of knowledge. I was happy with the immediate results most of the time. What frustrated me, though, was that the learning and sharing often stopped when the benchmarking stopped. I wanted to see the sharing and learning be more than a one-time shot.

A community of practice is a group of practitioners who share a common interest in a specific area of competence and are willing to work together. A community of practice has three dimensions:

Think of a community of practice as a living organism. An organism, like the platypus, is born, grows, matures, and dies. Richard McDermott, Bill Snyder, and Etienne Wenger (McDermott, Knowledge Management Review, “Community Development as a Natural Step,” November/December 2000) have defined five stages of potential development of a community of practice.

At this egg-like stage there are people in a loose network who have similar interests, capabilities, and needs. However, they may not see any value in doing any more work on the network. What they have is good enough for them, and, besides that, they have never seen anything like a community of practice. You need to find those people and talk to them. Part of the dialogue centers on the need for a community; another critical part is on beginning to define the domain of knowledge they share. Management must be engaged, for it will provide the resources required. It also can help remove organizational barriers.

Some communities launch with a big bang. Others ease into existence with low-key informal sharing. A problem for the members at this stage is that they must learn what they can do together: what to share, what is useful, and how to work together. It takes time to develop relationships as well. This can be discouraging, drowning an initial burst of enthusiasm.

There is a dilemma at this point: Members need value to stay in the community, but the community needs time to deliver value. Management also needs to see a return on its investment.

Good things are happening: Good work is being done, relationships are expanding and deepening, and the community itself is becoming more visible. However, as the new community adds members, the addition of those members can be disruptive. Care must be taken to handle the expansion well.

Sounds like the community is on easy street at this point, doesn’t it? However, in this stage the community must dance the tightrope of sustaining itself and continuing to grow. Without continual growth, the community can stagnate.

It is also important to sustain the heartbeat of the community. Although every community has its highs and lows, a prolonged low could trail off into the last step: closure.

Like the notes of a bugle blowing taps, a community can fade away or the practice can disappear, leaving behind a well-connected social club.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to pronounce death, have a lovely funeral to celebrate the community’s life, and help the members to move on.

The most important critical success factor for a community of practice is having an effective community coordinator. While the rest of the community has a passion for what they do, the coordinator also must have a passion for the people in the community. He or she has two jobs:

While the individual members are busily engaged in the practice, the community coordinator monitors the big picture. There may be gaps the community needs to fill. There may be tools and other resources that the community needs. There may be cutting-edge issues the community needs to address. It’s the community coordinator’s job to help oversee the practice and help get the community members what they need.

On one level, the community coordinator is somewhat like a recreation director. This person should schedule events that enable the community to meet and interact. Although around 70 percent of the activity in any community occurs in the private interaction between individual members, events that bring the whole group together do have impact. Events are important for the life cycle of the community. Events such as a meeting to charter a community or a conference can spark the initial development or help a community sustain momentum. If necessary, an event can mark the closure of a community.

Taking care of event logistics isn’t all that a community coordinator does. Prior to the actual event, the coordinator talks to members,

During an event the coordinator may take notes, making it easier for the members to participate. Afterward the community coordinator follows up on suggestions and may post notes or documents from the event.

Of course, judging when to have an event is another important task for a coordinator. The community coordinator must watch what is going on in a community, particularly when community activity begins to die down. Usually, at such a time, an event is an ideal spark to rekindle interest.

Although events are exciting, regular forums for exchange also are important. Most communities have an active discussion area where they solve problems together and share information, often online community coordinators often serve as facilitators for such forums, making sure that questions get answered and monitoring the interactions.

An important subgroup for any community is its new members. Bringing them on board may or may not be a role for the community coordinator. However, there needs to be a process for welcoming them to the group, giving a little of the history of the group, and teaching them the basics of the community. At the very least the community coordinator should make sure this process is being carried out and also personally welcome new members if possible.

The most important role, though, for the community coordinator in building the community is networker par excellence. The community coordinator must have a widespread personal network. Ideally, his or her personal network should extend beyond the community itself. Inside the community, he or she is the primary member of the community that everyone knows and respects. The coordinator, using network skills, helps to connect community members to each other. The more members who feel a connection to each other, the stronger the community. A successful community coordinator makes building those connections a priority. And since 70 percent of the activity that occurs in a community takes place privately between individuals, the more people who know each other, the more knowledge can be shared.

There’s a lot to think about when launching a community of practice. We will look at a case study from SAP America to illustrate some basic principles.

SAP America had a challenge. A competitor had come out with a product that quickly had captured a big chunk of market share. SAP’s lack of market share meant that it lacked enough customers to give the company a reference (customers who would vouch for SAP’s product), a key in getting more customers and thus increasing market share. One thing SAP had to do in order to win back the market was make sure its consultants (the people who worked with clients) had the best and latest information possible on SAP’s offerings.

SAP America carefully planned, launched ,and supported their community of practice effort. They began by

SAP America kicked off the community with their planned community event, the biweekly conference call. The events also were carefully staged, with scripted first calls. Despite the script, however, spontaneity was allowed and encouraged. A facilitator also assisted in the group interaction. Although SAP America limited original participation in the community event, participation soon tripled. The benefits to SAP America from this community were and continue to be

For the individuals in the community, the similar benefits are

As this example shows, although it does require planning and considerable effort to launch a community of practice, the benefits are numerous. That’s why it is the killer application of KM. While no one approach is right for every organization, nothing else comes as close.