Change Management Blog

Webster’s defines team as: 4: a number of persons associated together in work or activity …. This is what a Communities of Practice (CoP) is, a team that has come together in work and activity. All teams work best when they are well rounded and made up of players who bring a variety of positions, talents, abilities, and thinking styles. Last post we introduced some of the roles an organization’s Leaders play, both in support of and within a CoP, this week we look at staff roles and other elements that round out the team. Before doing this, it is important to note that within a CoP, roles are not necessarily set by organizational role definitions. By its very nature, a CoP encourages full strength (it is officially hockey season after all ;)) play where the team mates often are cross-functional and leaders come from anywhere in the organization.

Role for Seasoned Staff

Seasoned staff members typically have the most knowledge to share in a Communities of Practice situation. However, the challenge is to get them engaged. They often prove their willingness to share their knowledge acting as informal mentors and teasing and cajoling their newer coworkers with phrases like, “forget what you heard at training…let us tell you how things really work”. Inviting these default leaders into a CoP provides a forum for them to both present their case to a broader audience and to learn themselves from the community.

To engage the seasoned staff, the plan should include, but not be limited to,

• convincing the seasoned staff of their value
• using traditional training to teach them the meta-competencies
• inviting them to be called upon for their opinions within the community

Role for New Staff

New staff members tend to have grown up in collaborative conversations (both online and live). They will be leaders in the meta-competencies and somewhat followers in the actual business processes. It is expected that the new staff will turn to experienced staff for answering questions (based on research, employees are five times more likely to turn to a co-worker than a book for information). The new staff person would then credit the experienced worker as the source of the insight provided. In this way, the experienced staff member is invited into the community because of his/her wisdom.

Role for Training

The role for the training department in a CoP expands the status of the traditional training specialist from trainer to facilitator and moderator.

The training group will focus their energies at the beginning on the meta-competencies of Communities of Practice. These meta-competencies are competencies that help to develop other competencies. They include, but are not limited to,

• (online) discussions
• formulating a problem
• submitting a solution
• telling a story
• discriminating information
• giving and receiving feedback
• acknowledging “right vs. right” (more than one right way to solution)

The group will also watch for CoPs that develop naturally and assess whether any formal training can be developed to assist that community. They will also stay on as a moderator until natural leaders arise within the communities. By implementing CoP, the training group is no longer the rate-limiting step in the process of professional development within the organization.

In addition, the training group can help codify knowledge into a knowledge architecture as information comes in from the field; indeed, the direction of knowledge transfer between the field and training now becomes explicitly two-way.

Role for Technology

Although a CoP does not need any online capability, using an online solution helps to speed the connections and provides community across geographic boundaries. Your organizations IT department can provide a valuable platform for creating and sustaining CoPs. Certain software vendors have developed software specifically for creating and leveraging tacit knowledge within the organization. Whichever solution is determined should meet each of these criteria:

• integrate with current intranet solution
• highly secure
• visually appealing
• ease of use
• search capabilities
• webinar support
• rights matrix
• community voting
• workflow-based
• integration with current software

Role for Evaluation

The evaluation professionals within your organization will have a tremendous role within a CoP solution. By establishing baselines on current practices and assessing incremental change based on current change management and training implementations, the evaluation team can help demonstrate which elements of CoP impact the productivity of the organization. Indeed, it is recommended that CoP be launched within a subset of your organization to establish firmly the desired performance metrics. In addition, the evaluation team will assist the training team in setting up ways to track contributions to community. No longer will people be rewarded for using their knowledge for their own benefit alone, but also for how many people are impacted by their input, potentially across geographies for national and multi-national organizations.

Are there any roles or elements you would add? Or, have seen as useful in your own organization?