Communities-of-practice study planned
Over the past decade, The American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) has conducted six major studies focusing on knowledge management (KM). The research has shown widespread understanding of KM's value but a significant gap between understanding and implementation.
More specifically, the center has identified creation of communities of practice (CoPs) to cultivate new and innovative ideas in situations where process improvement or new product development is necessary to remain competitive in the marketplace. Further, building and sustaining CoPs is critical in creating a major KM initiative because it involves the cultivation of a culture that is necessary to sustain a community and transform it into a global initiative.
APQC seeks sponsors for the study, which will examine its best-practice partner companies: Johnson & Johnson Medical Systems, Motorola, Compaq, Xerox, and 3M. Sponsors receive exclusive access to best-practice organizations, networking opportunities and receive a final report of all of the study findings, as well as site visits, knowledge transfer, etc.
But building successful CoPs is not easy. In fact, there are some very challenging questions that must be answered:
How do you develop a strategic framework for successfully building and maintaining your CoPs? How do CoPs integrate with the overall KM strategy? How do you sustain these communities? What responsibilities does the organization have in supporting CoPs? How do you measure the success of CoPs?
The study will focus on four major aspects of CoPs.
• 1 Planning and initiating communities of practice--How to identify and select successful communities of practice:
How and why do organizations make communities of practice into the heart of knowledge management strategies? What are the various types of communities? How do you discover existing communities of practice within your organization? How do you build a business case to initiate a new community of practice or fund an existing one? How do you determine a need for communities of practice?
• 2 Creating communities of practice--essential components of the design and support of communities of practice:
How do communities create a mission, objectives, and deliverables? What financial support is required to establish a CoP? How do organizations begin cultivating an environment to allow for the formation and development of communities? How do you initiate the process of building CoPs inside your organization? What kind of structures should CoPs have? How do community structures relate to the existing organizational structure? What roles are needed to support successful CoPs? How do you identify who should be members of CoPs? How do you determine who needs to be affiliated with your CoPs? How do you motivate and reward participation in CoPs? What technological tools are needed to effectively support CoPs?
• 3 Maintaining and institutionalizing communities of practice--How to sustain and expand the success of your CoPs:
What are the challenges CoPs face once they are built? How do these challenges change over time? How do you support CoPs through the stages of their lifecycle? What elements within your culture are critical for effective CoPs to flourish? How do you motivate and reward participation in CoPs? How is this tied to the formal performance appraisal and reward system? How do you motivate members of CoPs to be active participants? What financial support is required to maintain a CoP? How do you support and facilitate communities for long-term benefits? How do you sustain CoPs and scale up the whole knowledge management program? How can CoPs be leveraged across the entire corporate community? How do CoPs integrate with the overall KM strategy? How are CoPs integrated into the overall organization?
• 4 Measuring Effectiveness--how to understand, evaluate, and measure the value of your CoPs to the organization
How do organizations evaluate the health and effectiveness of CoPs across their life cycle? How do measures vary across the life cycle? For what do you hold CoPs accountable? How do you manage the performance of CoPs? Is the focus on activities, results, or building knowledge assets? What measures are used to understand CoPs' costs? How do you assess the value communities contribute to the organization, teams, business units, and community members? What are true measures of success for a variety of CoPs?