Communities of Practice: The Heart of KM

KM includes a wide variety of approaches, from self-service tools and systems to process-based approaches such as after action reviews and content management. KM also includes the more complex approach of intentional knowledge elicitation and transfer. But communities of practice are often at the heart of successful KM programs.

What is a community of practice (CoP)? Simply stated, it is a network of people who come together to share and learn from one another, whether face-to-face, virtually, or both. Each community is held together by a common purpose, which usually focuses on sharing knowledge related to a central topic and connecting members to information and to each other.

While the enabling technology for communities has evolved dramatically over the years, many of the best practices around organizing, measuring, and motivating participation in communities have remained stable. In this article, I highlight the business benefits of communities and share four key insights about what it takes to make them effective.

Drivers and Benefits of Communities

Communities help KM programs deliver on some of their most important priorities. Respondents to APQC’s annual “KM Priorities and Trends” survey told us that in 2025, they will be focusing the most on incorporating AI and “smart” technology; identifying, mapping, or prioritizing critical knowledge; transferring expert knowledge; boosting KM participation; and enabling collaboration across teams/units.

It’s not hard to see how communities can enable priorities such as transferring expert knowledge and collaborating across teams. Goals like these are often why communities exist in the first place. Communities can also leverage and experiment with new technologies such as generative AI, both for their own use and to provide use cases for the business. When communities add value for the business, they also tend to garner more budgetary support and recognition, which then drives deeper engagement from everyone.

The Business Benefits of Communities

When communities are well-managed and working effectively, the benefits stretch beyond KM and into the business. Communities provide a safe space where knowledgeable people can discuss best practices as well as brainstorm, ask difficult questions, and meet like-minded colleagues around a specific knowledge domain. Communities can also help employees to perform these types of knowledge-oriented tasks on behalf of the business:

♦ Documenting and transferring best practices or lessons learned

♦ Creating, maintaining, and stewarding bodies of knowledge

♦ Providing access to expertise

♦ Supporting on-the-job learning

♦ Generating new ideas and innovation

♦ Solving problems

These benefits make communities an important part of how KM delivers value to the business.

Building and Maintaining Effective Communities: Four Key Insights

Our member organizations have taught us a lot about what it takes to run successful and effective communities. These are our four key insights:

1. Communities need a well-defined scope and purpose.

2. Active management helps communities thrive.

3. Investments in community leadership pay off.

4. Effective communities break down silos.

Communities Need a Well-Defined Scope and Purpose

One European energy company we spoke with has a thriving KM program that supports more than 60 communities with funding and resources from the business. While the organization has a framework to manage the entire community lifecycle (including ideation, creation, operation, and closing), KM leaders told us that it was especially important to make sure communities start with a well-defined scope and purpose.