A "Community of Practice" (CoP) is defined as an informal network of people engaged in a particular profession, occupation, or job function who actively seek to work more effectively and to understand their work more fully.
CoPs can span institutional structures and hierarchies; they can work across business units or even across company boundaries.
While traditional knowledge management approaches attempt to capture existing knowledge within formal systems, such as databases, communities can prove to be more effective for knowledge sharing and transfer and, in particular, for problem solving.
CoPs can be dynamic and can last for as long or as short a time as their members need them to exist.
They tend to be self-forming and self governing, but at the same time there are certain formulas, techniques and tools that can facilitate the creation and operation of dynamic, productive communities.
Video: Seth Kahan: Business Performance Communities
Seth Kahan explains to a business audience what "Business Performance Communities" are and how organizations can cultivate them to tackle some of their toughest problems.
David Gurteen's comments: This is a great little video clip from Seth where to my mind he makes it absolutely clear what you need to do to make a community of practice successful. Like all KM initiatives it is about selling the value to business managers on the "business outcomes" and to the participants on "what's in it for them"!
Media Information:
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The pages on this website are categorized into one or more of nearly 100 categories (themes or topics). This page below displays a list of other pages that belong to the
Communities of Practice
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If you are interested in Knowledge Management, the
Knowledge Café
or the role of conversation in organizational life then you my be interested in this online book I am writing on
Conversational Leadership
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