Steve Dale Director Semantix (UK) Ltd Collabor8now Ltd

1. Communities of Practice: turning conversations into collaboration Steve DaleDirectorSemantix (UK) LtdCollabor8now Ltd Attribution:

2. What we need to do • Identify a collective area of expertise and interest/passion • compelling problem or need • Collaborate around something specific • a product, a methodology, or technology • falls under members area of expertise and interest AND ties to the organizations’ needs and requirements

3. What we need to do • Identify three types of people for CORE team • Guru/experts • Networkers • Salesperson • Determine, & provide tools and support • Continuous “winning over” of executives and sponsors

4. What we will cover today • What is a ‘Community of Practice’ (CoP)? • Five steps to a successful CoP • CoP Facilitation & Roles– the magic ingredient • What makes a successful CoP

5. What is a What is a Community of Practice? ?

6. Communities of Practice communities of practice – an environment connecting people and encouraging the sharing of ideas and experiences

7. A community

8. A domain of interest Gosport Allotment Holders & Gardeners Association

9. A place to meet

10. 1.Someone to facilitate 2.A Core group to lead 3. Knowledge expertise

11. A community of practice

12. Communities of Practice A Community of Practice is a network of individuals with common problems or interests who get together to explore ways of working, identify common solutions, and share good practice and ideas. • puts you in touch with like-minded colleagues and peers • allows you to share your experiences and learn from others • allows you to collaborate and achieve common outcomes • accelerates your learning • validates and builds on existing knowledge and good practice • provides the opportunity to innovate and create new ideas

13. Why have a Community of Practice? CoPs are not about bringing knowledge into the organisation as much as they are about helping to grow the knowledge that we need internally within our organisations.

14. What is a Developing Successful Communities of Practice Step 1: Establish or identify a purpose ?

15. What problem am I trying to solve? *See slide notes

16. Join our list Join our forum Join our community Degrees of Transparency and Trust Increasing collaboration and transparency of process

17. Is the answer already out there?

18. Dynamics of Different Network Types

19. ELA COPI What common problem do we want to solve?

20. What is a Step 2: Identify your Community ?

21. Know your audience

22. transactional lurkers peripheral occasional experts active beginners core group leaders facilitator outsiders Members of an active community *From Etienne Wenger, Apr.2011

23. Community Type • Helping Communities provide a forum for community members to help each other with everyday work needs. • Best Practice Communities develop and disseminate best practices, guidelines, and procedures for their members use. • Knowledge Stewarding Communities organise, manage, and steward a body of knowledge from which community members can draw. • Innovation Communities create breakthrough ideas, new knowledge, and new practices.

24. Understanding your Community

25. ELA COPI Who is our audience?

26. ELA COPI What type of Community are we?

27. Step 3: Understand the Culture and Behaviors

28. Why does a person engage with a Community of Practice? • Attractive purpose grabs and retains attention • Perceived benefits: • Socialization • Co-learning, knowledge sharing and co-production • Each person chooses to be a member • Volition • Joining in – and leaving!

29. Become an expert Become a mentor Write a blog Ask a question (with attribution) Comment (with attribution) Level of engagement Register Comment (Anonymously) Waxing and Waning Interest Browse, search, learn (Anonymously) Type of engagement Levels of engagement

30. 1% active contributors/ CORE TEAM 9% occasional contributors/ CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS The 1-9-90 rule Number of contributions 90% users and lurkers/ SUPPORTING AUTHORS Number of participants Patterns of contribution Ref:Jacob Nielson http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html

31. The “1% Rule” • For every 100 people online only 1 person will create content and 10 will “interact” with it. The other 89 will just view it. • Each day at YouTube there are 100 million downloads and 65,000 uploads • 50% of all Wikipedia article edits are done by 0.7% of users, and more than 70% of all articles have been written by just 1.8% of all users • In Yahoo Groups, 1% of the user population might start a group; 10% of the user population might participate actively. 100% of the user population benefits from the activities of the above groups Source: The Guardian The important message is: look after your content creators!

32. It’s more about the people than the technology

33. Community Roles and Responsibilities • Sponsor is able to envision the services of a CoP over time, and should have a sense of how the CoP can interact across the organization (AEA Chiefs & Evan Abbey:AEAPDOnline) • System Convener/Facilitator consulting, connecting, facilitating, helping, guiding. (Nancy) • Core Groupis a working group that initially performs start-up activities, facilitates specific COPs and continues to provide ongoing organizational support. Includes Experts who are the subject matter specialists, Networkers, and Salespeople(the 1%) • Leaders/Contributors serve an integral role in the community's success by energizing the sharing process and providing continuous nourishment and feedback to the community (the 9%) • Agenda Activist • Critical Friend • Social Reporter • External Messengers • Technical Steward understands business needs and ensure the appropriate tools are available to meet these needs. (AEAPDOnline) • Members/Participants without these there is no community; the essence of a community is its members. (the 90%)

34. Step 4: Develop the ‘Practice’

35. Attributes of a successful CoP Social Networking Culture Collaboration Tools *Based on a slide by IBM

36. Sustain/Renew Grow Level of energy and visibility Start-up Close Plan Discover/ imagine Incubate/ deliver value Focus/ expand Ownership/ openness Let go/ remember Time Your community’s life-cycle From: Cultivating Communities of Practice by Wenger, McDermot and Snyder

37. Find and connect with experts Find and connect with your peers Threaded discussion forums, wikis, blogs, document repository News feeds Event calendar News and Newsletters Building an environment to support collaborative working

38. What makes a successful community?

39. Facilitation – the magic ingredient Facilitating, Leading & Coordinating a community

40. Key success/failure factors • Passion for domain • Relevance to practice • Ownership of agenda • Internal leadership • Energized core group • Learning trumps power • Community rhythm • Trust • High value for time • High expectations • Engaged sponsorship • Skilled support • Distributed leadership • Lack of time • Leader neglect • Groupthink • Build it and … • Stuck in complaining • De-energizing tasks • Red tape • HQ - field • Command/control • Cookie-cutter approach • Fad or mandate • Ideology • Lack of strategic thinking

41. Social learning teamhow to lead and support an initiative Strategy • Be the voice of communities across agencies • Legitimize their work in terms of strategic priorities • Help develop a sponsorship structure and negotiate accountability around communities • Offer training about communities of practice • Provide coaching to community leaders • Help with community launch and renewal Cultivation • Steward the use of technology for communities • Promote cross-structure knowledge exchange • Coordinate overall research, assessment, measurement, and reporting Support

42. Convener & CORE responsibilities Facilitation and Coordination of a CoP includes: • monitoring activity • encouraging participation (facilitation techniques) • producing an action plan • reporting CoP activity – metrics, evaluations • monitoring success criteria and impact • managing CoP events

43. ACTIVITY: WHAT ARE THE ATTRIBUTES & FUNCTIONS OF GOOD CORE TEAMS?

44. Lessons Learned: What went well and not so well

45. CORE responsibilities Let’s define our work:

46. What can you accomplish in one week? Start a discussion Be a community member Facilitate a community Read a wiki Read a wiki Read a wiki Read a wiki Read a wiki Read a wiki Read a wiki Read a blog Read a blog Read a blog Read a blog Read a blog Read a blog Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Upload a document Read a document Read a document Read a document Read a document Read a document Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Read a forum post Contribute to a wiki Contribute to a wiki Contribute to a wiki Contribute to a wiki Add an event Add an event Add an event Add an event Add an event Add an event Add an event Add an event Add an event Write a blog Write a blog Write a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Comment on a blog Respond to a forum posting Respond to a forum posting No time 1 hr 5 hrs 10 hrs Lots of time

47. Conveners & CORE leaders cultivate the community

48. Step 5: Monitor and Measure Everything!

49. Blended Learning: Spectrum of Definitions “Traditional” Model 2-Day Model Place to Access Files & Links Self-Guided Lessons Enrichment Face-To-Face Online Supplemental Model Replacement Model Emporium Model Digital Dropbox Practice Exercises Classroom Discussion Board Flipped Classroom Model Fully Online

50. Metrics