Book Review by Donna Fitzgerald
Editor's note: a link for this book at Amazon Books
is at the bottom of this book review.
Introduction
I was most interested in reading Etienne Wenger’s book on COPs since
we hope to have our own PMCoPs up and functioning by October (see either my
column or John McHugh’s from last month’s newsletter).
Even though this book is targeted at workplace based groups I think it should
offer a wonderful crash course in the experience of creating and facilitating
our new PMCop’s.
The Review
The first chapter is spent making the case for the usefulness of communities
of practice within an organization. Their premise is that COPs are the best
organization for preserving “organizational knowledge” as well
as for fostering learning and developing Competences. In order to do this
the organizations must be supported but not controlled, sponsored but not managed
and finally consulted but not forced to participate.
If you accept the basic premise that the COP is the natural form of organization
in which professionals will share knowledge how best can a company ensure their
development and continued health? In chapter two the authors discuss the relationships
of communities of practice to the official organization. The five relationships
they’ve listed are:
•
Unrecognized
•
Bootlegged
•
Legitimized
•
Supported
•
Institutionalized
Unrecognized COPs are actually more common than most of us realize. On one
end of the spectrum it is the spontaneous creation of a group of people who
need to share knowledge in order to get a specific problem solved on the
other end of the spectrum it occurs in a stable organization where people
become
hungry to improve both themselves and their company and find themselves internally
driven to meet and share ideas on how things can be improved with out destabilizing
the organization.
Bootlegged organizations have one additional component that an unrecognized
COP lacks – one or two natural leaders. This wasn’t clearly articulated
in the book and is a premise based on my own 20 years experience in dealing
with these organizations but it is only with the presence of the wider vision
that a natural leader brings to the group that the organization begins to take
on a life of its own. It is also the most frustrating concept for corporate
management to accept – a COP can’t sustain the next type of organization
without the “leader” or “vision holder” in place.
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The third type of organization is one they call “legitimized”.
The book offers some wonderful examples of this type of organization. These
COPs begin to have a presence that is visible to the company as a whole. They
may have a web site on the intranet and managers will support the time employees
spend participating in these groups.
Supported COPs are organizations that balance on the edge of chaos,
to borrow a term from the complex adaptive system community. Too much support
and they become nothing more than another form of bureaucratic organization
too little support and they fail to hold structure during times of transition.
The key hallmark of a supported COP is the assignment of resources to either
the concept (a group that helps COPs get established and will be available
for facilitation) or to the groups themselves (as outlined in the Turbodudes
example)
Institutionalized COPs are ones that are actively incorporated
into the management structure of the company. Meeting attendance can become
mandatory,
decisions need to be ratified by the group, etc. In very rare instances
this type of COP can work for a short period of time (demands people with
an aligned
vision and a non bureaucratic mind set). Over time this type of organization
will always transform into an “operational team” or dissolve
once the needs of the individuals with the passion for sharing find their
needs
are no longer being met.
Chapter two continues the discussion of the structure of COPs by proposing
that every COP must strike a balance between three points of a triangle – structure,
community and practice. Or restated a COP must begin by answering the questions:
•
Why are we here?
•
Who are we individually and collectively?
•
How do we earn our keep?
Chapter three outlines the seven principles for cultivating a community of
practice. I freely admit I had trouble with this chapter. Having actively participated
and created a number of COPs my experience says that six of the seven principles
are absolutely not core organizing principles. This is not to say that these
principles won’t be of importance at some point in the life of a COP
only that they aren’t a starting point.
The seven principles are:
•
Design for evolution
•
Open a dialogue between inside and outside participants
•
Invite different levels of participation
•
Develop both public and private community space
•
Focus on value
•
Combine familiarity and excitement
•
Create a rhythm for the community
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Without belaboring the point I will briefly summarize my objections.
- At the very beginning it’s not possible to design for evolution – a
COP is the quintessential self organizing undertaking — It is only long
after the people, problem and goal have come together that there is even a
vague possibility of thinking about conscious design. Plus I would contend
that as a self organizing structure evolution or de-evolution are unavoidable
components of a COP and therefore don’t need to be planned for.
- There are only outside participants once a COP has reached the level of legitimization — you
can worry about knowledge sharing outside of the group at that point.
- Ditto for private and public space
- Value is the currency in which a COP trades and the only principle
that I believe is truly core
- The principle of familiarity and excitement I believe is miss-stated.
The founding principle should be one of inclusion. People need to feel
they belong and that
participation is safe.
- My experience says once the community is formed it will begin to
create its own rhythm. The only thing that needs to happen is that rhythm
should
be respected
and honored.
Chapter four covers the early stages of developing a COP. The presentation
of the content might give you the impression that you can derive an almost
cookbook approach to getting a COP off the ground. This would be a serious
mistake. COPs are created out of passion and vision — They are by their
very nature emergent organizations that will go their own way if they’re
going to survive. The information in chapter four should be approached from
the perspective of listening to a consultant whose intention is to give you
some background on what they’ve seen in the past. It may or may not pertain
to you.
The discussion of the evolution of the Turbodudes at the beginning of chapter
five serves to showcase why the authors are such authorities in the field.
Once the group is established and has reached the level of “legitimized” the
authors’ perspective on maintaining the group will become invaluable.
Knowing your problem isn’t unique won’t guarantee success but it
might help you try and nudge any COP you’re participating in or facilitating
in a sustainable direction.
Chapter six covers the particular challenges of running a distributed COP.
Based on personal experience I would say the issues are size and culture if
the group
is global. A small distributed COP is actually quite easy to run – you
just need travel money if your goal is to produce a joint work product and
if your goal is to offer knowledge dissemination you don’t even need
that. Running a large global COP is possible for knowledge sharing – though
issues of language and culture should be major focus areas but probably not
possible if your goal is a tangible work product.
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Chapter seven covers what can go wrong with COPs. I admit as an advocate I
tend to minimize these problems, writing them off to excess bureaucracy or
the ascendancy of power hungry or dysfunctional individuals. Luckily there’s
an easy way to handle most of these problems – simply start a new group
and once the problem is recognized at the corporate level reduce or eliminate
the funding and status or the group that has become dysfunctional. One important
fact to remember is that all COPs can outlive their usefulness and it’s
perfectly acceptable to let them dissolve and reform. One of the points that
the book makes strongly is that the goal for a corporation is to cultivate
the environment in which COPs can thrive – not necessarily keep any one
COP alive.
Chapter eight makes the case that it is possible to measure the value creation
of COPs. I admit I approached this chapter with some degree of trepidation.
Measurement unfortunately equals bureaucracy and letting bureaucracy get a
toe hold near a COP is the equivalent in my opinion of striking the death knell.
With that said, I was surprised to find myself in full support of their measurement
program. They advocate a form of anecdotal evidence that is collected on a
rigorously systematic basis. Since I have advocated the same technique as the
best way to measure the results of a project portfolio I would add only one
caveat; this system of data collection and the evaluation must be entrusted
to individuals who are trained to listen and hear the information between the
words and in the blank spaces. This techniques isn’t some sort of touchy-feely
mumbo jumbo, rather it’s a common skill found in most consulting companies
and in most finance (as opposed to accounting) departments. Again if you want
to measure – entrust the job to the right people.
Chapter nine covers creating a community based knowledge initiative. Given
my objections to chapters three and four I would recommend using chapter nine
as the template for how to go about creating and getting a COP off the ground.
Chapter ten ends with a discussion on expanding the concept of COPs beyond
the corporate boundaries into the community or into industry focus areas. This
chapter is brief and will serve only to expand the horizon of possibilities.
My recommendation is if you get to this point then the book you need is The
Boundaryless Organization by Ronald N. Ashkenas (Ed). While it doesn’t
deal with COPs specifically it makes the business case as to why you would
want to participate in something beyond your own brick and mortar walls.
In summary Cultivating Communities of Practice is an excellent piece of “been
there – done that” writing. It isn’t a step by step cookbook – what
it is instead is a subtle form of suitability matching. It lays out a wealth
of tacit knowledge that mirrors the experience of what one would get if one
formed a community of practice around communities of practice. Therefore I
recommend using it not only as a source of information but as a way to help
pick people to get one or more COPs off the ground, since the book is guaranteed
to resonate with your potential practitioners.
Click here to order this book from Amazon.
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