TL;DR
As one of our Nimble Effects, Communities of Practice (CoP) are a significant source of learning that can be applied to any skill or topic. In general terms these have a low barrier to entry and require little investment beyond a regular community gathering to organize and participate.
- There are many benefits to having a Community of Practice
- Popular areas or skills where Community of Practice are valued
- Some interesting stats involving Community of Practices
We highly recommend enabling Communities of Practice for many reasons but can also assist in helping you to form a Community of Practice that will generate lasting benefits. We don’t have or maintain a separate dojo or maturity model for this effect but typically assist with Community of Practice creation as an option in association with other our other NRM Dojo Jumpstarts.
Community of Practice Benefits
There are many benefits to forming a CoP, here are some of the most beneficial ones:
| CoP Benefits | Description |
|---|---|
| Increase collaboration | CoPs connect people across disciplines, enabling them to share insights and solve problems collectively. |
| Knowledge exchange | Members gain access to shared expertise, best practices, and innovative ideas. |
| Professional Development | CoPs encourage peer learning, workshops, and mentorship, enhancing skills and career growth. |
| Innovation and problem solving | By pooling diverse perspectives, CoPs drive creativity and generate new solutions. |
| Organizational Learning | They help organizations retain institutional knowledge and improve decision-making. |
Most popular CoP areas
Seriously, a CoP can be formed around anything. They can be long term opportunities to advance a skill or short lived to get something started. Here are a few of the most popular areas to create and participate in a CoP:
| Popular CoPs | Description |
|---|---|
| Development | Goes above and beyond code reviews and pull requests to get everyone on the same page regarding techniques, standards and practices. |
| Quality Assurance | Advances the art in all aspects QA as a discipline. |
| Technical Writing | Build out styles and consistency applied to various forms of technical writing. |
| Design | Advance the art of design. |
| Product Management | Advances the art in all aspects Product Management as a discipline. Could also focus on Continuous North Star to advance and evolve this as a practice. |
| Operations | Explore tools and techniques that improve operations. |
| Data Science | Advance the art of data practices. |
| Risk Management | Explore ways to improve risk management and/or reduce risk. |
Interesting Stats involving CoP
Here are a few stats suggesting the value gained by having Communities of Practice:
| Description | Stats | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge retention as in broader and consistent understanding reduces risk associated with silos of expertise or brain drain | 20-40% | Stat.Confluence |
| Collaboration & Innovation as in regular collaborations ten to increase innovation | up to 40% | Rochester |
| Employee Engagement as in engaged employees contribute more and more likely to stay with company | 15-35% | Plos |
| Decision Making Efficiency by empowering distributed decision by the experts increases performance and efficiency | 30-60% | Rochester |
| Skill Development occurs faster | up to 45% | Plos |