COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Communities of Practice (COPs) as defined by (2003) are groups of people within an organization that voluntarily assemble together for the purpose of sharing their knowledge to fellow members and learn from them in return. COPs have two forms namely self-organizing which aims for mutual relationships and advancement of the shared interests of the members. This form of COPs manages itself without much intervention from the organization’s management. The second form of COPs is sponsored which is established, governed and supported by the company’s management to provide beneficial outcomes to the company.
The concept of Communities of Practice is an innovative approach to the diverse situations that constantly confront business organizations in the contemporary times. The norms today are continuous learning and innovation which encourage managers and employees to invest in knowledge-producing ventures inside an organization. These ventures may include trainings, workshops or open forum which are the most basic avenues for learning in an organization. However, Communities of Practice render a new dimension to learning as employees of an organization are given a chance to voluntarily commit themselves to a group in order to improve their interpersonal skills, create a venue for learning new information, be a contributor to the creation of novel ideas based on practical experiences, and enhance their ability to determine and share best practices. COPs are highly significant to organizations today as the modern business world poses greater pressure and requires higher level of competence. COPs enable people from an organization with similar and complementary functions to define the essence of their work in the broader context of what their organization wants to accomplish. COPs also allow them to form relationships so that skills and expertise can freely flow within the group and problem solving can be enhanced. Through these, the entire organization can benefit as members of the COPs become more productive, competent and capable of accomplishing the demands of their work towards fulfillment of the organizational goals.
Communities of Practice are applicable to any division or area of an organization as long as employees in that particular area or division see the need for collaboration so that performance and outputs would become more concerted and meaningful. COPs are especially useful for functions that are crucial in an organization’s overall performance such as research and development, financial management or operations to name some. Researchers in an organization are tasked to accumulate important information to help the organization formulate policies, devise strategies and improve processes. Through COPs, researchers can share their knowledge on the most efficient and cost-sensitive means of gathering information to help the organization not miss any vital intelligence without spending much. For financial managers, COPs are venues for discussing the organization’s financial status, possible financial resources to tap and beneficial investments to embark on. Since financial managers oversee and govern the financial resources of the business, these people are required to become more knowledgeable of trends and threats of the external environment so that they can formulate strategies on how the organization can utilize capital and income in the most prudent ways. For operations people in an organization, COPs serve as channels of communication on how products or services can be more valuable to the clients and other stakeholders. Since these people directly work with customers or clients, they can obtain and share with other operations staff or managers any valuable knowledge about the market to serve as basis for organizational policy and strategy formulation. Furthermore, COPs are also applicable to specific professions such as medicine or law where information and skills are vital elements in practice. Doctors and lawyers save lives and protect the human rights of people. Thus, they need to be abreast of new treatments to illnesses and new laws so that they can best serve their clients. Finally, COPs can also be formed by people who want to address any immediate concern or issue relative to an organization’s operational systems and processes. For example, employees see that the organization has a problem with its distribution channel since many suppliers or customers complain that products are delayed. COPs can be formed so that employees who are knowledgeable of the supply chain can come together and discuss the problem, gather additional information, suggest solutions, weigh each suggestion, and eventually come up with the most potent solution to address the problem. The key thing in COPs is that members should be commited to sharing their knowledge and experiences so that everyone can adopt those practices that are proven to be the most effective.
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