Building relationships and being in community with like-minded individuals is crucial to all professional pursuits, but particularly so in any scholarly or entrepreneurial endeavour. Indeed, these relationships, when based around shared values and interests, can serve as catalysts for creative and innovative thinking. 

Yet, if you are anything like us, it is often challenging to create opportunities for interactions and dialogue to unfold in organic and authentic ways. Building relationships requires that we slow down, get to know each other on an individual basis, and find common ground. However, with busy schedules and scarce time, finding ways to create these intentional meeting spaces while still allowing for organic and authentic interactions to unfold is an ever-present challenge.

Enter communities of practice. Communities of practice may take many forms and names, but, at their core, they bring together individuals with a shared interest and expertise to facilitate knowledge sharing and, in some cases, knowledge creation (i.e., creating news norms, ideas, practices). For instance, communities of practice may include organised learning communities that bring together professionals from different sectors around a common goal; professional association meetings, a hobby club, a parenting group, or even an active subreddit. Through these communities of practice, members often participate in activities to discuss how to improve their respective practices and address common challenges; share best practices; and brainstorm areas to explore in the future.

You may ask: How are communities of practice different from teams, committees, or other working groups?. While teams or working groups may have learning objectives, they are usually focused around a particular outcome or deliverable. On the other hand, communities of practice are specifically oriented toward members’ interests and therefore have more freedom to evolve according to member’s goals and explore potential new innovative solutions without the pressure of producing a particular output. In addition, when it comes to building new ways of thinking and working on complex social issues requiring interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration, communities of practice can be useful by bringing together diverse perspectives and expertise that may not otherwise typically engage with each other. In this way, communities of practice can provide a rich environment for creativity and innovation. 

However, as you can imagine, fostering these kinds of creative and innovative spaces is easier said than done. Here are a few tips to consider.

Building a container and intentionality

Whether communities of practice form spontaneously or intentionally, it can be helpful to explicitly name the community of practice and outline broad intentions and values underpinning the initiative. Doing so allows for accountability as well as recognition of the initiative's potential contribution and worth, both of which are essential to building trust and to encourage participation. If we want our communities of practice to engage others and challenge existing norms, we need to spend time establishing rules of engagement (which is often also called  'building a container'). For instance, you might choose to adopt feminist practices to leadership and community building by engaging in self- and collective reflection, resisting hierarchies by establishing more egalitarian ways of engaging with each other, or creating communication guidelines to ensure everyone has the opportunity to express their perspective. Whatever approach you take, the practice of intentionally nurturing a community of practice is an important step in building trust and, ultimately, making space for members to openly share their ideas. 

Evolving alongside your community of practice

Whether due to changes in the larger practice landscape or loss of energy and capacity among members, many communities of practice come to a natural end or are completely transformed to reflect new knowledge needs. This process is rarely linear or straightforward so, if and when you run into tensions and challenges, rest assured this is expected and completely normal. As communities of practice develop, they also evolve and take new forms. In their early stages, communities of practice typically focus on a) building a network of interested people and trust; b) identifying common ground, passions, and knowledge needs; and c) sharing existing knowledge with each other. As the community of practice becomes more established, with a clearer vision for its goals, it may shift from knowledge sharing to documenting expertise within their community (e.g., via a knowledge repository or archive) or addressing ongoing knowledge gaps by actively seeking out different approaches to their practice problems. In their later stages, communities of practice may lose some of their momentum and slow down, die out, or go through a radical transformation. 

Consider the resources needed to sustain your community of practice

It is easy to focus on the aspirational aims of communities of practice, however there are pragmatic considerations that are essential to keep in mind when sustaining a community of practice over time. The biggest of these is the resources—the labour, costs, and time—required to sustain any activity. Communities of practice require planning, documenting, and facilitating, all of which require ongoing participation from members. It is also important to consider costs. While start-up costs may be covered by a small grant, the long-term sustainability of any initiative is contingent on funding. Lastly, the time investment of participating in a community of practice is a consideration. Although enthusiasm may abound, people are often juggling heavy workloads and may have limited capacity to participate in new initiatives. As such, it is important that members feel that their time and investment is appreciated and worthwhile. This can be aided by engaging in ongoing reflection surrounding the community of practice’s goals and allowing for these goals to evolve as needed.  

Ultimately, communities of practice have the difficult task of creating a space where there is simultaneously incentive and motivation to participate (via intentional goal setting) and opportunity for organic development of relationships and ideas. Herein lies the tension between what Wenger, eminent community of practice scholar, terms the 'art of balancing design and emergence'. But, when successful, these communities of practice can provide a thriving environment for creativity and innovation and support knowledge sharing and relationship building.

References

Buckley, Sheryl, and Adeline Du Toit. "Academics leave your ivory tower: Form communities of practice." Educational Studies 36, no. 5 (2010): 493-503.

Etienne Wenger, Richard A. McDermott, and William Snyder. 2002. Cultivating Communities of Practice : A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Vol. [Academic Subscription]. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Review Press. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=nlebk&AN=1798857&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Lave, Jean, and E. Wenger. "Learning in doing: Social, cognitive, and computational perspectives." Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation 10 (1991): 109-155.

McCormack, Coralie, Robert Kennelly, John Gilchrist, Eleanor Hancock, Jesmin Islam, Maria Northcote, and Kate Thomson. "From dream to reality: Sustaining a higher education community of practice beyond initial enthusiasm." Communities of practice: Facilitating social learning in higher education (2017): 599-622.

Spatig, Linda, Kathy Seelinger, Amy Dillion, and Kate Conrad. "From an ethnographic team to a feminist learning community: A reflective tale." Human organization 64, no. 1 (2005): 103-113. doi:https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.64.1.wy311n6xntbmmx39

Wenger, Etienne. "Communities of practice: Learning as a social system." Systems thinker 9, no. 5 (1998): 2-3.

Wenger, Etienne, Richard A. McDermott, William Snyder, and EBSCOhost. 2002. Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. 1st ed. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press.

About the Author 

Naomi is a research assistant with Hikma and community-based health scholar completing a PhD at the University of British Columbia, where she focuses on migrant women living with HIV and their experiences accessing and engaging the healthcare system. 

With generous support from the UBC Arts Amplifier, Naomi was back for a second term of their collaborative internship with Hikma. Naomi has been supporting our SSHRC-funded "Beyond the Academy" research partnership with Dr. Andrea Webb.