You can look at CoPs as having three elements required for them to thrive (Like the fire triangle): 1) Community, 2) Leadership, 3) Space. All three are required, as soon as one disappears the CoP also disappears. This means if we want to develop healthy CoPs we need to think about how we support all three.

  1. Community - seems obvious, without a community, there is no community of practice. But I think the key lesson here is it's not a “build it and they will come" situation. You need to go to where the community is already congregating.
  2. Leadership - a community on its own is a disorganised mess and will quickly disband unless there are people who step up and provide leadership by organising the group. This part is usually very poorly resourced (often purely volunteer-driven) which is why most government CoPs struggle and underperform. A small amount of investment here (as simple as 5 hrs a month) can go a long way.
  3. Space - there needs to be a space for the community to connect and share. Right now most CoPs use a range of platforms. Email, slack, facebook, teams, wiki’s and GCTools (in the case of Canada) are the most common that I am aware of. But all of them fall short of what is needed. (note: platforms can also be IRL like a coffee shop or pub)

Community of Practice Triangle

(Graphic courtesy of Megha Hirani)

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