Shaping Knowledge Strategy Through Community of Practice
1. About the author
Etienne Wenger
Etienne Wenger, a recognized authority on the discipline, is a consultant and researcher, and the co-author of Cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge (Harvard Business School Press, 2002) with R. McDermott and W. Snyder.
2. Summary
The utility of knowledge management has been debating for a long time. Knowledge is a strategic asset so it has to be managed like any critical assets of organization. In this article, the author argues that in the term "knowledge management", management is a doughnut with empty centre. Knowledge management, therefore, is primarily the business of those who actually make the dough the practitioners. Unless you are able to involve practitioners actively in the process, your ability to truly manage knowledge assets is going to remain seriously limited. The article proposes fundamental principles for effectively managing knowledge. The doughnut model of knowledge management is the key issue to be discussed in this article.
3. Key points
3.1 Principles of knowledge management
- Practitioners, the people who use knowledge in their activities, are in the best position to manage this knowledge. Since knowledge of any field is too complex for any individual to cover, community of practice, which are social structures that focus on knowledge and explicitly enable the management of knowledge to be placed in the hands of practitioners, comes to play a critical role.
- Communities of practice are groups of people who share a passion for something that they know how to do, and who interact regularly in order to learn how to do it better. They, therefore, are the cornerstones of knowledge management. From this perspective, the role of professional "manager" is not to manage knowledge directly, but to enable practitioners to do so.
- Communities of practice manage their knowledge. If you had enough knowledge to micro-manage communities of practice, you would not need them. In contrary, communities of practice need to be in dialogue with executives in the organization, other communities of practice, and experts outside the organization.
- No community can fully manage the learning of another, but no community can fully manage its own learning.
3.2 Three elements of a community of practice
- Domain: the area of knowledge that brings the community together, gives it identity, and defines the key issues that members need to address.
- Community: it is the group of people for whom the domain is relevant, the quality of the relationships among members, and the definition of the boundary between the inside and the outside.
A community is comprised of a group of goal oriented individuals with similar beliefs and expectations. Currently the term is used interchangeably with society, the town one lives in and even religion. A less shallow interpretation suggests that community embodies a lifestyle unique to its members. Similarities within the group establish bonds along with ideals, values, and strength in numbers unknown to an individual. Ideals and values ultimately impose the culture that the constituents abide by. By becoming part of a community, socialization...
It appears to be a term that is used commonly, yet there is not a specific definition to interpret what it really means. Personally, I believe that community consists of kinship networks among residents of a certain area, different routines that contribute to the “well-being” of a region, furthermore the culture of this area. For the East End, “practicing community” is a phrase that is of importance with the circumstances regarding what the community was undergoing during that period of time. “Practicing community” describes the long-term, determined efforts of East Enders with the intention of maintaining the community from undertaking the modifications, however this process assists in providing a sense of peace to East Enders while they cope with the underlying problems at hand (Halperin 1998). Throughout the book, East Enders were practicing community in order to save their community from being modified by condominiums and other buildings that would destroy its
Knowledge work according to Raman, (1999), contains activities, which are "information-based, knowledge intensive and knowledge generating" (p. 2). The paper's theme is, "organizations staying ahead of the competition have come to realize knowledge and knowledge workers are their key to success in today's environment where knowledge and information have become commodities" (Raman, 1999, p. 1). This paper's theme traces the historical development of knowledge management and knowledge workers; differentiates between knowledge workers and non-knowledge workers, and illustrate the knowledge workers experience in the author's organization. Knowledge systems contain the potential to increase business value (Bang, Cleemann, & Bramming, 2010).
As put by Jen Waak in regarding the human need for community, “By surrounding yourself with others working toward a similar goal, you’ll get...yourself a bit further than you would have done on your own,” (Waak). By being able to see and participate in these different communities centered around different objectives, the goal becomes easier to achieve and bonds the group into something more through trying to reach it. This new unit is called a discourse community and is defined by John Swales as containing six specific characteristics: having a common goal, showing intercommunication and using lexis, having participation within the group, being defined by genres of texts, and having members with areas of expertise for the community. When looking
I never thought of the truth contributing to community, but when referring the concept to my classroom I noticed how it allows for an environment in which knowledge can take place without the obstruction of the teachers or students’ pride, arrogance and other personal peculiarities. An example of this is in grade five some of the students like to elaborate their stories to the point of deliberation of reality or make belief. This affects the therapeutic model as the connection between the people involved can be fragmented as the relationship may be based on an elaborated truth; lies. Creating a community of truth is vital in teaching and learning because it highlights a subject and not an expert. This changes my teaching approach as at the center was a subject in this model, opposed to a teacher or an expert; and there was a constant connection between the subject and the “knower’. Thus, the community of truth creates an ideal educational
Community is like a Venn diagram. It is all about relations between a finite group of people or things. People have their own circles and, sometimes, these circles overlap one another. These interceptions are interests, common attitudes and goals that we share together. These interceptions bond us together as a community, as a Venn diagram. A good community needs good communication where people speak and listen to each other openly and honestly. It needs ti...
In some instances it is a place, or setting, displaying certain social characteristics, that can be identified and described. Community is also something that is felt and has an emotional or affective impact (Day, 2006, p. 31). It is a set of interactions and human behaviors that have meaning and expectations between its members. The members of a community base their actions on shared beliefs, meanings, expectations and values (Bartle, 2007).
The establishment of a community of practice may vary: some are small while others are large, without determining how many people should be involved. The membership of community of practice is voluntary (self-selected or assigned) and often structured into a nucleus group and peripheral members. Meanwhile, the leadership can be provided by members and management coming both formally and informally from within and outside the community (distributed). The meeting can take place anywhere, such as on a campus, at a workplace, home, hotel, etc. (Wenger at al., 2002). Over an extended period of meeting, the community of practice needs a facilitator to facilitate the work of the community of practice because facilitation is a way or tool to enhance integration, inclusion, involvement, participation, and equality within the community. Knowledge sharing can be held narratively, or through questions and discussion among the communities (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Prendiville, 2008; Saint-Onge & Wallace, 2003; Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002). The community of practice, according to Cox (2005), has three elements within an organization, namely working, innovation, and learning. Learning within this community of practice is both formal and informal; nonetheless, it demands the community members (learning community) to become good practitioners (Orr, 1991, as cited in Brown & Duguid,
Community is defined as a group of people living in the same area. Although accurate, it misses out an important point. What makes a group of individuals a community is them interacting and helping each other. I grew up in a small town in India with a strong sense of community. Growing up in a place where I knew almost everyone by their first name, helping people became a second nature. Consequently it was not a big surprise when I was drawn to family medicine from the very beginning of medical school. I remember as a child, seeing the same friendly face of my primary care physician every time anyone in the family used to get sick. Now after 15 years, although the small town has become a city and I don 't know the name of every person living there, my family still sees the same doctor and he always has the same smile ready to greet us.
The definition of community has evolved to take into account the changing nature of communities themselves. In the past, defining community seemed simpler because a sense of community was based on peoples who shared interests and interdependence, which typically overlapped. Thus, today, technological, economic and communicative changes have all had a dramatic impact on community life and have altered the very nature of modern communities . Nevertheless, Community is a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems.
When Aristotle first defined the word community, it meant a group of men who had shared values. Throughout history, that definition has been changed and refined to gain a new meaning. For example, people can be a part of many different smaller communities, and these little communities fit together like puzzle pieces and create a larger picture. To me, community means just that. Working hard to make a difference within either the smaller niche or, the greater community, it means that everyone has connections to each other.
The definition of community is varied among many individuals. However, community is a sense of cohesiveness among a group of people. For generations, community has played a pivotal role in the success of a functioning society. These associations are common in almost every country worldwide and can often be discovered with diverse backgrounds, cultures, and institutions. Alongside having the proper resources, a community has the support to provide people the essentials to be prosperous in society. When the sense of a community is strong, it benefits the contemporary society; grants camaraderie, helps an individual discover who they are, and prevents isolation that can occur due to a detachment from others.
...). A better learning community results in great learning experience and ultimately an encouraging atmosphere.
A Community can be defined as a group of people who don’t just live in the same area, but also share the same interests, experiences and often concerns about the area in which they live. Often when individuals have lived on a street or in an area for a while they become familiar with each other and the issues surrounding them. Children often attend the same schools and grow up together, again sharing similar experiences. In some instances adults may work together, and quite commonly all community members will share the same doctors, dentists, hospitals, health visitors and other public services and facilities.
The Role of Community in Society Communities are an essential part of our society, because we all depend and interact with each other. Communities are groups of people that help an individual to learn and develop new ideas. A society is where people’s relations with each other are direct and personal and where a complex web of ties link people in mutual bonds of emotion and obligation. The idea of community has provided a model to contrast to the emergence of more modern less personal societies where cultural, economic and technological transformations have uprooted tradition and where complexity has created a less personal and more rationalized and goal directed social life.