communities of practice: a strategy for more effective collaboration

www.semantix.co.uk

Steve DaleDirectorCollabor8now Ltd

Communities Communities of Practice: a of Practice: a strategy for strategy for more more effective effective collaborationcollaboration

23 June 201123 June 2011

www.collabor8now.com

About Local Government

Local government in England and Wales Local government in England and Wales employs a workforce of 2.1 million people employs a workforce of 2.1 million people across 367 local authorities.across 367 local authorities.

Each authority is working to deliver the Each authority is working to deliver the same 700 services to their residents.same 700 services to their residents.

Has an annual operating budget of over Has an annual operating budget of over £106 billion for delivering services.£106 billion for delivering services.

Over 700 Local Gov Services


Why have a Community of Practice?

CoPs can bring new knowledge into an organisation, but perhaps more importantly, they will help to grow and nurture the knowledge that is already within the organisation.


3-Year Knowledge Management Strategy – started in 2005.

People with People

People with Experts

People with Information

Sept 05Business

Case

Apr 06Planning

Sept 06Pilot

Dec 07 Launch

June 11 People

Various iterations business case to get management backing for KM strategy, including CoPs

Intensive work with stakeholders

Produced spec for the KM team structure

Management team approval

Developed and run training for facilitators

Developed technology spec for online platform

First pilot built on Drupal failed

Assisted in running focus groups with potential members of the Pilot communities

Introduces a technology platform to support collaboration

Official launch December 2007

Ongoing support to selected communities at the IDeA through a coaching and mentoring scheme

Completion of application form to set up a community

Over 85,000 people registered

Over 1,500 Communities

Project Timeline


Community Type

Helping Communities provide a forum for community members to help each other with everyday work needs.

Best Practice Communities develop and disseminate best practices, guidelines, and procedures for their members use.

Knowledge Stewarding Communities organise, manage, and steward a body of knowledge from which community members can draw.

Innovation Communities create breakthrough ideas, new knowledge, and new practices.


We are social beings who thrive from human interaction; technology is just an enabler.

Give the community a range of collaborative tools and let them decide which ones they want to use and how to use them.

Don’t assume everyone understands how to use social media tools.

Identify and look after your (power) contributors. Identify and look after your facilitators – they are quite

often the difference between successful and unsuccessful communities.

Condition your managers for failure – not every CoP is going to be successful.

Most senior managers still don’t get it! Command and control can hamper development of a

community.

Lessons Learnt


The future: Knowledge Hub

Easier to use – intuitive and guided navigation Powerful semantic search and discovery Greater permeability with external networks

and conversations. Information finds YOU. New synchronous collaboration opportunities

with Web Conferencing. Support for mobile working Access to mashup tools and Apps


Thank You!

An evangelist and practitioner in the use of Web 2.0 technologies and Social Media applications to support personal self-development and knowledge sharing.

Steve was the business lead and information architect for the community of practice platform currently deployed across the UK local government sector, the largest professional network of its type, and continues to play a key role in the support of virtual communities of practice for value creation in public services.

Stephen Dale (Steve)