Building Business Value Through “Communities of Practice”

    Collaboration, however, means more than just e-mail in some organizations, where the term "communities of practice" is being used to describe determined efforts to bring people together. William Bennett, of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, views a community of practice as a "self-organizing group of people with expertise, experience, and interest in a particular practice area who share valuable insights about the practice area. In essence, it is an informal learning vehicle."

    Examples of these communities of practice include:

• Ericsson Canada pooling the talent of geographically dispersed employees by using a Web system to ask and get answers. Anders Hemre, the chief knowledge officer, is charged with improving the flow of internal information. He is experimenting with six communities of practice—four in face-to-face meetings and two online.

• Schlumberger oilfield services engineers reaching out for answers by using their "InTouch" system to quickly resolve field problems. Peter Day, InTouch program manager, credits the program with "$200 million in cost savings and revenue in 2001, along with a 95 percent reduction in the time required to solve difficult operational problems and a 75 percent decrease in the time necessary to update engineering modifications."

•  Xerox giving 25,000 field-service engineers access to a knowledge-sharing system that contributes savings of nearly 10 percent on parts and labor, translating into $15 to $20 million per year. Dan Holtshouse, director of knowledge initiatives, talks about "the 50,000 solution tips that have been entered into the knowledge base, all on a purely voluntary basis, in exchange for contributors' being recognized. What we have learned is the importance of creating a work environment with a culture and incentives that are conducive to sharing, and to support that environment with improved work processes and strong technology."

    Enterprises everywhere are finding ways to share and create knowledge by bringing their employees together. In a check-printing company, employees use Lotus Notes to capture questions and answers. A placement firm uses message boards to connect nurses deployed to client hospitals across the country. And a global pharmaceutical company uses a new online tool to change the way manufacturing problems are solved and documented.

    Knowledge growth, sharing, and learning among people are at the heart of such initiatives, the understanding of which has fascinating roots. The Xerox field service technicians’ knowledge network dates from Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) research in 1991 (detailed in Dr. John Seely Brown’s book The Social Life of Information).

    Anthropologist Julian Orr spent six months in the field, which included socializing with the field technicians after hours. Rather than apparently idle gossip, what he found was, in fact, work talk. The same posing of questions, raising problems, finding solutions, knowledge gathering, and sharing went on as in most businesses, where the first call for help is over the cubicle to the local expert.

    Researchers David Millen and Michael Fontaine at IBM’s Institute for Knowledge-Based Organizations (IKO) describe three groups that benefit from work-based communities:

• First the individual, through skill enhancement, increased job satisfaction, sense of belonging, professional reputation, and personal productivity.

• Second the community, in greater trust, expertise sharing, knowledge, and problem solving.

• Finally the organization, in areas such as improved sales, cost savings, speed-to-market of new products, customer satisfaction, product innovation, operating efficiency, and decreased employee turnover.

    Ericsson’s Anders Hemre focuses on the fact that "communities involve thinking together, and thinking takes time. An organization that does not allow itself time to think may turn into a thoughtless organization."

    If you are looking to grow the use of collaboration and communities of practice, here are some tips:

• Start with a clear area of business need.
• Start small.
• Don’t just get management buy-in. Recruit their involvement
• Define clear goals and metrics.
• Ensure that the initiative ties in to existing projects.
• Allocate a budget and support resources.
• Understand and respect informal employee initiatives already under way. Offer support, but do not kill.
• Build a team of the right people committed to success.
• Celebrate contributions.
• Build on small successes.
• Be prepared to adjust the plan in response to what you learn.

Workforce Online, December 2002 -- Register Now!